Laura Kirk-Francis (LauraKirk12) is an Arsenal content creator, podcaster and presenter whose work includes The Thing About Arsenal podcast and All Out Football.
Her route into football media has taken in corporate marketing, sports consultancy, community coaching with Arsenal in Ghana and regular match-going at the Emirates.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
It was really because of my older brother, Andrew. He is two years older than me and we sit next to each other at the Emirates now. He became an Arsenal fan when he was a lot younger, partly because we grew up in Hertfordshire, in Berkhamsted, and we were at the same school as Nigel Winterburn's kids. I think that is why Andrew ultimately decided to support Arsenal.
I am very close with my brother. He has always been someone I looked up to and, although I would never say this to his face, I just wanted to copy him.
That said, I also wanted to be a bit different. I remember my parents taking us to JJB Sports and getting Andrew an Arsenal shirt. I said I wanted a blue shirt, so unfortunately the first football shirt I owned was a Chelsea one. I think it had Autoglass on it and either Hasselbaink or Zola on the back. I don't know where it went. I think my brother might have hidden it or thrown it out.
After that I was still young and impressionable and I became aligned with Arsenal because of him. He was being taken to games and I thought I wanted to be part of that. I have always said there were two phases of being an Arsenal fan for me.
As a kid, I was a fan but probably was not watching a huge amount. I really started watching Arsenal properly in about 2004 or 2005, and then I started going to the Emirates regularly in 2013 when we got season tickets. It was a slow burner early on, but it became a huge part of my life once I started going to games.
What was your first Arsenal match?
My first Arsenal match was at Highbury in 2006, the last time we played Manchester United there. It was a home game, maybe January, and the tickets were bought by my dad in a school charity auction. I think Nigel Winterburn may have got the tickets for the auction and I think they were about £400 each, so I remember my dad having to tell my mum that he had spent £800 taking the kids to Arsenal at Highbury.
It was a 0-0 draw and it was pouring with rain all evening. We were on the North Bank and I couldn’t see a huge amount, if I am honest. I remember Cristiano Ronaldo being there in his early years, with the little hair and the blonde tips. It could not have been more of a this-is-the-doldrums-of-football experience, but clearly I loved it. I absolutely loved it.
It was so exciting. The first time you experience that is unbelievable. I still have this still image in my head of the rain coming down, the lights being on and lots of people in front of me.
After that, for quite a few birthdays, we would get tickets to go and watch Arsenal. I remember a 2-2 draw with Everton as my first game at the Emirates and a Leeds FA Cup game in about 2011, but for a while they were birthday treats rather than regular matches.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
It was always Cesc Fabregas. Always, always Fabregas. I have a massive canvas print of him in my kitchen. My mum got me two big prints for my 15th birthday, one of Thierry Henry and one of Fabregas, and I have taken them with me wherever I have gone. They came to university with me, they went up in my uni room and they have been in every flat I have ever had.
It was always Fabregas because he was not that much older than me and I loved that he was such a clever young player. Really, really clever. When I was at school I played a lot of sport and I used to say I was going to be like Fabregas. I didn’t play football, I played netball, so it is quite hard to emulate a Premier League midfielder on a netball court, but he was my little sporting icon.
All my shirts had Fabregas on them. I have never met him. I think if I did, I would be very starstruck and would probably have to compose myself. Maybe one day.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
It probably is Fabregas. I associate the start of my Arsenal fandom with him, so he is still probably my favourite ever Arsenal player.
There have been others who have come and gone. Alexis Sanchez really struck me when he first signed. I know he was not there long enough to have the impact he should have done, but he was so good. He had that athleticism and explosiveness, and it was such a shame how it all ended.
Leaving for Manchester United signalled a very premature end to him being right at the top of the game, but I do not have the same kind of feeling towards him as I do for someone like Robin van Persie because Sanchez has never really said anything. He has always been kind of once a Gunner, always a Gunner. It is just a real shame that he made that decision.
Mesut Ozil is also strongly associated with an important time in my life. He signed in the first season I had my season ticket. I had just graduated from university, moved to London and was at that age where I didn’t know what to do with my life. I was working in banking, in corporate marketing, and it was soul-destroyingly boring. Arsenal became this island of escapism for me.
