Luke Kempner is a comedian and impressionist who has appeared at the Edinburgh Fringe as well as musicals including Les Miserables, Avenue Q and South Pacific.
As well as his own impersonation show on ITV2, Luke has performed on Spitting Image, Big Brother’s Bit on the Side and the Tracey Ullman Show.
He is also a presenter on The Thing About Arsenal podcast.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
My parents weren’t into football at all. They would support England in the World Cup, but other than that they weren’t football fans.
A friend of mine who lived down my road was an Arsenal supporter. I used to stay at his house on a Friday night from the age of seven or eight, and he had Arsenal pictures all over his room. He was a season-ticket holder and his dad ran a coach company that always did one away trip a season, where they would get about 150 tickets.
My mate asked if I wanted to come. I said yes, and just decided that day: “I guess I’m an Arsenal fan now.”
What was your first Arsenal match?
The match my mate took me to was Arsenal versus Wimbledon.
That was in 1997, and it became a famous game because the floodlights went out halfway through the match. I think it ended up being a Chinese betting syndicate. The game had to be replayed, so I got to go back a second time, which was even better.
Going to Selhurst Park, I found it all very exciting because I was with my friends. We were sat on the edge, and if Arsenal scored we would run down to the front and cheer right there. Stewards would stop you now, but we were little kids, so we just ran down.
I remember chucking Starburst onto the pitch to try to get Arsène Wenger’s attention, because he had to walk across the Selhurst Park pitch, but it didn’t work!
I didn’t find it nerve-racking, but I found going to Highbury a bit more nerve-racking because I was very small and it felt very tight. Arsenal were playing their Champions League games at Wembley that year, and I found Wembley very exciting but also very intimidating because I couldn’t see anything.
Even in the early days, going to Arsenal felt like something essential. Going to watch Arsenal is not going out. It is not a luxury. It is something I have to do.
At Highbury, I was in the West Stand, quite far back. I was a Junior Gunner, and my mate’s dad would send off letters applying for tickets. We got every home game and moved around the West Stand, occasionally getting into the North Bank, but mostly it was the West Stand.
I still love going to the Emirates and I always feel excited when I’m there, but it will never replace Highbury. I feel so lucky that I got six or seven seasons there. Those seasons have stayed with me more than any season at the Emirates.
I love that you can still walk past and see the entrance I would go in, the burger stand where I queued up, and the place where I would wait for my mate’s dad. As you go from your teens into your 20s and beyond, there are not many things you keep from growing up. I love that about Highbury.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
My first Arsenal hero was Tony Adams. It is difficult because I have so many Arsenal heroes. I love them all. Anyone who has pulled on the red and white, give me a Stephen Hughes or a Nelson Vivas, I love them all.
I remember going to watch Arsenal against Dynamo Kiev at Wembley and Tony Adams did one of the most incredible tackles I have ever seen. I think it was on Shevchenko or Rebrov. Everyone likes the goalscorers and everyone loved Ian Wright, and I loved Nicolas Anelka as well, but I thought I was going to be the guy who loved a defender, because I was a defender at school too.
It is not weird to have Tony Adams as your hero because he is Mr Arsenal, but at the time a lot of people were going for the exciting foreign players. I just thought there was something I loved about Big Tone.
I am very proud that I was there at his 500th game. I remember being at Highbury and seeing him holding his hands up. I still love him now. I have been to see a few of his book tours where he does a Q&A. He lives and breathes Arsenal and he is an absolute legend. I have met him twice and he has always been so nice.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
I would love to be different, but Thierry Henry. You just can’t go beyond him. What was so brilliant about him is that he was so arrogant but could back it up.
I think back to him hitting the ball over Danny Mills’s head. I remember being at that game when Mills was at Middlesbrough and they were trying to wind Arsenal up, trying to get in our faces, because they thought that was how they would get us. Thierry Henry was like: “No, you’re not going to.” I remember him celebrating in front of Danny Mills so purposefully.
I remember him thinking of a new celebration. He would start the season and it was like: “Now I’m going to shimmy my shoulders every time I score,” or “I’m going to do the ‘what’s up?’ celebration.” You have got to have such confidence to do that, but he could back it up.
