James McNicholas (@Gunnerblog) has been writing about Arsenal for more than a decade.
A contributor to ESPN, Bleacher Report and FourFourTwo magazine, he is perhaps best known as an Arsenal correspondent for The Athletic and also a regular on the Arseblog Arsecasts.
Away from football, James has been a writer on Horrible Histories since Season 8 and he is a successful performer, with his debut Edinburgh solo show, The Boxer, receiving huge critical acclaim and a book of the story, ‘The Champ and the Chump’ due for publication later this year.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
My Mum, my Dad and my younger brother were all Chelsea fans when I was growing up.
When I was four or five years old, my Dad took my brother and I to a sports shop on Mill Hill Broadway to buy our first football kit.
My brother got himself a Chelsea shirt as he was supposed to but I was obsessed by the colour red and I was insistent that I wanted a red shirt.
I’m sure they tried to talk me out of it and I got lucky because it could have been anyone – Charlton, Manchester United, Liverpool…but as it turned out it was an Arsenal shirt.
I went home with it and in ways that brothers sometimes do, we defined ourselves in opposition to each other in many ways, so he was into blue and Chelsea and I was into red and Arsenal.
Growing up, it was great having a brother who supported a different team. It fed our collective interest – and now I work in football and so does he, so it stems in some part from that rivalry, seeing things from both sides.
Then I was stranded in the family and when my two younger sisters were born, there was a scramble over who they would support – we got one each.
The first went to Chelsea and the pressure was on for the fourth and we got her on the right side of things – I wouldn’t say she was a dedicated fan but if you pressed her on that, Arsenal is her allegiance.
Fortunately I went to a school in North London where there were a lot of Arsenal fans so I found my way from there.
My father was a bit of a turncoat himself, having supported Liverpool in the 1970s as a form of glory hunting.
When he got a bit older and started going to games, he went with mates to Stamford Bridge, because it was more local and affordable, so he had switched sides and couldn’t cast any aspersions on me!
What was your first Arsenal match?
I can’t actually remember my first game, but it was around 1994 in the last days of George Graham, but my real football consciousness is post-Graham with Stewart Houston, Pat Rice and Bruce Rioch’s era.
I do remember seeing the pitch for the first time and the way being at Highbury made me feel.
I remember that kind of Fever Pitch moment of coming up the steps and seeing the green grass of Highbury laid out in front of me,.
I have a lot of hazy memories of the sights and sounds and smells of Highbury, whether it was the sweet stalls or the programme sellers or hot dogs with onions – all those smells you associate with football.
I was fortunate that I had a friend at school whose family were big season ticket holders and quite regularly one of them wouldn’t be able to go and I’d get the call asking if I wanted to come along.
It was always such an adventure for me.
I loved everything about it – the narrow corridors at Highbury, that immaculate surface, even the old men with their betting slips…it was a world that was new to me and I found a kind of sanctuary in.
It might sound strange, but I loved going on my own and I loved that it took me out of my family in some ways.
It felt quite elicit, like I was stepping into a man’s world
When I was old enough I used to go to games on my own and savour the atmosphere – it may sound strange but there was quite a solitary element to it – a bit like going to church!
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
My first hero was Ian Wright – he was such a charismatic player that you couldn’t help but fall in love with him.
He was an absolute icon in that era and I’m not sure that without Ian Wright I would have fallen quite as hard for Arsenal as I did.
My memory is as much things that happened off the ball.
As a kid, his celebrations were so exuberant and so playful. When you watch football you want to see stuff that you can try and emulate in the playground.
He made football so fun and so accessible and he played in the Premier League as we did in the playground with the same passion, same enthusiasm, the same competitive spirit.
He just looked like he was having the time of his life and it was impossible not to get swept up in that.
There were so many brilliant goals, the chip against Leeds United for instance, great technique, which demonstrated what a natural goalscorer and finisher he was, but it all came with an impish personality.
He was a massive part of it for me. I met him when I was eight or nine years old at a football summer camp and he was affiliated with it in some way – it may even have been an Arsenal camp.
To have met my hero , every time he went out on the pitch I felt like “that’s my mate!”
The day he left Arsenal was a rocky day for me – I was bereft and mourned his departure because even though he had faded in that last season a bit and hadn’t played as many games, he was Arsenal to me.
When you think back to the 1998 FA Cup Final and he didn’t get on – with all due respect to Chris Wreh, it seems crazy, but the club was going in a different direction.
James was one of the few Arsenal fans able to attend the 2020 FA Cup Final
Much as I had my wobble, what Arsene was doing was so exciting and so enthralling that if anything my love got even deeper at that point.
I have met Ian since and it’s a great source of pride that he knows my name – I can’t believe it.
We’ve had conversations, we’ve done a couple of interviews together and he follows me on Instagram and I find it bizarre.
