Simon Harris (@simonharris_mbd) is a blogger and social media influencer who has a brilliant ability to wind up the far right with his support of good causes, including helping under-privileged children get food and raising almost a quarter of a million pounds for a new RNLI lifeboat.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
Practically from birth as my father supports Arsenal, and so did my late grandfather. I used to get all of the stories about talking the uniformed guy standing outside the main entrance, asking him what time kick off was, him replying ‘what time can you get here’ … all the old jokes.
What was your first Arsenal match?
My first televised memory, albeit a very, very hazy one, was Anfield in 1989 when I would have been five years old.
As it happens, the nearest ground to where I live is Roots Hall and I went to see Southend in 1986. My dad took me there and I fell asleep because. I was only three.
The first Arsenal game that I went to was the game against Crystal Palace in February 1991, a 4-0 home win.
I remember thinking that Arsenal was always going to be like this. It was George Graham’s second championship-winning season so we're talking about glory.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
Ian Wright, and although it was purely for footballing reasons at the time, it’s only in the years since that I’ve learned exactly why ‘hero’ is the only way to describe the man.
The documentary about him and Rocky showed exactly what he overcame to reach success, and ‘that’ old tv show clip where he was surprised by his school days PE teacher Mr Pigden is a textbook lesson about remaining humble and respecting where you come from and those who helped you along the way. He goes from the sort of proper chatty, chirpy Ian Wright that we all know and he completely breaks down because he's so emotional.
I've shown my kids the clip and when I was doing some work in a school a while ago, I was showing them this clip saying, look, this is what it means. You could be the most successful person in the world, but you never ever forget who helped you get there and how you got there.
I got absolutely slaughtered on social media the day after the Lionesses won the EUROs by saying that Ian Wright deserves a knighthood for his services to the women's game.
The fact is, yes, what they've done is awesome and they deserve every accolade and honour that has been forthcoming, and from Ian’s perspective he's been out there as a massive cheerleader for the women's game in the face of so much misogynistic crap being thrown around by a fair few men, and occasionally women as well, which is a bit mad.
Even going back to a couple of weeks ago, the way he stood up on behalf of Gary Lineker – he was the first to come out and say “I'm not doing Match of the Day” either and then everybody else fell like dominos.
Ian Wright knows what's right.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
Apart from Wrighty, it’s got to be Martin Keown.
Defensive prowess aside, he acted on behalf of millions of Arsenal supporters and how we felt when he tried to perform some sort of WWF move on Ruud Van Nistelrooy at Old Trafford after he missed that penalty.
We all knew that there was a distance of around 25 miles between Vieira’s boot and Ruud’s bollocks when he lashed out and got sent off. Prat.
I've still got the photo and my young brothers got the T-shirt caricature of Keown with his arms spread trying to jump on van Nistelrooy’s head.
What he own did summed up what so many of us felt and that's what really did it for me.
Going to Old Trafford and daring to stand up to the machine, that got my respect.
What’s your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I was going to say letting my first Red membership lapse as I would have been a Silver by now, but looking at some of the ticketing issues this season I’m not so sure.
That aside, it’s got to be the 2006 Champions League final.
After the (Jens Lehmann) sending off, if we had crumbled from that moment forward, at least we would have been able to say, you know what, the red card ruined it.
But the fact that we managed to hold out at 1-0 for so long is what really did it, to be sucker punched at the end like that, and it felt so inevitable as well.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
I was on a school trip in the sixth form and we were on a bus and I had an old mobile phone with the early internet of the time, WAP. Nearly everybody I knew at school supported Spurs or Arsenal.
I was just scrolling through and I was the first to notice and said “Have you seen what's happened? Sol Campbell has signed for Arsenal”
None of them believed me and then over the next 60 seconds, the rage and the fuming and the sheer levels of disbelief around was just literally poetry to watch.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
I only have to go back in time a few weeks.
When we beat Bournemouth 3-2 at home, it’s the first time that me and my eight-year-old have been proper ‘limbs’ over a goal.
My wife supports Arsenal as well and when Reiss Nelson scored, I’m ashamed to say that my older son and I then fell on top of my two-year-old son. He was all right, bless him.
I had so many absolutely berserk moments over Arsenal with my dad in the past, so I'm now experiencing the same with my own son.
If you’d like to help raise funds for the new RNLI lifeboat, you can do so HERE