Charles Watts (right) along with his father and former Arsenal captain Tony Adams
Charles Watts (@charles_watts) started his journalism career at local newspapers in Berkshire and is now the Arsenal correspondent for Goal.com, part of DAZN.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
My Dad grew up in Holloway and is Arsenal through and through.
My first real Arsenal memory, and I think because it was so heart-breaking, is the Luton Town Littlewoods Cup Final, the Gus Caesar final.
My Dad went and he didn’t take me so I watched it at home with my Mum.
I cried my eyes out and my Mum sent me to my bedroom as a punishment because I said that I wanted to kill Nigel Winterburn for missing the penalty. (Arsenal were winning 2-1 and Winterburn’s spot-kick was saved before two late Luton goals gave them a 3-2 victory).
The fact that Charlie Nicholas was there helped because he had the same name as me, but I don’t remember the 1987 final at all.
What was your first Arsenal match?
It was 1989 when I first started going to matches and I think in January that season I watched us in draw 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday.
Imre Varadi scored for Wednesday in front of the North bank and then Paul Merson equalised from an Alan Smith cross.
I went to a few other games in the title run-in – not a bad season to start going when it ended in that fantastic win at Anfield.
I became a season ticket holder from the following season with my Dad so we have had them since 1990 although I haven’t used mine for about five years and my Dad rotates who he takes each week.
He sits exactly opposite me at the Emirates now and so we have a wave before kick-off.
We stood in the East Stand in the Junior Gunners section which moved over the years and I will never forget walking out and seeing the pitch, the noise, the smells, the peanut stand outside of Highbury, smoke billowing up from burger bars.
When we went behind, I was so disappointed thinking we would lose my first game and then Merse scored a really good volley, which I’m sure was with his left foot!
Having watched it on TV and seen the videos in my house, I’d been waiting for this for a long time, trying to get my Dad to take me.
It was a special memory but the result didn’t really matter.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
Alan Smith by a mile.
He was the Golden Boot winner in that first season that I started going regularly and the following title season.
I loved him and had his posters all over my room.
My Dad got in touch with him via the club and got him to send me a birthday card, I think in that 1990/91 title-winning season.
It came about a month late and was handwritten in pencil, so it was definitely from Smudge. He had taken the time to apologise for it being late because the request had got lost at Highbury. That meant a lot.
Then Ian Wright came along and like a lot of kids my age, I was obsessed.
Everything I had was Ian Wright, all my jumpers, all my kits had his name on the back and I had my lucky green Ian Wright jumper which I wore with the bruised banana kit and a yellow scarf.
I religiously wore those clothes to every game and we used to get the tube from Hounslow West and I left my scarf on the train and I remembered as the doors shut and I could see it the train went off and I was absolutely distraught.
Because of the age I was at the time, Ian Wright was my hero and he is still the greatest finisher I have ever seen.
The first thing ever got published was a letter in The Gooner in response to a Michael Parkinson column in the Telegraph comparing Ian Wright fronting a campaign for the FA to a criminal presenting Crimewatch.
I was so angry and I had to write in and vent my anger.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
It’s almost impossible to have watched Dennis Bergkamp and not say he was your favourite player ever.
It sounds weird to say that Thierry Henry was the greatest player I had ever seen but Bergkamp was the best.
He blew your mind when you saw what he did.
He was football and poetry in motion and I have never seen a better footballer.
You watch the clips of his first touch and assists, like the one for Freddie against Juventus, which is genuinely is one of my favourite football moments, ball glued to his foot like a glitch on a computer game.
He started it all for the club, he was the star man in 97-98, he stayed for all the title wins under Arsene Wenger and then he retired as a hero.
It was 2005 there were doubts whether he was going to get a new contract and we hammered them 7-0. Bergkamp set up four of them which just epitomised them and whole stadium sung “One More Year!”
What’s your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I have been to four Arsenal European finals and we have lost them all and the only one I didn’t go to we won! (1994 v Parma)
The most gutted I have ever been was when we lost against Chelsea at Highbury in 2003/04.
I have never left the stadium so dejected and we should have won the Champions League that year.
We hadn’t lost to Chelsea in 25 games and the feeling of emptiness losing that match, walking past the away fans in the West Stand….I was so angry and gutted.
I got the wrong train home but I still don’t remember which station I ended up at.
