- Edited
Invisibleman18 here. Born in London but grew up in New Zealand, moving here in 1993 at age 7. Grew up in Auckland but have been in Wellington for 13 years now, working for a major Government department and now married to a Wellington girl. Still consider myself English and support England in all sports despite the more Kiwi sounding accent.
Like Gazza above my parents support Spurs - both going to games when they were young. My grandfather (Dad's father) was an Arsenal fan who attended games from the 1930s to 90s. He was at the record attendance against Sunderland in 1935.
My earliest football memory is Euro 96. I can remember watching the penalties against Germany with my parents and brother and crying when England lost. For whatever reason I didn't watch a full premier league match until a year later. Now we get every match live here but in those days we tended to get one a week and the first time I bothered to sit down with my Dad to watch it was supposed to be a Spurs game but turned out to be Arsenal vs Barnsley. Arsenal won 5-0 and I was mesmerised by Bergkamp much to my Dad's horror. Unlike him who just picked Spurs to go opposite to his Dad, I fell in love with the team in the first game I watched and possibly have a scheduling error to thank for not ending up a Spurs fan. Typically for a kid starting to watch in the late 90s my younger brother is a Man United fan so plenty of heated debates in our house growing up. Euros and World Cups have always been special because they are the only time we all support the same team.
Winning the double immediately in my first season as a fan and the subsequent success under Wenger probably got me accustomed to thinking that was something that just happened most seasons without having been through lean periods first. As I've grown up I've come to properly appreciate how special trophies are and treated the recent FA Cup wins as if they may not happen again in my lifetime.
First live game I got to was a CL game at Wembley on a trip back in 1999. My grandparents lived in Wembley, walking distance to the stadium (could see the arch of the new Wembley from their upstairs bedroom window) from in a street where people would park when going to an event so managed to get some tickets that had been offered to local residents. My grandfather was a bit too elderly to manage it so I went with my Uncle who was mainly a Barnet fan but a casual Arsenal fan. Even though we got knocked out by Fiorentina on the night I still went to bed over the moon at having seen the team for the first time and singing all the songs I'd learnt by being in the crowd. On the same trip I also got to go to Lee Dixon's testimonial for my first time at Highbury again with my Uncle and did the Highbury stadium tour with my grandfather.
Saw the outside of Emirates on the next trip back in 2006 before it opened and managed to make it inside in 2009 when I went travelling after finishing studying. Did the legends stadium tour with Charlie George and went to both days of the Emirates Cup. Haven't been back since so hoping to make it back to the UK again some day to go to a proper game. Wife has not been so we're talking about a possible UK/Ireland/Europe trip perhaps in a couple of years. I also went to Sydney in 2017 to see both games on that pre-season tour.