22 Years, 1 Dream: My Arsenal Journey

I did not set out to be a football fan.

It was the 2002 World Cup that first pulled me in. Like many people around me, I started following the matches because everyone seemed to be watching too. But somewhere along the way, something about the game caught me.

The tackles. The passing. The assists. The goals.

The way an entire nation could hold its breath over 90 minutes.

I started paying attention.

Then I found Arsenal. Or maybe Arsenal found me 😍

It was not a deliberate choice. It was the way they played. The 2003/04 season was unlike anything I had seen in my short time watching football.

Thierry Henry (my number 1 football idol) gliding past defenders like they were not there. Dennis Bergkamp threading passes that seemed to bend the laws of geometry. Patrick Vieira dominating the midfield with power and presence. The whole team moved like they were performing a piece of art no one else understood.

And then there was Arsène Wenger. He was always calm, intelligent and dignified. Even after games, the way he spoke about football made the club feel different.

Fun fact: the naive me actually thought Arsenal was named after Arsène Wenger 🤣

Arsenal was not just about winning. There was beauty, intelligence and identity behind it all. That season, Arsenal went unbeaten.

49 league games without defeat.

The Invincibles.

The only club in English football history to have received a special gold-plated Premier League trophy.

I became a Gunner watching that team.

At that point, I thought supporting Arsenal would simply mean beautiful football and winning trophies. I did not know then that I was beginning a 22-year journey filled with joy, heartbreak, frustration, hope, and moments that would stay with me for life.

A long, suffering, love hate relationship 😭

The Fabregas Years

After the Invincibles, I was still finding my feet as a football fan. I did not fully understand the business of the game yet. I don't understand about the transfers, the finances, the politics. I simply watched.

And what I watched then was Cesc Fabregas.

Watching Fabregas play was watching Arsenal's DNA in motion. The quick pass, the clever movement, the assist that made you rewind and watch again. He became the face of Arsenal in the post-Invincibles era, and for a new fan like me, that was more than enough.

In 2006, Arsenal reached the Champions League final. My first final as a Gunner. We faced Barcelona, and early in the game, goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was sent off! Arsenal reduced to 10 men before the match had barely begun.

I cannot tell you every detail of that night. What I remember is the feeling. The significance of it. Arsenal, 10 men, holding on for long period of time.

Barcelona scored twice in the final stretch and took the trophy.

For a new fan still learning what it meant to support a club, that final felt enormous. I did not know yet how to measure it against history. I just knew it hurts. As a fan, you do not think about context or circumstances. You just want to win.

The Slow Bleed

The Emirates Stadium opened in 2006, and with it came a financial reality that would define the next decade.

The debt from building the ground constrained everything. Our star players left. The club could develop world-class talent but could no longer guarantee keeping them. Fabregas stayed longer than most, but in 2011 he too went back to Barcelona.

The squad that remained was thin. Morale was fragile.

Then came the trip to Old Trafford.

8-2

Some results you forget. Some stay with you forever.

28 August 2011. Arsenal at Old Trafford. We lost 8-2 to Manchester United.

8 goals. I remember watching and feeling something I had not felt before as a Gunner — pure humiliation. Not frustration, not disappointment. Humiliation.

It was the lowest point I had experienced supporting this club. And honestly, it stings.

The End of the Wenger Era

The years that followed were years of frustration. Top 4 finishes, Europa League campaigns, FA Cup runs. For a club that had been invincible, it felt like we were treading water.

As fans, we just wanted to win. We want to win the major trophies.

Frustrations towards Wenger were building, and I was not immune to it. Emotions are hard to control when you care this much about a club. There were matches where I questioned his decisions, and seasons where I wondered if it was time.

But deep down, the respect never left. It never could.

When he finally left in May 2018, I felt sad and relief, both at the same time.

Check out this video as the boss said goodbye to the Emirates Stadium.

Unai Emery

After Wenger, we needed someone to restore belief. It was never going to be easy. Succeeding the most successful manager in Arsenal's history is a weight few could carry comfortably.

Unai Emery came with credentials but it never quite worked. The football was frustrating to watch and somewhere along the way, Arsenal lost the identity that had made us fall in love with the club in the first place. He was gone within sixteen months.

This is a brief, forgettable chapter that we were glad to move past.

Early Days of Mikel Arteta

When Mikel Arteta was appointed in December 2019, my immediate reaction was uncertainty. He had no managerial credentials. No experience leading a club. And the club he was inheriting was in a mess. There were toxic atmosphere, big egos, fans divided, no clear identity etc. Like many fans, I was not sure if he was the right man.

His first season ended with an FA Cup. Not the league title, but a sign that he could get a group of players to perform when it mattered.

The real test came at the start of the 2021/22 season. Arsenal lost their first three games! We conceded 9 goals, scored 0, and sat 20th in the table. I was watching at home, as I always do, and the same question kept running through my mind. Is he the right man? How do we proceed from here?

Arsenal held on to him.

8th place in the first two seasons. Then 5th. On paper those numbers look modest. But something was shifting. The toxicity was clearing. The team had shape and identity. The young players were growing. I did not feel it deeply yet, that would come later.

Bukayo Saka

In those early Arteta years, as the team was finding its identity, one Hale End product was quietly becoming the face of Arsenal.

Bukayo Saka. Affectionately known as Starboy by Arsenal fans, and for good reason.

Watching Saka play is watching someone who makes the game look natural. The way he cuts in from the right and shoots, the instinct, the balance. It is the kind of thing you cannot coach.