That’s the great thing about being a football writer that you do get the opportunity to meet some of your heroes.
But to actually have a rapport and a very loose relationship with Ian Wright, my number one hero, is an absolute honour and to be honest still feels slightly absurd.
In one context, we are just two fans – and it creates these bonds and connections across oceans, different social groups and strangers and that’s an amazing thing.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
To pick someone different, the successor to Ian Wright in my heart was Patrick Vieira.
I just thought that he was extraordinary.
I remember his debut, coming on against Sheffield Wednesday and he was unbelievable.
I don’t remember many debuts quite like it. He was from a different planet and he was all arms and legs but the power, the technical ability, the maturity in one so young was incredible.
He changed the parameters and created a new template and I do feel that changed what a top central midfielder was.
The fact that went on to become the player he did, captaining the club, leading us through the unbeaten season, league titles…his final kick as an Arsenal player was to win the FA Cup against Manchester United in very fortunate circumstances…he was a phenomenon.
There was a period around 2004, a pivotal moment in my life, I remember thinking to myself that you are not going to see this again, you’re not going to see football like this for a long time…that you’re lucky to be a fan of this club in this period.
I had that awareness even then and we were so fortunate to have that collection of players and I think Vieira was foremost among them.
I always think if I could import one player from the past who would I have and I can’t imagine a team that in his pomp that he would not have improved.
I hope he comes back – the emotional part of me would love to see him back at the Emirates Stadium.
What is your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
My first thought was to say the 2006 Champions League final, because I’ve never felt quite so devastated in the aftermath of a game as that.
I have a tremendous regret about the way that things panned out between the supporters and Arsene Wenger in the final years of his time with the club.
I don’t lay blame at any particular group for that – I think the fans’ frustrations with things at the club were justified.
But being a bit removed from it now, just a couple of years on, I have regret that he wasn’t able to leave with his reputation and his dignity absolutely intact.
Maybe that could have been by going earlier, by fans being more patient and I know why it played out the way it did but when I think about it now it makes me feel sad because the contribution he made to the club was enormous.
I wasn’t hanging up banners myself but there were definitely times in those last few years where it felt like it was time to go. I feel sad and I even feel guilty because my respect for the man is so enormous and there’s nobody in football I admire more.
He was like a father figure in a football context and for my adult life up until then he was the Arsenal manager so he had a huge impact on me, the way I think about football, how I see the game tactically….and all Arsenal fans find ourselves using Wengerisms when we talk about the game.
If a relationship goes on that long, there’s always a risk there will be problems.
Last year when he brought out his book he did an event at a West End theatre and I went along. He came out on stage and he got a tremendous reception and for me it was a healing moment to see that he was still revered and I think people are able to love him more freely. I think he enjoyed it as well.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory and why?
It has to be Paris in 2006 for the Champions League final.
I was out there with Andrew (Mangan) from Arseblog and a community from around his website and we all went to the pub together pre-match.
Ae played football in the streets and I remember someone took a shot and it hit a car window and it was Alex Ferguson so we were all overjoyed that we’d managed to hit his car.
James McNicholas (R) with Andrew Mangan aka Arseblog
The camaraderie and the fact that Arsenal were finally there, on the biggest stage of European football, it felt fantastic.
I didn’t even get into the game. I went with about £600 in savings thinking I would get in somehow but I watched the game in a pub packed with Arsenal fans trying to chance their arm to get in as well.
For that period of time we were winning, it was so exciting. Yes the final result was devastating but my pride at Arsenal reaching that level was so great and it was just a brilliant day all round.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
There’s one answer that keeps coming to me which is Arsenal 5 Middlesbrough 3 towards the end of the unbeaten run.
I was there and it was a glorious sunny at Highbury, Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, just a phenomenal team firing on all cylinders.
It’s not a hugely significant match but it was that team at the peak of their powers.
Arsenal had a new Nike kit that was quite modern with an interesting fusion of the new kit, the modern football and the old fashioned stadium.
Although they conceded some ridiculous goals in that game, they had this incredible capacity to come back.
Jose Reyes scored a fantastic goal when the TV broadcast had barely stopped showing replays of the previous goal.
That was what that team was like – once they clicked and they found their momentum, they were just so thrilling.
The way that they saw off defeat in that match, the 42nd of the run, equalling Nottingham Forest’s record, showed their incredible attacking potential and that game summed it all up.
We just kept roaring back and I felt we could almost go and do it again and go another season unbeaten before Wayne Rooney and Manchester United had other ideas.
I wonder what Arsene Wenger would say about that day. I imagine he would have some fond memories of it too.
It was everything that was typical of his teams. They did make some mistakes at the back and they weren’t absolutely secure but their freedom of expression was second to none.
At that point, they seemed on top of the world.