Only a few days in and already this blog is getting a bit mixed up about dates....this entry relates to Sunday, although there is already a post datelined Sunday, which I wrote on Saturday night and I haven’t had a moment to write this until now...doh!
Anyway...on Sunday afternoon I underwent a right of passage with my two sons: I took them to a football match. Or rather, we all went to see Arsenal play Everton, seats courtesy of my old friend Alan, to whom much thanks must be given. It wasn’t much of a match, a bit of an end of season affair with not a lot at stake, but it was just great to be there and the players did a lap of honour, as it was the last home game of the season, which was a nice moment. We all enjoyed it.
It was the first time we've been to a proper Premier League match together, although the boys are Junior Gunners and have been several times to matches at the old Highbury and at the Emirates, which is a fabulous stadium. Born and brought up in Islington, where a Gunners flag flies literally and figuratively from almost every rooftop, it’s the natural thing to support their local team.
Now the reason why I've never taken them to a match before is simple: I just don't have the football gene...it's not in my blood in the same way as it is with Alan, a Gunners season ticket holder who has been supporting them for more than 40 years, since he was a schoolkid at the Angel. That's dedication to a cause.
I didn't grow up like that - there was no real fanaticism for football in Birmingham – unlike Manchester or Liverpool - and I didn’t live close to the City or Villa grounds. Of course the game was not as omniprescent then as it is now, but it was still a huge passion for many, particularly among the working classes, where it was very much a father and son affair. But my father was not remotely interested in football and I dont remember any school friends ever supporting any team, even the local ones. I played rugby at my grammar school and, so far as I can recall, never kicked a football around in the park with anyone until I had kids myself. So, apart from puzzlingly being a supporter of Spurs when they won the double sometime in the Sixties, when I was about eight, and remembering the 1966 World Cup only because it was on the television on the day of my sister’s birthday party, football mostly passed me by over the next few decades, whether it was Kevin Keegan’s perm or those penalty shoot-outs. And while I might have caught a bit of that on the television, I never felt it in the same way as, appparently, the rest of the nation did. Even my mother was more interested in football than I was. When we bought a house in Islington, some would comment on its proximity to the Highbury stadium; I was indifferent.
Then, of course, the kids grew up, I played football in the park with them many times and they eventually followed the local tradition of becoming Gunner’s supporters, although not, I’m glad to say in any kind of fanatical or anorak-style fashion. (Not like the ten-year-old I sat next to on the bus the other day, who appeared to have memorised ever Arsenal result and player since about 1956)
I began to enjoy their support with them. I read Fever Pitch. We bought them the Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp shirts and celebrated with thousands of others in Upper Street when they won the double in 2002. But I still didn’t quite get it, didn’t quite see what all the fuss was about until about three seasons ago, the one that ended with the defeat in the Champions League final. Suddenly, I realised the beauty and ambition of the football that Arsene Wenger wants his team to play, the purists way, even if it means defeat, and came to understand why football can be ‘the beautiful game’ although I prefer the ‘working class ballet’. So, as they say in the Mafia movies, I’ve been sucked in. I’m now an Arsenal fan. I’ve got the Sky Sports subscription as much for me as for the boys. I’ve taken to shouting at the screen and punching the air. I read the match reports avidly and have developed an addiction to Radio 5 Live.
And on Sunday, I even asked Alan about season tickets. Only a two year waiting list, apparently. I may not have been born with the football gene, but I think its growing in me.
Now, as it happens, Alan is about to become a father any day now and while his joy will be certainly unconfined, I think a part of him will regret not being able to celebrate both the birth of his son and Arsenal winning the Premiership and the Champions League all in the same month. But, he will also know that, as his son grows up, there will be many more moments they will share together supporting their team. I’m sure his season ticket will be booked and his Arsenal home shirt bought as soon as he is out of his Arsenal babygrow. Undoubtedly, this is a boy who will be born with not just the football gene, but the Arsenal gene.

One footie foodie footnote. Max refused to have anything to eat before the match, saying he preferred to eat there. Now, I’ve bought them up to eat well and I like to think that, compared to many teenagers, they have relatively sophisticated tastes. But, as I reflected , watching Max scoff his slice of fast food pizza out of a cardboard tray, while watching the action, sometimes its not what you eat, but who you are with and where you are that really counts….