Harry Homer, the matchday program editor for Arsenal Football Club back in the late 1940s, wrote the following in the final matchday program of the 1947/48 League Championship winning season.
…my mind seeks an apt quotation with which to close this season when it has been such a glorious one for Tom Whittaker, Joe Mercer, and all connected with The Gunners. Shall we turn for once to Latin? ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’. Translation: ‘Victory grows out of harmony.’
Two years after he wrote that, Arsenal officially unveiled a new crest that incorporated the Latin phrase, revealing it to be the new club motto. I heard the phrase for the first time during the 2005/06 season, and there was instantly something so calming and comforting about it to me. It has since become a phrase that means the absolute world to me.
I turn to it whenever I need to remember that the only way to achieve what I’m trying to is through having peace and harmony as my desired state of mind. It makes me think of Arsenal, of all the good times that being a supporter of this tremendous football club has given me, and I’ve pretty much adopted it as the motto for my life. It means so much to me that when I was choosing what to get for my second tattoo, there was only one thought, and so I have the Latin that Homer wrote about in 1948 inked into my skin.
So how does a Denverite-turned-Nebraskan become so obsessed with a football club in North London? For me, the answer oddly involves the Colorado Rapids, Liverpool Football Club, and Rafael Nadal. That answer is also deeply personal, and so the story of how I became a supporter of Arsenal isn’t just a story of me finding a team I liked. It’s not about beautiful football or liking their kit or a specific player or a specific moment.
It’s a story about how Arsenal Football Club saved my life.
In the late nineties, the Colorado Rapids of Major League Soccer were founded. I remember there being some hype for them, and I was just really beginning my journey as a sports fan beyond watching the occasional Denver Broncos game. I used to play soccer when I was a kid and had always loved the sport, so I would tune in on Saturday or Sunday afternoons on one of the local Denver stations but sometimes on one of the national networks. And I fell in love with watching guys like Chris Henderson and Paul Bravo play, though it has now been so long that I cannot tell you what it was about them that makes me remember those two names specifically. I didn’t understand (and to a large extent, still don’t) tactics and strategy, and I barely had a grasp of the basic concept of the rules.
The late nineties were not one of the better times in my life. I had just been diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which caused me to miss the entire second semester of my junior year of high school, and I was living in constant pain. My yet-to-be-diagnosed mental health issues had taken over me, and I spent most of my time in the basement of our house, hiding away from the world. During the summer, I essentially lived in the basement where there was a television that was hooked up to cable, so I watched the Rapids. Something about the games calmed me down when I needed it most and watching any MLS game I could find became a good distraction from what I was going through.
Watching those games was my first experience with professional football (or soccer as I only knew to call it then). But once my senior year started, I stopped watching as often. As it was then, MLS was not enough to keep my attention after I was distracted by other, more important things like making sure I graduated. (And I did. Class of 2000!)
I moved to Nebraska when I was 19, and I can recall occasions when I would stumble across an English Premier League game on Fox Sports Midwest on random afternoons. I don’t remember much about these games, just that I would turn them on as I did things around the house. I’m pretty sure I thought they were MLS games at first, because I had absolutely no idea what I was watching, and I don’t think I paid very much attention. But it was soccer, and soccer had been a good distraction for me in the past, so it sounded like a good idea for distracting me then too.
I remember practically nothing about the games I watched, just that one of them involved Liverpool Football Club. I don’t know what season it was. I don’t know who they were playing. I just remember the name Liverpool Football Club.
Remember those yet-to-be-diagnosed mental health issues I mentioned? Well, they began to rear their ugly head again. I was trying to be a perfectly normal person during that time, but I was failing miserably. And eventually, I broke down, and I was forced to realize that I am not a perfectly normal person, I have never been a perfectly normal person, and I never will be a perfectly normal person. This culminated in a three-night stay in the behavioral health ward of the local hospital, followed by weeks and weeks and weeks of therapy and lots of medication.
Absolutely none of it kept me from feeling like I was the biggest failure that ever walked the face of the planet.