I remember that season very dearly because it was the first time I was going regularly. For at least two hours I didn’t have to think about the fact that I was in a desk job and that this might be the rest of my life. I used to get to games so early, especially evening games in the Champions League. I would leave Canary Wharf at about five, get there as soon as the gates opened and just sit in my seat.
What’s your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
There are quite a few. Because it is so recent, the Champions League final we have just lost has to be up there, just because of the manner of how it played out. I don’t think there is anything more crushing than losing on penalties.
I don’t buy into the narrative about how we played. We lost that game because we missed our penalties. That is it. We did not lose because PSG were miles ahead of us or because we played defensively. We lost because we did not score our penalties.
The other one is the season where we really capitulated in April and May. The run of draws was awful. We were 2-0 up at Anfield and drew 2-2. We were 2-0 up at West Ham and drew 2-2. We conceded against Southampton in the first 30 seconds and drew 3-3.
That season was heartbreaking because it was one of those moments where you think that everything everyone has ever said about Arsenal in a negative way might be true. We did not have the bottle. We collapsed under pressure. It was existential crisis type stuff.
Last season’s title run was thoroughly torturous for months on end. Every game was excruciating. I think that made it so much sweeter when we did get over the line because we have suffered, not just that season but for years. I cannot even bring myself to think about the West Ham game properly. My heart starts racing. If we had not got over the line, I don’t know how I would have recovered.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
For a long time it was the 2018 North London Derby, when we beat Tottenham 4-2. Eric Dier scored and shushed the crowd, Lucas Torreira scored, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored and it was early in Unai Emery's reign. That game was unbelievable. Genuinely unbelievable.
The Reiss Nelson goal against Bournemouth is another one, even though I was on holiday watching it on a TV behind a beach bar. It was meant to be an adults-only resort, quiet and relaxing, but when that goal went in my brother and I screamed the house down. He went running into the sea and I just went running. As a last-minute goal, it is one of those moments where I could probably draw the whole sequence of events because it is so ingrained in my brain.
One of my earliest memories of a last-minute goal was Thierry Henry scoring that header against Manchester United in January 2007. That was an unbelievable feeling too.
Then there were the two Declan Rice free-kicks against Real madrid. That was just an unbelievable thing to witness. You will not see that again. When the second one was awarded, the guy behind me said, "He's going to do it again." We were all thinking, of course he is not going to do it again, and then he did.
So I have thrown quite a few in there, but there have been some amazing moments. If I had to pick one match, the 4-2 North London Derby is probably the one, but the Reiss Nelson goal and the Declan Rice free-kicks are right there as Emirates moments I will never forget.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
When we actually won the league, I was in Disneyland Paris with family. My husband is Australian and his brother was over with their three kids, so they wanted to visit Disneyland Paris and we went to join them for the day.
I was struggling to enjoy every single ride. I was going along on Thunder Mountain thinking, Arsenal could win the league. When Bournemouth kicked off, we were in one of the merchandise shops. The kids had spending money and they were coming up to me saying, "Auntie Laura, what do you think of this hoodie? Should I get this one or this one?" I could not explain it to them, but I didn’t care. The biggest thing in my life could be about to happen.
My husband and I kept looking at each other because we couldn’t focus. We said we were not going to look at our phones until the game was done. Over the next hour or so, we had McDonald's and went back to our Airbnb. His brother, who I love dearly, is a bit of a wind-up and kept looking at his phone and pretending to gasp. I told him I was going to have a serious sense of humour failure if he didn’t stop.
By then I was in fight or flight. I knew Bournemouth had scored because I’d heard it in a pub we walked past. My heart rate was at about 160 beats per minute. Then Ryan said the timer had stopped on the match, so he thought it was finished. I opened BBC Sport and it came up that Arsenal were champions. Even describing it now, I get worked up.
The first person I called was my brother. I had to call my brother. We just cried at each other. I told him to get on the train and go to the Emirates because everyone was going to go. I am gutted I didn’t get to experience that at the stadium, but it was such a strange and funny scenario: spending time with family, the kids trying to enjoy Disney, and back home Arsenal had won the league.
That’s the duality of being an Arsenal fan. I wish I could pretend I didn’t care, but I care deeply every time I watch Arsenal. It causes immense stress and strain, but you do it for the outcome. You put your whole heart into supporting something and when you win something, it feels so much better. It is high risk, high return. It always has been.
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