I was so absolutely distraught and in such a daze.
Then there was the Champions League final in 2006 against Barcelona in Paris.
I went through the game not letting myself think we were going to do it, even at 60 minutes.
Then with 15 minutes to go I started to wonder.
We were comfortable and it looked like Barca had run out of ideas and I finally let myself think we were going to win this, then within a few minutes it had all gone wrong.
If Jens Lehmann hadn’t been sent off I am convinced that we would have won the game fairly comfortably because we were better than them.
If Henry had scored the early chance as well and there were so many ‘what ifs’ about it
I still can’t watch the highlights of that and if I see anything about it pop up I turn it off because I can’t watch anything to do with that game.
You look back at that and wonder how the last 15 years of Arsenal could have been if we had won that.
The Birmingham game as well, the Eduardo leg break I look back at as a massive sliding doors moment.
That team was thrilling, playing some brilliant football, some of the best we’ve seen at the Emirates.
I am convinced Arsenal would have won that title had he not got injured but I’m not even sure it’s so much to do with the injury.
If they hadn’t conceded that last-minute equaliser, if they’d seen the game out but the fact that the conceded that goal on top of the trauma that happened to Eduardo just changed that season.
It all kicked of fin the changing room afterwards with Gilberto not happy with what William Gallas had done (sitting down despondent as the penalty was awarded) and I think we drew the next four or five games.
Within a few weeks, the title had gone but if we had gone on to win it, there would have been a hell of a lot more opportunities at a time when finances were tough.
People who I spoke to involved with the club at that time, have said the same to me, that had we won that year things could have been very different over the next five to 10 years.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
When Arsene Wenger left the club, to be there and see it all behind the scenes in that final week was so cool to experience.
At his final press conference at London Colney, when it was over, he had his photo taken with us all and stayed to shake our hands.
At his final game, seeing him presented with stuff the journalists gave him and being in his final press conference and his speech, just being there was such a momentous time really.
I absolutely felt he needed to go at that point: he needed it, the club needed it and a lot of the fans needed him to go.
But when I was in his presence, it was almost like looking at my Dad. There are few people in the world I respect more than Arsene Wenger.
I was very happy to have been there and experienced all that.
Those years of decline, there were a couple of moments where if it had gone a different way I’m not sure we would have seen such drastic decline.
It took a real toll on him and he started going in wrong direction unfortunately.
On another note, the 1998 FA Cup final against Newcastle comes to mind.
I would always go with my Dad but my uncle was over from Australia and my Dad got him a ticket, so I sat with him and my Dad sat on his own.
I didn’t like not being with my Dad and it felt really strange.
After the game outside Wembley, we got to the top of the stairs and I remember running up the stairs and hugging him and saying “We did it!”
It was a glorious sunny day at Wembley, Arsenal fans everywhere and it was the only time I’d not been with him for a match and that was a pretty special moment.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
The Hull City FA Cup final (2014) is up there with my most special matches.
My Mum was a big Arsenal fan and she had died a couple of weeks before and we had the funeral only a few days before.
Even the vicar was saying that we will all be thinking of you on Saturday at Wembley.
I was so desperate to win that game - you want to win a cup final every single time but to be 2-0 down so early and the emotional journey of what went on…
Aaron Ramsey’s goal is up there almost alongside Mickey Thomas (Anfield 1989) as one of the most special Arsenal goals. I’ll always hold that one very close to my heart.
It was a really emotional time and I’ll never forget after the trophy had been presented, we stood there as the stadium was emptying, not saying a word to each because it was such an emotional time.
It meant so much.
My favourite ever game was actually the 0-0 draw against Real Madrid at Highbury after Henry’s goal at the Bernebeu on the run to the 2006 Champions League final.
Highbury was absolutely alive and so special that night.
Madrid had (Zinedine) Zidane, (David) Beckham, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo and the tension was unbearable.
I’ll never forget in the second half, Lehman had made a save from Raul and Beckham had a free kick about 25 yards out in a prime position in front of the Clock End.
Something was going on where he couldn’t take it for a while and I wanted him to take it so much because I couldn’t handle the tension because I was convinced he was going to score.
I was bouncing around shouting at the ref to let him take it.
The noise and seeing us get past Madrid who for me are the biggest team in world football was one of my favourite Highbury nights.