Trevor Hiill (@Hillsygooner) , is an instantly recognisable Arsenal fan famed for his passionate support and memorable tattoos in honour of the Club.
A fan since the early 1970s, his tattoos are notable as he explained: “The one on my belly has been seen by millions of people. They're all over my back as well.
“I don't want to influence younger people. I've had a few younger people come up and say, ‘Oh, I'm going to get an Arsenal tattoo like yours.’
Tattoos are very personal and once you get them, you've got them for life, you know? It's got to be your decision and your decision alone.
“I choose to use my tattoos to reflect my love of my football club. I have absolutely no regrets about them. The ones on my back have been there for many years. The one on my front has probably been there for 10 years or so and I've added to it. It started off with a cannon and Arsenal and then The Gunners was added.
“I've got this habit of taking my shirt off at football games and it's not pre-planned. Sometimes it might be the influence of alcohol, very slightly, and it shows one of my passions in life.
“The Premier League released a short documentary on YouTube called ‘Under the Skin, 22 years of waiting.’ They interviewed me for that and the first thing they said was ‘Can you take your shirt off?’
The fact is that my tattoos have got me openings like that. They're mine. They're what define me as a person, as long as you can see past them when it's needed.”
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
My parents, my mum and dad, were both Tottenham fans and I was born and raised in Tottenham, but they weren't really match-going fans.
I had a very close family with my mum having two sisters and everyone was always at each other’s houses, a mix of Tottenham and Arsenal fans.
My uncle must have had a chat with my dad and said he could take me to the Arsenal. He was a massive Arsenal fan and I ended up going and there was never any chance that I was going to change allegiance after that.
What was your first Arsenal match?
It was in December 1970 against Wolves. I've still got the match programme and the tickets. I'm a big collector of programmes in particular.
To coin a phrase from the late, great Bobby Robson, once you walk up those steps and you see that patch of green for the first time, you fall helplessly in love, and that was the start of my love affair with the Arsenal. What a season to start!
I can remember we were in the West Lower seats, and that was the first season the West Lower had had seats installed. They were unreserved seats, so my uncle got us there quite early so we could get some good seats.
Although Highbury wasn't the biggest stadium, it all came as a shock and I knew I wanted to go more often.
Much like the great film Fever Pitch, when he's taken to his first game by his dad and then he ends up nagging his dad to take him to every game, I was very much the same. “When can we go again? When can we go again?”
My memories of games after that first game are quite vague but most of the time we would have the unreserved seats in the West Stand and occasionally we would stand on the North Bank.
My uncle would send me into what was the schoolboys' enclosure and then there was a door that went into the North Bank that had a commissionaire guarding it. He used to let me through the door, so I got in a bit cheaper!
I grew to love the Arsenal more and more. I started going on my own probably from about 12 or 13 years old into the schoolboys' enclosure.
Of course, we won the double in 1971 and then it was a bit bleak. We reached the FA Cup final again in 1972 but we lost.
I was born in Broad Lane in Tottenham and then we moved when I was quite young up to St Anne's Road which is halfway between the Tottenham and Arsenal grounds. I used to get the bus up to Finsbury Park and walk up to Highbury from there.
I had to walk to get the bus up Paxton Road every day to go to school so you can imagine it could be difficult sometimes. I remember very well when Tottenham got relegated in 1977 and I was one of the few kids in that school that actually had a smile on his face!
Then the FA Cup final in '79 came along, which was the second final that I actually went to on my own as a youngster, aged 15, and it was wonderful, a much better experience than Ipswich the year before!
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
Charlie George undoubtedly. I loved all that team from 1971 but the standout was Charlie because he was a local lad, he had his hair long, he was a bit of a rebel and you could sit outside and watch him come into the ground.
I watched the 1971 final at home and I can remember it very clearly. I was in the living room at home, sitting on the floor watching it with family, because the FA Cup final was a family affair in those days. It didn't matter who was playing.
It went into extra time and Steve Highway scored for Liverpool and I can remember my dad tapping me on the shoulder and looking at my mum and saying, “They won't win now. Nobody comes back from 1-0 down against Liverpool. It's all over. Sorry, son.”
I can remember him genuinely saying that, not because he was a Tottenham fan.
As we all know, Eddie Kelly or George Graham scored the equaliser and then of course the iconic moment from Charlie George and everybody remembers him for that celebration. If you ask Charlie, he says he just lay down because he was shattered. What a moment.