After all of that, in the middle of my search for distraction, I began to watch professional tennis regularly, falling in love with the game and players like this up-and-coming kid named Rafael Nadal. (Boy, he amounted to something, didn’t he?) He was trying to win his first Grand Slam at Roland Garros, and I was fully invested.
And then May 25, 2005 happened.
I’d been watching the Roland Garros coverage on ESPN. Nadal had beaten Xavier Malisse earlier, but not even that was lifting my mood. And then ESPN’s coverage window ended, and it switched to something called the UEFA Champions League. I reached for the remote to change the channel, but then I heard the name Liverpool Football Club.
I remembered those games I used to watch in the middle of the afternoon, and I thought, ‘ooh, distraction.’ I’d never heard of the Champions League before. I’d never realized that ESPN aired anything like it either. So that afternoon, I sat in my living room and watched the game. Liverpool vs AC Milan. AC Milan jumped out to a 3-0 lead, and then Liverpool had a dramatic comeback which saw them win the game on penalty kicks. It was exciting, it was thrilling, it made me forget about my life for a while, and so I made a point to find out when the Champions League would be on again.
At this point, one would think I was destined to be a Liverpool fan. But that was not to be.
Whenever I’m asked when I became an Arsenal fan, I answer vaguely. ‘During the Champions League run in 2006.’ And while that is the truth, I say it vaguely because I don’t really admit the circumstances around it to a lot of people.
A couple of months after that Champions League final, I had a breakdown again. I was living by myself, freaking out on a daily basis because I thought there was someone hiding in my shower with a knife or that they were right outside my door about to break in. My mind, which loves to play tricks on me, was at it again. I was twenty-three years old, a complete failure at everything in life, with absolutely nothing to live for, and really no reason to do so. I had hit rock bottom, and I needed something to distract me from the dark, dark, dark thoughts that were crossing my mind.
And then I found the Champions League again.
In truth, I don’t remember a lot of that season’s Champions League. I don’t remember the group stage at all. I vaguely recall some of the first parts of the knockout stage. The first game that really stands out is the second leg of the AC Milan vs Lyon quarterfinal.
But everything changed the next day when I watched the second leg of the Juventus vs Arsenal quarterfinal.
I don’t know what it was about Arsenal that day that made me sit up and take notice. There was no jaw-dropping goal from someone. I can’t even remember a spectacular save. It was a nil-nil draw that I’d probably fall asleep in the middle of if I tried to watch it again.
But, after that match, Arsenal became an obsession.
I read thousands of articles about the players. I learned about Highbury, the stadium where they then played. I watched all of the past matches and highlights that I could find. Thierry Henry became godlike in my eyes. I grew more and more excited, and I started to count down the days until the semifinal against Villarreal began.
I didn’t tell anyone about this because I didn’t think that anyone would be able to understand. And then one day, I made a post on an old blog of mine about it, and I got some comments that made me realize I wasn’t alone in this obsession. There were others out there who were just as obsessed with this wonderful football club as I was. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone at a time when that was all that I felt.
Even though that Champions League run ended in heartbreak in the final against Barcelona, I still wanted more. I cried after that match. I’d paid serious attention for all of like a month, and I cried. This was the first time that I’d ever wanted more of something that hurt that much.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup was just a few weeks later, and on the day of the opening match, I realized that those dark, dark, dark thoughts had gone away because I had new things to think about. Who was going to win the World Cup? What was going to happen with Arsenal’s players at the World Cup? Or with Arsenal in the next Premier League season?
Maybe it sounds silly, but Arsenal Football Club gave me a reason to exist. And once I had a reason to exist, it was easier to find other reasons to exist too. So becoming a supporter of Arsenal is about ninety percent of the reason I’m still alive. The Colorado Rapids, Liverpool Football Club, Rafael Nadal, and the 2005 UEFA Champions League final get some credit too.
Everything came full circle when Arsenal set up a technical link-up with the Colorado Rapids. I used to go to Rapids’ games and see a banner up in the corner of their stadium with the Arsenal crest on it. But it went even further in April of 2007 when the Rapids’ owner Stan Kroenke bought a minority stake in Arsenal. He later completed a takeover and became the club’s sole owner in 2018. It’s funny how things work sometimes, isn’t it?
