Arsenal has become the club of the Irish diaspora
The cliche has already been done to death. But it is true – what else could flood the streets of north London late at night on a random Tuesday with so many people? Plenty showed up to the various people’s vote marches in 2018 – but that was during the day and on the weekend. The Iraq war inspired big crowds too, but again, not on a school night. No, this was Arsenal winning the Premier League for the first time in 22 years. And the roads around the Emirates Stadium succumbed to about the most good-natured mob I have ever seen.
Arsenal have worked hard to earn a reputation as the club of the effete and metropolitan. Were you to want a last-minute matchday table at Trullo – a neighbourhood Italian with a reputation for a particularly good beef shin ragu – you might have to sacrifice a first born to the gods. Same goes for all the other small-plate, wine-bar type spots scattered through the shadow of the Emirates. When asked to conjure a stock image of an English football fan, how many of you are putting him in a Canali suit? Arsenal Man has two.
But the point of Arsenal is the diversity, the spread, the broad church of it all. It is not just a warm bath for the elite. The economic polarity contained within just the borough of........
