Andrew Allen (Left) celebrates with Andrew Mangan (Arseblog) after the FA Cup final win 2015
Andrew Allen (@AAllensport) has been an Arsenal fan for more than 30 years.
A season ticket holder, he writes for Arseblog News and is a contributor on the Arsecast podcasts as well as producing and presenting the @leftfield_pod podcast.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
I didn’t have much of a choice when I was a kid because I was born into an Arsenal family.
I grew up in Windsor but my Dad has been an Arsenal fan and season ticket holder for many years and my Mum’s brother, my uncle, and my grandfather were also Arsenal fans.
My Dad used to go to the games with his mates but one of my earliest memories was of being at a big barbecue that Friday evening in May 1989 when we won the title at Anfield.
I was six at the time and I remember wearing an early 80s Arsenal kit.
The excitement and the nature of the victory had such a massive effect on me and that feeling of winning was unbelievable.
My Dad had a season ticket at Highbury in the North Bank and when we became eligible to get our own tickets at the Emirates Stadium we went for the same view, so I sit next to my parents now.
What was your first Arsenal match?
I don’t remember who we played but I think it was in 1987 when I was 4.
I started going more regularly in 1990 after the World Cup and when Anders Limpar was new to the team.
There were more opportunities then to go with my family so I would go and sit on the crush barrier on North Bank.
I don’t even remember how much I could see but being part of a massive crowd like that was mesmeric.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
Anders Limpar came out of nowhere and felt like such an exotic signing after coming from Italy to England
I was at such an impressionable age and he finished as one of our top scorers in his first season and brought a new dimension to a team that won the Championship.
I don’t have many things in common with Wayne Rooney but the Swede was also his favourite player growing up.
I saw him play in an Arsenal Legends game not too long ago, which was fantastic.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
Ian Wright would definitely be up there and it was impossible not to be excited by the way he played the game.
I played as a striker when I was at school and always wanted to emulate goals like the one he scored against Everton when he flicks it over a couple of players before hitting it past Neville Southall.
He made me emotional whenever I saw him play and always scored goals when it really mattered.
I was gutted when he lost his place in 1997-8 when we were really good under Arsene Wenger.
I often wonder what would have happened if he was a couple of years younger at that time.
I’m so happy that he’s now a national treasure with such an effervescent personality.
What is your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I have ongoing trauma about not winning the Champions League.
We were so close to getting to the top of the mountain and now we are at the bottom and so far away from lifting the trophy.
I get quite melancholy about the Invincibles season because we should have won the treble that season.
The Wayne Bridge moment (when the Chelsea defender scored what turned out to be the decisive goal in the second leg at Highbury) sticks in the memory.
To get to within 12 mins of beating Barca, having gone a goal up and with 10 men, still hurts.
My Dad and Uncle had tickets for the final in Paris so my brother and a friend went to a pub nearby packed full of Arsenal fans….it was like watching in the stadium.
Afterwards we walked around Paris for hours, distraught and hearing some of the Barca fans honking their horns, which made it worse.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory and why?
It’s less about specific moments and more about eras for me.
I went to university in London in Sept 2001 and over that four years living in and around Camden, Arsenal won the Double, the FA Cup, went unbeaten and then won the FA Cup again.
It’s a joyous period wrapped up with amazing football at a time when I was living away from home, learning about myself, what I liked, discovering new things and getting to know the best city in the world.
That period has a halo over it for me.
When we did the Double at Old Trafford, I had an exam the next day which I spent a lot of time revising for.
After we’d won, I went to Highbury and it was like a movie, celebrating with fans and feeling that joy once again.
I woke up the next morning with a stinking hangover and only just passed the exam.
Ending the trophy drought was also special.
When Andrew Mangan (Arseblog) and I released the Invincibles book on the 10-year anniversary of the title win at Spurs, we did a book signing in the Tollington pub on the Thursday and then had the FA Cup final against Hull City on the Saturday.
Winning at Wembley and then celebrating at the parade on Sunday made for such a fun few days.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
I cherish all the finals I’ve been to but I have to say that the 5-3 win at Highbury against Middlesbrough sticks in the memory.
My Dad couldn’t go so I was there with my brother which was unusual and it was the game when we could equal Nottingham Forest’s unbeaten record.
We were 3-1 down at one stage but there was something about the brilliance of that team that I had no doubt that they could still turn things around.
Suddenly it was 3-3, then 4-3 then we got a fifth and it just summed up quite how good we could be.
We were turning up winning games before a whistle had been blown and the fact that on the day we scored two goals in a minute to complete the turnaround made it really special.