When the Arsenal bus turned off Blackstock Road towards Newington Green, the heaving crowd was ready. It was only a brief moment, and one more than partially obscured by a drift of red smoke, but as the Premier League champions came past nobody was about to miss their shot. The phones were out, the zoom was pinched and the moment was captured. Then everyone darted off again.
If it was to catch the bus at another point on its odyssey around Islington, to go home, or just rejoin a picnic wasn’t entirely clear. This was not a celebration confined to the official route of the parade. Nor, even, strictly to celebrating Arsenal’s on-field success. It was more than that, and a lot more; a celebration of a community local and global, of an identity that has been forged in adversity and endless mockery, and a moment of joy for a generation that has often not had much to celebrate, full stop.
The Metropolitan police had estimated Arsenal’s title parade would be the biggest in English sporting history, predicting more than 1 million people would line the five-mile route. The packed trains coming into Kings Cross from the north and over the river from the south bore this out. There was also a steady stream of Lime bikes heading west from Hackney, while in and around Highbury itself, every resident was either on their stoop or the first-floor roof with a foldable chair. It was a roadblock around Finsbury Park, and on Holloway Road there was a crowd on top of the Tesco Extra. Some people had flags in their windows, another a Gunnersaurus towel. A middle-aged man was hobbling down the Holloway Road in full kit, including boots. The ratio of Arsenal shirts to every other kind of clothing was pretty much two to one.
Solene was waiting for the parade with her friend Zoe on Petherton Road in Highbury. Born in north London, she now lives in Birmingham with her family, and was working in the Democratic Republic of the Congo until Thursday when she took the decision to fly back for the parade (as had a Congolese colleague). “North London is everything to a lot of people who were raised here, which we both were,” Solene said, citing remarks by Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York and Arsenal fan. “He said that Arsenal represents not only north London, but all of London and, more than that, aspiration in general. And I’m really proud of that. I think you wouldn’t recognise this club compared to the one of, say, 50 years ago. It’s embraced everyone. Which is amazing, as it’s everyone’s game.”
Solene’s observations were backed up by the diversity of the crowds around her. Much like the spontaneous celebrations that sparked up when Arsenal won the league two weeks ago, this was an event to which everyone turned up. Black Londoners were to the fore, in a way rarely seen inside a Premier League football ground, but every ethnicity and nationality in London was present. There were hijabis marching down Holloway Road with flags around their shoulders, there were men chanting about Declan Rice in Turkish on Seven Sisters Road and Colombians with good seats and stuffed cool boxes in Clissold Park.
There were young and old, male and female, but if this parade belonged to anyone, it was those under the age of 30. They were everywhere and often wearing the shirts of Arsène Wenger’s Invincibles, the last Arsenal team to win the Premier League, in 2004, and a side of whom they will likely have no direct memory. These are the fans who have grown up in the banter era, when Arsenal were the butt of many a joke, but also the age of hyper-commercial football, where a day out at the game might cost you a week’s wages. They are, furthermore, the generation of social media and Covid and the global financial crash. As one young man (from south London) explained his reasons for turning up: “Everyone’s looking for a bit of happiness.”
The final destination of the parade was the Emirates Stadium and a ceremony that was not opened to the crowds. This didn’t seem to matter much to most, with people spilling into the empty roads to sing and shout and a number of sound systems on Holloway Road creating a vaguely carnival-like feel. Away from the hubbub, two more north Londoners, born and bred, were discussing how things had changed.
Kenny and Andrew could recall standing on the corner of Liverpool Road in 1971 to welcome Bertie Mee’s Double winners. “Back then you would get right behind the bus and just follow it,” said Andrew, now 60. “You’d shout things at the players and they’d shout back, then they’d all give a speech at the town hall. There was a real back and forth. Today the bus just raced past and the players barely noticed you.”
The two friends were not sure quite how many of those on the streets were long-standing Arsenal fans and were astonished at the amount of money people had seemed to spend in order to party, especially on the replica shirts that start at £80 nowadays. “It’s a lot bigger than the celebrations used to be,” Kenny said with something of a sigh. “But I understand it. It’s a complicated world right now and you’ve got to take your joy when you can.”