To this day, the only time I have ever seen Arsenal live in person was in Denver for a preseason game against the Rapids in July 2019. That night featured the debut of Gabriel Martinelli, one of the players who has made this current season so special, and I got to see him score his first goal in an Arsenal shirt. Seeing them play for the first time – maybe the only time I will ever see them in person – was incredible. And if it is the only time, that night will live crystal clear in my memories forever.
Arsenal hasn’t won much in the seventeen years that I’ve been a supporter. Their best success was in the FA Cup, a competition between teams at all levels in England, winning it four times between 2014 and 2020. They made it to a few League Cup finals but were never successful, and the less said about the loss in the UEFA Europa League final on my birthday in 2019, the better.
The last time Arsenal won the Premier League was in 2003/04 when an incredibly special group of players did something that no other team has done. They went the entire thirty-eight-game schedule unbeaten, and that group of players is now known as the Invincibles. I became a supporter two years later, and I have never experienced a Premier League-winning season in the seventeen years that have passed. In fact, they’ve only finished as high as second once in that span. The last six seasons have garnered finishes ranging from fifth place to eighth.
But there is something different about this season. And it’s not just that Arsenal has been top of the table for all but about four days of the season. Something special is happening in North London. This group of players that has been assembled is exceptional. The manager, Mikel Arteta, is brilliant. The way the club is run, from the way that there is investment from the owners to the social media posts, seems to be keeping the club motto in mind. Victory grows out of harmony.
Victoria Concordia Crescit.
It’s been a seventeen-year journey to get to this point where things seem to be in harmony for my beloved club on the pitch, and where things are finally starting to be in harmony in my own life. It’s almost as if everything that both the club and I have gone through in the past seventeen years was always leading to this moment.
Even if Arsenal doesn’t lift the Premier League trophy in May, this season has been so special that I will never forget it or the people who are involved. And if we don’t win, this season has renewed my hope that we’re not too far away from being there, and I’ll look forward to next season.
I’ll probably never let go of the pain if they don’t lift that trophy though. This season has been that special.
I don’t care if Arsenal wins or loses. I don’t care if we win pretty, win ugly, lose pretty, or lose ugly. I don’t care if we get relegated. I just need Arsenal to exist. For as long as Arsenal exists, I’ll have a reason to.
Okay, maybe all of that is a bit of a stretch because I desperately want Arsenal to succeed. I want them to win every game they play and fill the trophy cases with silverware and get recognition worldwide for being the incredible club they are. I want to beat Manchester United 39-0 and I want every player on the team to score twenty hat tricks against Spurs and I want to beat Barcelona in the Champions League final just to get revenge for 2006. But if none of that happens – and it most certainly won’t – I’ll still be okay. Arsenal will still be my club, and they’ll still exist, and I’ll still exist.
And so every Saturday from August till May, and sometimes Sundays or midweek depending on the schedule, I make time for Arsenal. Sometimes it means 6:30 a.m. kickoffs, but I’ll find a way to be awake for them. There are times when I’m too nervous to watch the games live, so on those occasions, I listen to the radio broadcast provided through the club’s official website. Sometimes, I’m live on the LGRN Twitch channel, doing a watchalong with some of my friends. Most of the time, I’m alone in front of my television, just happy to be spending two hours watching my favorite team in the world because it just makes everything in my life a little bit better.
And, I suppose, that’s what sports are all about. It’s always there, always a part of you. It’s something that you get to be part of. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are or how you choose to show your support. It’s about what matters when there’s nothing between you and the pitch and the game and it doesn’t matter who is sitting next to you or who you’re going to tell about it afterward. It’s all about being part of something, and something being a part of you. And really, how can you ask for any more than that?
I am not a perfectly normal person and I am not okay with that. I’m not sure I’ll ever be. And I don’t even know who I am, no matter how many times I try to fool myself into thinking that I’ve figured it out. But there is one thing about myself that I know and do not question.
I’m a Gooner.
