I was 13 years old when I started watching football. Not because someone introduced me to it, not because it was the popular thing to do in school, but because I stumbled on to a match one night and saw a team in red and white that played with such grace it almost felt unfair.

That team was Arsenal. The year was 2002. And just like that, without any warning, I had handed over a piece of myself to 11 men in North London who would spend the next two decades making me question every life decision I had ever made.

Let me tell you something about being an Arsenal fan in Karachi in those early years.

People had heard of Arsenal, yes, but it was a distant kind of awareness, the sort you have about something that exists without really mattering to anyone around you. Manchester United filled schoolyards. Real Madrid and Barcelona had supporters everywhere you looked. Arsenal had a reputation, a history, but almost no one in your circle actually followed them.

Arsenal won the English Premier League this year after 22 years. One Gooner from Karachi recounts why he supported the club for better or worse for so many years and explains what this victory means to him…

Arsenal won the English Premier League this year after 22 years. One Gooner from Karachi recounts why he supported the club for better or worse for so many years and explains what this victory means to him…

And on top of that, the English Premier League has never had a proper broadcast in Pakistan. Not back then, and not today. There is no channel you can turn to, no simple way to just switch on the television and find your team. There was a dark room, a television set, a very unreliable internet connection, and the quiet determination to follow this club regardless.

I spent years pestering relatives visiting from London to bring back Arsenal jerseys in their suitcases. Shirts, scarves, whatever they........

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