Mike Feinberg (@TheGoonersPod) lives the Arsenal fan dream.
An insurance consultant based in Washington DC, USA, by trade, he became a Gooner in the late 1980s when he stumbled out of his front door and somehow ended up on the terraces of the North Bank at Highbury.
Mike is the cofounder of The Gooners Podcast, current in its eighth season, and founded Gooners v. Cancer in 2017, raising over $100,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through the generosity of the Gooner Community.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
I found out as a 15-year-old ignorant American teenager who loved playing “soccer” that I was about to be uprooted and moved from suburban Washington DC to England for my stepfather’s career.
At first, we were to move to Cambridge, and I would be joining an English school somewhere between 5th and 6th form and I was miserable about it. Three weeks before we were due to leave, we learned we were instead moving to London, being put up in Knightsbridge, and I’d be attending the American School in London. Suddenly I was more excited about the opportunity for a fresh start and to assimilate into a new culture.
When we arrived, I was adamant that I needed to find a football club to truly “become English” and I set out to find the nearest club to me. Of course, Chelsea was a puny second division club (as they should be again soon) and so I looked at the tube map. Tottenham Court Road looked close by, but I quickly learned (thank the Lord above) that that was not where “that club” played.
But Arsenal – they were on the Piccadilly line where I lived, easy to get to. So in early September 1988 I made the trip to Arsenal tube and followed the masses from the tube station until I found myself £3 quid lighter, standing against a rail on what I eventually learned was the North Bank terraces, with a programme in hand.
What I saw that day defied anything I’d experienced back in the States – being just feet away from the action, watching the best of the sport I played in a way I’d never seen it before surrounded by people who cared more about it than I’d ever seen back home.
It felt like my new home, and for the next two years, it was.
What was your first Arsenal match?
I wish I could identify exactly which match it was, I’ve looked through my stack of game programmes from those days and the earliest I own is 22 October v. QPR – but I’m pretty sure I was at the 17 September 2-2 draw against Southampton.
Whichever game it was, I can tell you that Alan Smith scored and to this day he remains a very important figure in my Arsenal fandom.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
My first Arsenal hero was Smudger – Alan Smith.
It seemed like every game I came to, the man was on the scoresheet.
My natural position as a childhood “footballer” was striker, but the way Smudge played the position was otherworldly, he could score with any appendage – so talented in the air and with his head and always a threat to score.
I am tickled by the fact that 35 years later I can consider this man a friend.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
This is easy. As I “learned” the game and studied my new love of Arsenal and of “proper” football, I fell head over heels for our talented midfield #7 – David Rocastle.
It was many years before I learned the incredibly sad fate that would become his legacy, but that only made the fact that I was able to watch his magic on the pitch for two years in his absolute prime, enjoy and appreciate everything he brought to the game, so, so much more special.
It was only 30 years later, in speaking to many of his former teammates AND his sons, daughters, and wife, that I truly understood how special of a human being he was.
He didn’t create the phrase “Remember what you are, who you are and what you represent” but he is known for saying it, living it, and imposing it on his teammates in keeping alive something we know of as “The Arsenal Way.”
A better servant of the game, a better teammate, a more talented player in his time, and a better human being you could simply not find in football or any walk of life.
David Rocastle IS Arsenal Football Club and he simply has to be, along perhaps with his mate Ian, the next statue outside of Emirates Stadium.
What's your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I have two.
While I never had a chance at being at Anfield 89 (I was 16, living in St. Johns Wood, and had very little independence to travel), I was in a pub called “The Flag” (its now an Islamic education center) watching the game and celebrating with my Gooner mates in a huge dogpile.
However, I truly regret not having the presence of mind to travel up to Highbury to revel in the outcome with the thousands who gathered to do so. We celebrated, and then I went home by my curfew, but to have been a part of that scene on Avenell Road would’ve been unforgettable.
The second is the 15 years after I moved back from London to the states.
In 1990, it was nearly impossible to follow the day-to-day of Arsenal in the States. No games on TV, no coverage, no internet, just a brief score update (not always even accurate) on the final page of the sports section in the newspaper, no tables, nothing.
At some point, it became too difficult and I lost sight of the team I loved. One year became two, then five, then I went to uni, then got married, then started a family, all blind to what was going on with my beloved Arsenal football club.
Ultimately, by the time I reconnected with my club, we finally had football games televised weekly, my son was three and starting to play and want to watch the beautiful game, and believe it or not, that was 2006.
I missed the “almost invincibles” of 1991 (though I did learn we’d won the league that year). I missed the Cup Winners Cup and the 1993 Cup double over Wednesday.
I missed Arsene Wenger’s hire. I missed the double seasons of 1998 and 2002. I missed FA Cup titles. I MISSED THE INVINCIBLES. I missed Dennis Bergkamps entire Arsenal career, and most of Thierry Henry’s.
I missed the glorious run to the 2006 Champions League Final. But I did not miss the final itself. That game was my re-entry to Arsenal Football Club and from minute one I was living and dying with every kick of the ball.
From that moment on, by that time 33 years of age, I was every bit as invested and in love with my club as I had been as a teenager. And I haven’t missed a day of living and dying for The Arsenal since.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
I have been fortunate to have had so, so many.
I’ve met and become friendly with so many of the legends that first turned me onto Arsenal in the late 1980s.
I’ve been able to be a member of the media and interview the owners, executives, and coaches of the club.
I’ve held the Gold Invincibles Trophy, scored a penalty on the Emirates pitch and even have owned a flat in Highbury overlooking the old pitch from the North Bank where I once stood 35 years ago.
But perhaps the moment that sealed my fate as a Gooner for life was 26 May, 1989.
Living and dying through my first season in London as a Gooner, having been heartbroken in the North Bank watching us lose to Derby and draw Wimbledon and essentially thrown the league away, I gathered with a dozen or so friends in a pub to watch the “hopeless” finale to the season on Friday evening.
That evening changed my life – I recall lying on the floor of a filthy pub with 10 or more people piled on top of me celebrating and it occurred to me that just one year earlier I had no clue what any of this was, that any of it existed, or that I’d find it so important.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
I mean… I could say it was one of our fourteen 5-2 NLD victories, I could say it was any of our outstanding FA Cup victories, but I’d be lying. It has to be Anfield 89.
Editor’s Note
We have all known someone who has suffered with cancer - and Mike lost his father at a young age due to leukemia. he now runs @GoonersVCancer so please click HERE to find out more.
Mike is also running the third annual GVC 27-hour Pod-a-thon which you can watch HERE