His partnership with Ben White on the right flank became one of the most reliable and exciting combinations in the Premier League. Two players who understood each other without needing to think about it.

But what makes Saka stand out beyond the football is who he is off it. Great skill, but genuinely humble. No ego, no noise. Just work. For young kids watching Arsenal, he is as good a role model as the sport can offer. Not just for what he has achieved, but for the character he has shown in achieving it.

Another Hale End product. Our own. The face of a new Arsenal.

Emile Smith Rowe

In the middle of that difficult 2021/22 season, a familiar face emerged. Emile Smith Rowe. A Hale End academy product, another of our own, coming through the Arsenal system the way we always hope our youngsters will.

He slotted into the number 10 role and immediately provided what the team had been missing — creativity, movement, and the spark. His link-up play with Saka was something fans genuinely looked forward to watching. Two young Arsenal boys, playing with freedom and joy.

He turned that season around. For supporters who had been through years of watching big money signings come and go, there was something extra special about this kid who had grown up in our system.

Emile Smith Rowe left Arsenal for Fulham after the 2023/24 season. Though he has left, he will always be a Gunner in my. heart.

Three Times Runner Up

Three seasons. Three times we came so close. And each one hurt differently.

The 2022/23 season was the one that gave us the most hope. We played so well. For long stretches of that campaign, Arsenal looked like genuine title winners. There was a belief in the squad, an energy, that felt different from anything we had experienced since the Invincibles era.

Edgar, my son, is as big an Arsenal fan as I am. We watched those matches together, the two of us, cheering the team over the line.

I will always remember the Bournemouth game on 4 March 2023. Arsenal were 2-0 down at the Emirates. The title race hanging in the balance. And then Reiss Nelson, in the 97th minute, scored a stunning winner to complete a 3-2 comeback!

We went wild. That goal, that moment, the reaction of the players captured everything about this Arsenal side! The fighting spirit, the never give up mentality, this is our Arsenal! 💪

We did not win the title that season. Or the next. Or the one after that.

People call us 'Netflix FC', cos we always fall short and have to wait for success next season 😩

By the third season, desperation had set in. Not just on the pitch, but in our living room.

It sounds irrational. It was completely irrational. But when you have watched your club finished as runner up three times, you will try anything.

In the third season as runner up, we did not even play our best football but we still finished second. That told its own story about how far the club had come.

But the feeling was different by then. Not devastation. More a quiet, tired determination. We had been here before. We knew what second place felt like.

And like Arteta said in his final home game message, don't be satisfied cos we want much more than that, and we are going to get it!

2025/26: Finally

This season felt different from the start. Not in a comfortable way. More like do or die. After three runner up finishes, I genuinely did not know if I could take another one.

And for eight months, we were top of the league. Eight months of daring to believe.

Then Manchester City closed the gap in the final stretch 😰

Arsenal were struggling to win games, and watching Arsenal had stopped being enjoyable and become purely stressful.

I remember telling Edgar to go to sleep and not wake up for the 3am matches. He missed a few. And in true superstitious fashion, Arsenal won those games. He decided his not watching was good for the team and we went with it.

Then we lost to Bournemouth at home. The same Bournemouth whose ground had given us that Reiss Nelson miracle two years earlier. The old fear crept back. Are we going to bottle it again?

Then we lost to Manchester City. Devastated. But the camera caught Declan Rice shaking his head in a defiant manner, refusing to accept it was over.

You could read his lips as he said:

That was enough to hold on to.

Then came West Ham.

We could not score. The game was going nowhere. Then Captain Odegaard came on in the 67th minute and took control. He turned the game around and created the winning goal for Trossard in the 83rd minute!

We thought we were there.

Then West Ham scored in the 95th minute. My heart sank. After everything, were we going to drop points here? Are we going to bottle this again?

6 long minutes of VAR review. 6 minutes of holding my breath.

And then the words came through:

The Emirates erupted. And in my living room in Singapore, I shouted with joy. David Raya had been fouled. The goal was disallowed. The win was ours!

Next up is Bournemouth versus Manchester City. If Man City dropped points here, Arsenal will be the champion!

I watched the game from home in the middle of the night at 3am. When the final whistle went and City could no longer catch us, it hit me all at once.

Finally.

Tears fell watching the words on the screen declaring Arsenal champion. My Arsenal fan club WhatsApp chat has exploded.

After all those 3am matches, all those superstitious seat arrangements, all those near misses, we had finally done it.

22 years since 'The Invincibles'.

22 years of following this club through humiliation, frustration, heartbreak and hope.

We are the champion.

It was worth every single bit of it.

Memories That Last Forever

22 years of supporting Arsenal has given me more than results and league tables. It has given me memories. Moments that no final standing can capture.

In 2015, Arsenal came to Singapore and Edgar attended their football clinic. A young boy, our boy, on the same pitch as his heroes. That alone was worth everything.

We watched Arsenal play against Singapore that same visit. Sitting in the stands, watching the team I had followed from halfway across the world play right in front of me. Football has a way of making the world feel smaller.

In 2024, we finally made the pilgrimage to the Emirates. We watched Arsenal take on Ipswich at the home we had only ever seen on television. Walking into that stadium, I thought about how far this journey had taken me.

And in 2025, Arsenal came back to Singapore in one of their pre-season tours. Victor Gyokeres, our long awaited striker with the iconic number 14, was presented here as our newest signing!

These photos tell the story better than words can.

North London Forever

Whatever The Weather

These Streets Are Our Own

And My Heart Will Leave You Never

My Blood Will Forever

Run Through The Stone

Come On You Gunners!