Do Not Take These Moments For Granted

In the words of Alex Turner… ‘that football, eh?’ This sport can take you to the very lowest of lows. It promises you so much, and so often fails to deliver on any of the assurances and pledges by which it reels you in. It is so, so rare that it takes you to the dizzy, dizzy heights that you so desperately desire. 

But Saturday evening was one of those moments. 

Arsenal Football Club are champions of Europe. And we’ve done it in the most perfect of perfect manners. Conquering giants, remontadas, footballing exhibitions and one-nil-to-the-Arsenals. We’ve done it all en route to the incredible scenes we witnessed on Saturday evening. Do not take it for granted; we just watched our team lift the European Cup. 

The footballing Gods were smiling down on us, of that I have no doubt. As the festivities spilled out into pints on pints on pints on Portuguese cobbles, or into the feeling of squeezing the whole juice out of a night in a beer garden somewhere in N5, I couldn’t help but look up into the cloudless, cerulean late May sky and think, ‘our team are Champions of Europe’. The Arsenal are back at their zenith. These are the moments we do it all for. These are the pictures we scroll back to in our camera roll on drab November evenings. So live it now.

Do Not Take This Squad For Granted

They say that life is a tragedy in close-up, but a comedy in a wide shot. And in the heat of week-to-week WSL football, where results haven’t always gone our way in the short-term, we can forget to zoom out, and look at the bigger scene that’s playing out. And when you do, my God, it’s almost laughable how good this squad is. Proper footballing excellence with proper personalities. McCabe, Mead, Williamson. These are Arsenal Football Club legends. These are some of the very best - some of the most consequential - to ever don the red and white jersey. And, cruel as it is, there will one day come a moment where they no longer play for us. So, drink it in while you can. Appreciate every line splitting pass, and crunching tackle, and clutch finish. These are some of the very best to ever do it, and they’re doing it for the football club we love.

And, if it’s paramount that we appreciate the individuals who have long cemented themselves as legends on the playing field, then we must equally appreciate those who are building a legacy before our very eyes…

Do Not Take Our Gaffer For Granted

Renée Josina Anna F***ing Slegers. Football loves a narrative. Lord knows that to be true. And the magic of Saturday evening was made even more spell-binding and supernatural by the narrative arc of the season at large. If you’d told even the most ardent AWFC fan back in October (when Slegers took over the team as interim head coach) that we would lifting the most coveted of all superware come the end of May, they may have chucked their all-too-bubbly concourse Camden Hells at you. Renée Slegers has done an astounding job in steadying what, at the time, was a ship in pretty turbulent waters. We are watching a highly competent manager at the relative infancy of a career that truly has no ceiling in terms of what she can achieve. We are truly lucky to have her, and if the pretty grey days of the late summer and early autumn that led to her appointment were the price we had to pay, it was more than worth it. 

Do Not Take The People Around You For Granted

And finally, the one truth that matters more than any of it. Do not forget that none of it - not a single goal, or chant, or final whistle - would mean a thing without the people by our side. 

I cannot tell you how special it’s been over the last forty-eight hours to see friends and strangers alike on the timeline sharing in this moment. I can’t tell you how much joy has been extracted from the images of Katie McCabe, mic-in-hand, dangling off the front of the stage as she leads the faithful in a chorus of jubilant reminiscence. And I defy any of you to bear witness to the best footballing side on the continent holding Win The Dog aloft, without feeling a surge of pride and hope and love. This weekend has been a reminder of just how massive The Arsenal is. Of how important it is. Of how much it matters, and of what it represents. The team did their part, and we did ours, too. 

How lucky we are to support this club. How lucky we are to be The Arsenal. Let us never take it for granted.