Oliver Sears

A large, passionate, tribal football crowd is exhilarating, consuming and terrifying.

Football is a bit like diplomacy.

They're both war by other means.

Arsenal won 4-0.

You always remember your very first game.

I was hooked.

I applied for a season ticket and went to matches religiously for the next two years.

Here was a zone my parents did not enter and knew very little about.

It was almost like having a secret from them.

Here was a place where I could remain forever a child, where childish responses and reactions were encouraged and even promoted, especially by the players.

Here I could unplug my whirring pre-teenage angst and join another kind of pretend battlefield for two hours every other weekend.

I met my wife Catherine a little over ten years ago.

In order to be in contention, I soon realised I would have to meet with the approval of the twins, her beloved niece and nephew, who were nine at the time.

Luck was with me for half the problem, as Gowan, it turned out, was a keen Arsenal fan.

On learning that I was of the same persuasion, he confided in his aunt that we had a lot in common.

Having found a collaborator in my future wife's courtship, I plotted a path to proposal.

The initial gifts of Arsenal paraphernalia would be augmented by arranging for him to see his first game at Arsenal's new home, the Emirates Stadium.

On the day, he was literally shaking with delight, unable to govern the euphoria that swept him up.

These are glorious moments to instigate and take vicarious delight in.

Of course they're unique, but more importantly the moment is suspended in the memory, an insulated juvenile pleasure that is tapped every time we football addicts watch a new game.