When he scored that free kick against Wigan, he just looked at someone and said: “Is that good enough?” He didn’t move his expression. I am from a theatre background, so I love theatre and theatrics and histrionics, and for me he had all of that and could back it up. I don’t think we will ever have anyone as good as Thierry Henry.
Even now, I still think players like Saliba are influenced by that era. Around the world, that is what still makes Arsenal attractive. Henry, Pires, Vieira and Bergkamp influenced probably two generations of fans and players who still want to come to this club.
What’s your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
My biggest Arsenal regret is not going to watch Arsenal versus Leeds in the FA Cup at the Emirates when Thierry Henry returned.
I had a ticket and I couldn’t be bothered to go all the way up to London from Surrey. We weren’t playing well at all, and I was at home. My mum said we could get a curry and watch it on TV, so I did that.
I missed that Thierry goal and that celebration, and I still regret it. I love the story. I love the fact his shirt didn’t fit him. I love the fact he hugged Wenger, which was out of character for players to do.
I love what he said, that it was the first time he had scored for Arsenal as a fan. The optics were perfect. He knows how to get all of us. It was beautiful.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
My favourite ever match is a weird one because it is a match we lost. Even though the feeling at the end was really bad, I think it is the greatest match I have ever seen: the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United, the Giggs goal, the Bergkamp penalty miss, the Nicolas Anelka offside goal and Beckham scoring a great goal.
I was about 11 and it felt like every single dramatic thing that could happen in a match happened in that match. It seems funny now to think about an FA Cup semi-final being as heartbreaking as that, but at the time the FA Cup meant as much as the Premier League. It meant as much as the Champions League. It was massive.
Everything about it stuck with me. Everything that could possibly be crammed into one game was there: the two biggest rivals, the managers, the drama. It was brilliant and heartbreaking.
That season still hurts because we lost that game to Leeds, and I was at the last day of the season when we beat Aston Villa 1-0 with Kanu scoring. I was in the North Bank, looking down and seeing the presentation set-up. I remember thinking the Premier League trophy was somewhere in the stadium and we weren’t going to win it.
I can still see the image in my head of looking across the ground and hearing a cheer from the other end when Tottenham went 1-0 up against United. Those are lovely moments you get in the ground. It was different then because you didn’t have updates on your phone, so it was someone listening to a radio and the news rumbling around the stadium.
Luke with one of his co-presenters on The Thing About Arsenal, Laura Kirk-Francis
You think of that season and how United were one down to Bayern Munich in the Champions League final. That treble season has been talked about forever.
In the same way that the Arsenal Invincibles, if Van Nistelrooy scores that penalty, maybe it is never spoken about in the same way. I don’t quite believe in destiny, but it is mad that a tiny thing, like Bergkamp scoring that penalty, could have meant United don’t win the treble.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
My favourite Arsenal memory away from the pitch is meeting Arsène Wenger. I am a comedian and an impressionist, and I do an Arsène Wenger impression. I was doing a gig for Arsenal at the Arsenal Foundation and met one of the directors, Karen Ann (Allchurch). She asked if I was actually an Arsenal fan, and then asked who my favourite Arsenal player was. I said Mesut Özil. The next day I was delivered a pair of Mesut Özil signed boots.
Then she texted me and asked what I was doing that weekend, and whether I wanted to come and watch Arsenal in the directors’ box. She said Arsène would come around and she could introduce me. I went to the directors’ box, had the best meal I have ever had, and I was sat next to Martin O’Neill and Pat Rice.
Karen Ann took me around making me do my Arsène Wenger impression to people like Raul Sanllehi, Sven Mislintat and Ivan Gazidis. Then Arsène came around about 15 minutes before the match, after he had done all the prep, to say hello to people. She said: “Arsène, this is Luke. He does an impression of you.” I was shaking, but I said: “Good luck for today, I expect top, top performance.” He said: “Oh yes, very good.” Then we got a picture together.
I had never known a different Arsenal manager. I don’t think I will ever meet someone who will mean as much to me, unless I ever meet Thierry Henry.
I was nervous, but Karen Ann was great because she forced me into it. If someone had asked if I wanted to do it, I would probably have said no. She just said: “Come on.” She made me do it, and the story is so much better because of that. I got to do impressions to all these legends, and getting to do what I do to Arsène Wenger was glorious.