A very subjective look into AWFC

Yesterday was a very special day here in LA for us Arsenal fans, as the lovely folks at Arsenal Los Angeles, LA Gooners and Gooners vs Cancer organized a great event to raise money and celebrate all things Arsenal. Yours truly had the privilege of being a guest as a speaker on a panel and my role was pretty much to chat about Arsenal Women. This of course, its something that is very humbling, and I always cherish whenever I get a chance to speak about our beloved squad, specially to fellow gooners that might not be fans of the women’s team.

Here’s a little back story… when I first moved to LA in 2007 I bought a car which had a manual transmission. I didn’t know how to drive said type of car and I bought it not only to learn, but it was the only car I could afford and I needed transportation. So I would wake up around 4am every day and practice in the streets by my house, but only just a couple of blocks around me. Parallel to this I had done some research as far as where I could watch Arsenal matches and found a pub about 5 miles away. I made it a point to learn how to drive well enough to get there within a few days and I eventually made it to the legendary Fox & Hounds. Man I loved that place. I was there every weekend for a couple of years.

At some point though, I felt things had changed in the arsenal community. I noticed a lot of new fans that I felt had just randomly picked arsenal as their team and I had heated arguments with a few people when we disagreed about very objective referee decisions that fairly went against us. Anyway, the bottom line is that I was a gatekeeping douche who became very judgmental and I decided to walk away from that lovely place for a long, long time. Yesterday was the first time in 12 years I had been there for anything Arsenal related and the wait was absolutely worth it.

I learned a lot last night about some of my assumptions, my expectations and about the fluid nature of being an Arsenal fan. More importantly, it was great to meet all the lovely people there.

Shoutout to Taylor, Magic Mike, MK and all involved, plus special shout out and love to Sophie Nicolaou, my dear friend and host of The Highbury Squad.

d ❤

THAT ARSENAL WOMEN PODCAST on:
YOUTUBE
APPLE PODCASTS
SPOTIFY