Class conscious - Andrew Martin hears of Arsenal's goals by osmosis
Published 23 May 2005
As I walk up the Holloway Road, news of Arsenal's goals reaches me by osmosis
It's difficult to raise children in our part of north London without them turning into supporters of this year's FA Cup final favourites, Arsenal. My nine-year-old son, Frank, has been moving ominously Arsenal-wards all season. He plays football every week on a course run by some middle-aged blokes who join in all the games, exuberantly shouting: "This is football!" as their beer bellies jiggle about. They've taught him to do step-overs, which he's very pleased about.
Some months ago, Frank was invited by my brother-in-law, an Arsenal regular, to the team's penultimate game of the season - a midweek match against Everton. When I accepted the offer on Frank's behalf, I didn't know that he would be having a Sats exam the following day, and the clash reinforced in my mind a familiar antithesis: either supporting Arsenal, or intellectualism.
A few days before the big day, Frank had a very short haircut: "a number two", as it's called. He also began wearing his team scarf and cap, bought for him by another Arsenal-supporting relative. He looked horribly convincing as a north London
"Gooner" - which is how Arsenal fans like to refer to themselves
- and instead of letting me read stories to him in the evenings, or poems from The Oxford Book of English Verse (our usual practice), he wanted to watch his small collection of football videos until the very minute of his bedtime. His favourite among these is called Own Goals and Gaffs (sic) a "hilarious" (as it says on the box) selection of footballing mistakes, narrated by a comedian with many shouts along the lines of, "Get a load of this plonker!" As Frank watches this, it seems to me that I can actually observe the light of intelligence draining out of his eyes.
The arrangement was that my brother-in-law (a very nice and well-meaning bloke, incidentally) would take Frank away from the game 15 minutes early, as a concession to that Sats exam, and that I would pick up the pair of them at Holloway Road Tube station, just one stop down the line from Arsenal, or what the cockneys sinisterly call "The Arsenal".
Nick Hornby, Arsenal's number-one fan, might like the Holloway Road - it is lovingly evoked in his latest novel - but it frightens the life out of me. I never understand the road signs, and you have a fraction of a second to make sense of them before the Arsenal fan politely driving exactly a foot behind you beeps his horn. Holloway Road is dominated by the hideous new Arsenal stadium that is being built alongside it, and everyone living along the road is a fan of the club.
As I drove up to Holloway Road Tube, I knew from Radio 5 that Arsenal had scored four against Everton, and as I stepped
out of the car and walked along the road, the news of subsequent
goals reached me by osmosis - from shop doorways, radios playing through the open windows of cars. By the time I was approaching the Tube station, Arsenal were winning six-nil.
Outside the station, I was offered drugs twice. I declined and moved on to the concourse, where I caught sight of myself on the video monitor. I was wearing an old suit, and did not look at all like an Arsenal fan. I looked like somebody from the north of England, which is what I am: a thin person with a big nose - a figure from a Lowry painting; or a Leeds fan from the Sixties at best. What made me anxious was that I might look like a person positively opposed to Arsenal (which is what I also am).
Five minutes later, Frank walked through the barrier with a triumphant strut, followed by my brother-in-law. "Seven-nil, Dad!" he called, having picked up news of another goal while on the Tube. He walked ahead of me back to the car, proudly sporting his Arsenal colours, and I could see all the locals looking on, and thinking: "I don't know about that geezer in the suit . . . but the kid looks all right."
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