Jonathan Liew

Islington is kind of used as a slur or an insult amongst large parts of the right-wing media.

So I think to be an Arsenal fan is to kind of exist at the locus of all these different kind of identities, personalities.

You feel besieged, but you also feel this sense of pride and also a huge amount of relief, obviously, at doing it after 22 years.

So I think that's why you see these huge outpourings of mass celebration, the need to go and seek out other people.

And yeah, I mean, it's one of those...

scenes where it doesn't matter whether you're a season ticket holder or a platinum member or a red member or you're just watching it in the pub or the telly at home or you're an online fan.

All of these kind of tribal divisions, internal divisions, don't seem to make any difference.

That's the beauty of football, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, there's a fantastic book that came out a couple of years ago called Black Arsenal, sort of an anthology of essays and reminiscences that places Arsenal not just at the heart of black footballing culture, but as a touchstone of black Britain, certainly in an era in the 80s and 90s where black players and certainly black fans were not always welcome at all clubs in England.

It really does.

You know, the big clubs are, you know, they're as followed, they're following every continent on the globe, you know, and they are kind of multinational brands.

It's been one of the great economic sort of soft power success stories of Britain in the last 30 years.

And Arsenal, I think they do attract a...

They do attract a very cosmopolitan internationalist crowd.

It has always been a very outward looking club in terms of its influences and the people that it chooses to appoint and the people that it appeals to.

Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question.

I mean, I guess a couple of things, really.

I mean, football clubs at this very rarefied level of achievement.

Arsenal are not the richest club in Britain.

They haven't won for 22 years.