My grandmother on my father's side used to live on Canvey Island in Essex and as kids we spent a lot of time there. The following day, my dad let me fly my Arsenal scarf out of the window of the car on the way there even though he was a Tottenham fan.
Charlie continues to impress me with the work he does now at the Arsenal with the tours he does and the fact that he's got time to meet everybody. An impressive man in more ways than one.
I've been fortunate enough to meet him a few times since then, once quite recently.
I cried when he left. When he first came back to Highbury a fan actually ran onto the field and gave Charlie George a bunch of flowers.
Who is your favourite player of all time?
I do like a player who leaves everything on the field, whose heart and soul are in the Arsenal and there's been no greater player for me from that perspective than Tony Adams.
I hold him in the highest regard both for the player he was and for how he turned his life around, the work he's done since he stopped playing. He’s gone from being, in his own words, an alcoholic in a really bad way to a man that has probably saved a lot of people from going down the same path through his foundation.
From a playing perspective, Dennis Bergkamp was probably the best player I've seen at Arsenal, the most skilful. Some of the things he did left you absolutely gobsmacked.
Liam Brady is right up there… I loved Thierry Henry because he scored lots of goals against Tottenham, but he had everything. He could run with the ball, he could pass the ball on a sixpence. I'll never forget him leaving Danny Mills on his backside in the corner at the North Bank.
There’s also Ian Wright. At the Champions League final in Budapest, I was invited to the open training session and I met Wrighty and he was exactly as I imagined him to be, a really friendly heart-warming bloke who had time for us and who just chatted to me like he was an old friend. It was really lovely to meet him.
It was only a short chat, but it was wonderful and just confirmed what I thought about him anyway. Once again, Wrighty's commitment to the cause when he played for Arsenal was absolutely superb. I just adored the man.
What’s your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I regret not trying harder to get a ticket for Anfield in '89. It’s the biggest of all the games that I didn't attend. My first child was born in 1985 and between 1985 and probably 2000, I was far from a regular at the Arsenal. Children had to come first.
Some seasons I probably got to three or four games, but I could probably have got a ticket for Anfield but I didn't try very hard. I had it in my head that we were not going to win at Anfield and certainly not by two goals. So I didn't go and I regret that now.
Then of course the Champions League final in 2006. I couldn't get a ticket for that. But my biggest disappointment now is not winning the Champions League this year (2026). I honestly thought we were going to be the champions of Europe this year.
In Europe, we've always found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot. Lehmann got sent off in 2006, Nayim from the halfway line…
But this year I really thought we were going to get that monkey off our backs because it IS a monkey on our backs. My wife came with us to Budapest and a few other friends stayed in the fan park while a few of us went to the game.
We came out afterwards and I was feeling very down. We walked back into the fan park and unknown to me, my wife had tracked me on my phone. She knew when I was coming back into the fan park and she came to the gate and she just looked at me and I looked at her and I absolutely bawled my eyes out.
A 63-year-old man. I cried my eyes out and I looked around at a few of my friends and most of them had tears in their eyes. It was really hard to take. I really thought we had everything lined up to win that game, but it wasn't to be so we go again.
I sometimes get asked to appear on BBC Radio 5 Live and they asked me to go on the morning after the final and I said yes. And then of course we lost and I thought, well, I'm not hiding.
It was still very raw, as you can imagine, but I thought that referee changed at half time. I don’t know whether it was because, when you're on the losing side as a fan, you often see the referee in a bad light, but the referee undoubtedly saw the game through different eyes in the second half than he did the first half.
I've had some lovely feedback from that interview, actually, from fans of other teams saying, you know, good for you to go on there. I think you spoke sense. I now go on the new sport and music station Track Radio as well now, which is excellent.
I honestly think that there was a split in the fan base. A nice split. For the younger people that had never seen us win or experienced the pleasure of winning the Premier League, up to their mid-20s, or even approaching 30, because it was 22 years ago, they felt that unbelievable, overwhelming, ecstatic excitement of winning the Premier League, of finally getting over the line, that long season drawing to a close with you lifting the trophy.
But I think the other side of the split was people of a certain age, me included, who need to see us win this bloody Champions League while I can still go. Obviously I loved seeing so many happy faces at the parade and everything, but inside me somewhere deep inside I wanted that Champions League and I still do badly.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
I was a very, very young man when we reached the 1979 FA Cup final. The Five Minute Final. It was a wonderful day at Wembley.
