Arsenal’s hold on the streets and the elites

{"text":[[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":5.6,"text":"It looked to me like a “colour revolution”. A political journalist friend, less attached to Arsenal Football Club, made the same comparison. There is no knowing the number of people who converged in Islington — late on a weekday night, deep into a weekday dawn — to toast the Premier League champions, who were not even there. But similar scenes unfolded around the world. Jubilant fans include Sir Keir Starmer, not one but two east African heads of state, Zohran Mamdani, more celebrities than it is possible to name and — were they still with us, and if rumours of their allegiance are to be believed — Elizabeth II and Osama bin Laden. As for the social media content, it will take the summer to go through, such is the online preponderance of the fan base."}],[{"start":52.75,"text":"What explains the cultural reach of Arsenal? It was a big enough club when it last won the league in 2004 but its fans are now so all-pervading that I can almost understand the resentment of them. “We have the streets” is an Arsenal boast. But we also have the elites. If a BlackRock portfolio manager or High Court judge claimed to be off to a match, your first guess would be the Emirates Stadium. Each time I enter the place, I slightly shiver at its attractiveness to any modern-day Guy Fawkes who wanted to do in a big chunk of the establishment in one go. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":87.9,"text":"The strange thing is that Arsenal kept and vastly increased this clout during a disappointing era on the grass. Even historically, it is England’s third club, some way below Manchester United and Liverpool. What is the secret, then? Being in London helps, as so much of the world has a link to the place. But Chelsea are in the same city, if a less modish part of it. Another answer is that Arsenal have a certain halo as a result of not being a sovereign state’s asset. (Up against a UAE-owned club in the Premier League and a Qatar-owned one in the Champions League final, Arsenal stand out as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards of football.) On the other hand, how romantic can a club be whose owner is “just” a US billionaire? The stadium is named after a Gulf airline, the training complex after a Dubai real estate developer. This is not a Corinthian or gentleman-amateur outfit. "}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":null,"text":""}],[{"start":140.7,"text":"Still another theory dwells on race. Arsenal was a safe place for non-white fans and players in the bigoted past. But that has been true of almost all clubs since the millennium. The reputational glow of having been enlightened in the 1980s must run out at some point. (Is a star such as Anne Hathaway even aware of it?) As a final guess, some will cite the flair and swagger with which Arsenal have played. But that too is historic. The team now stands accused of the least spontaneous, most engineered football around. "}],[{"start":173.5,"text":"You are left to entertain a perverse conclusion. The lack of success over the past couple of decades was not a disadvantage. It was the making of the club. Following Arsenal took on a certain connotation, which we once would have called bohemian, and the unkind would now call hipster, or even liberal. (Arsenal’s catchment area, where seemingly everyone I know lives, reinforced that brand.) As long as the team was doing well enough, winning all the time would have been vulgar and obvious. Notice that celebs have had a decade and a half to develop a thing for Manchester City, and haven’t."}],[{"start":209.55,"text":"At the same time, the lack of major trophies forced the Arsenal fan base to distinguish itself in other ways. Hence the almost unbelievable scale and creativity of their online presence. Even Elon Musk has not been able to ruin Nigerian Arsenal Twitter. The outpouring this week was not just a reaction to prolonged disappointment, but also in a sense honed by it. "}],[{"start":233.95000000000002,"text":"And remember, that pandemonium in Islington was for a trophy that Arsenal have won 13 times in the past. Dear Londoners: just in case Arsenal win their first Champions League on May 30, and you don’t like the club or the sport, I advise that you book your outbound flights now."}],[{"start":257.65000000000003,"text":""}]],"url":"https://audio.ftcn.net.cn/album/a_1779536475_3079.mp3"}