From The Cradle to the Cannon: How My Son and I Found Home in Arsenal FC

In a little over 100 days, the World Cup comes to the Americas and there is a solid possibility that I will have to apologize to my friends and family for the person I am about to become.

Football (not soccer, never soccer) does things to a girl. 

I’m an England fan. I always have been – I mean, one of my core memories is sitting in my living room and watching Gazza weep in the semi-finals against West Germany. 

Yes, West Germany.

I am older than dirt. 

Despite being an England fan, I didn’t grow up with a Premier League club. 

I grew up in Southall, England – a decidedly South Asian enclave in West London – and our local club, Southall FC is currently valiantly clinging to the bottom rung of the English football league system. 

(They’re currently 17th in the Isthmian League so unless Kumail Nanjiani, Kunal Nayyar and Kal Penn wanna pull a Ryan and Rob, I get the feeling promotion won’t be in the future).  

Besides, cricket was more my family’s game. My dad, uncles and grandparents would watch this interminably long and boring game with the kind of intensity which made you wonder if someone was going to get shot at the end of a match. 

Other than my grandfather doing the pools every week, football didn’t really factor into my life except once every two years during the Euro and World Cups. 

And then, my son was born.

Childbirth and motherhood reconfigure your entire existence. The things that used to matter become irrelevant and you find yourself obsessed with things like fruit purees and researching gifted programs at Palm Beach County public schools…even though your son is only two months old and has no concept of object permanence yet.  

During those early days and sleepless nights, there was this persistent itch in the back of my brain – Will needed a club. 

Almost in the same way he needed $50 baby formula for his milk protein allergy. 

Silly, really. I mean, he’s an American born in Florida. It would make more sense to indoctrinate him into the world of long-suffering Miami Dolphins fandom, but for some reason that I can’t even explain, this really mattered to me. 

My son needed a club. He needed a home.

But where does an England fan who doesn’t have a Premier League home go?

She goes searching. 

I started with the players I liked watching. 

Michael Owen, for example. He looked a little like Scott Wolf and my God, that goal against Argentina in ’98 was pure cinema but Liverpool? Not a chance. I grew up in London and my club had to be based there. 

That left me with seven options:

• Brentford – Four miles down the road from where I grew up but nothing about the club excited me.
• Chelsea – I don’t like Frank Lampard. 
• Crystal Palace – Meh. It’s a South London club that I had no connection to.
• Fulham – Meh. It’s a South London club that I had no connection to. 
• Tottenham Hotspurs – Just because I watched Gazza cry doesn’t mean I have to support his former club. Also, I don’t really like Gazza. 
• West Ham – I don’t like Frank Lampard. 

And then, there was Arsenal. 

I don’t have any connection to North London, but I liked Ashley Cole (I learned better later), I liked “Uncle” Ian Wright’s infectious enthusiasm as a commentator and I loved Bukayo Saka. He went to Greenford High School – the school I would have gone to if I hadn’t moved to the States – and my heart wept for him when he missed that penalty during the 2020 World Cup. 

Arsenal felt different and after about five minutes on the internet, I learned that Arsenal was different.

It was a club for us – all of us. 

Arsenal was the first to have 11 non-English players start for them and on September 28, 2002, Arsenal FC were the first club to have nine Black players in a starting XI. 

If you are Brown or Black, Arsenal feels welcoming. Arsenal feels like home. 

I started watching matches at home, baby and bottle in arm, cooing the players names to my sleeping son – “We have three Gabbys – one, two, three…”

Two years ago, I learned that the local chapter of Arsenal supporters – The Palm Beach Invincibles – were starting up at The Irishmen Pub in Boca Raton so I threw on my Declan Rice jersey, wrangled Will into his Saka jersey and headed over.

Barely four at the time, Will started an “Arsenal” chant during the match and in that moment, I knew we were home. 

This year, I’ll watch the World Cup as I do every four years and I don’t know with any certainty if it’s coming home, but I do know that I’ve found a home – in Boca Raton, in North London and everywhere they wear red and white with a cannon on their chest.