We were cruising, then of course Manchester United scored two late goals and I hadn't looked up again when Sunderland slotted the winner in. I was still upset, fuming. And then we all looked up and Alan Sunderland was wheeling away in delight having scored the winner.
We're very lucky as Arsenal fans, in that we could probably choose 100 games to be your favourite game.
That 1989 game at Anfield, I watched it on the television, and wow, what a performance. What an absolute masterclass from George Graham to play the way he did, to play the extra defender in David O’Leary and then for us to win it.
I've spoken to Alan Smith many times about that evening and he has nothing but praise for George and what they did.
The other one that really sticks in the mind was the 4-0 against Everton at the end of the 1998 season that wrapped the title up for us. Tony Adams was put through by Steve Bould and he whacks it into the back of the Everton net.
I don't think there's ever been a bigger mixture of emotions at a goal being scored than that one, because Adams had been through the wringer, and he’d been injured as well. I was so pleased for him, the relief in him when he did that was iconic, a celebration standing in front of the North Bank reflected in his statue now. You can read so many things into that celebration. Is it relief? Is it just elation? Is it saying, "Thank God I'm here to do this." Who knows?
That was one of the most wonderful moments I've ever seen.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
Firstly, I was on the Legends tour some years ago. It was 2020, just after lockdown and we'd won the FA Cup.
After the tour, we were sat in the press room getting a few things signed and chatting and I heard another member of staff say, “I've been and got it. I've got the other FA Cup.”
Arsenal were on pre-season tour in Australia and they'd taken the FA Cup with them, but obviously there were other FA Cups, and he had been to the FA and picked another one up because Arsenal needed it for some kind of display.
I said: “Please can you show me it? Take me and show me it.” He said he couldn’t but in the end, he did. We went through the inner echelons of the Emirates and into this small room and he pulled out this great big black box. He opened it and it was all velvet lined with a velvet bag inside. He proceeded to take out the FA Cup and let me hold it for pictures and swore me to secrecy.
That was one of my most wonderful memories, getting to kiss and hold the FA Cup.
I was also lucky enough to fulfil one of my lifelong ambitions this season.
A good friend of mine, Dan Gunning, has been heavily involved in designing the tifos and I've given him a few ideas. I'm not claiming a lot of credit, but he kept on badgering the club with emails asking for a fan's input, for a fan's voice. In the end, they gave in and they let him in and he now goes to meetings and he speaks for fans. He's not part of any club association.
Anyway, he was invited to the training ground for a day to meet some of the players, go to a press conference, take some pictures, and he asked me as his guest and I was truly honoured to go.
The day started with us having a wander around seeing the facilities which were breathtaking and then we had lunch in the canteen. The food was outstanding. Then we met Mikel Arteta and (Eberechi) Eze. Mikel came and presented Dan and a few of the others with some artwork of the tifo signed by Mikel which was very, very much deserved.
I was in awe of the man. There are photos of me with Mikel and I'm not smiling and someone said to me, "Why weren't you smiling?" I said, "Well, I just forgot to smile.” I was in awe of the man and the moment, you know, he's such a presence. I've got so much respect for him, you know.
We even had a little cheeky kick around in the indoor training area, just two or three of us. It was a wonderful day that I'll take with me to my grave.
Another one was that there was a documentary released recently on Charlie George called ‘The King of Highbury’ on the Arsenal app.
A cameraman that I know followed Charlie around Islington for a year, seeing what he did and what he got up to. It was premiered at the Emirates Stadium a few weeks ago and I got an invite to that evening.
It was astonishing to be in Charlie's company again in that environment. There was probably 25 or 30 fans there and we got to watch the first preview of the documentary, talked to Charlie about it, asked some questions, and then we went up into the director's room and had some very fine red wine. I got some pictures with Charlie and he signed a few things for me again, so that was an evening that will live with me forever.
And the last one is the open training session in Budapest the night before the Champions League final. It wasn't really a training session, but we Arsenal do a bit of running around the centre circle and then they did some shooting practice. I was just in awe of being in that vast empty stadium and watching them train.
Lots of my best memories have come very recently.
* If you want to hear more from Trevor, he appears on a weekly Arsenal podcast, ‘Guns and Yellow Ribbons’ with his good friend Fergus Keating.