The cultural cachet of being a Gooner is higher than it’s ever been
22 years is a long time to wait for anything. For Arsenal fans, who’ve been Premier League runners up for the past three seasons, those 22 years have felt like a lifetime. Following the 1-1 draw between Manchester City and Bournemouth on Tuesday night that finally cemented Arsenal as champions, the emotional floodgates opened.
There were roars heard across the city after the final whistle. Thousands of fans, including Ian Wright and Jeremy Corbyn, spontaneously gathered outside the Emirates Stadium and celebrated well into the early hours. Prime Minister Keir Starmer congratulated the team in the House of Commons. Arsenal anthem ‘The Angel (North London Forever)’ soared through the iTunes charts to #3. Arsenal shirts have been spotted across the city. North London went wild and the players haven’t even lifted the trophy yet. The official parade (and potentially a Champions League victory) is still to come. There were celebrations in Nairobi, New York, and Kampala. This is about more than just sport.
Yes, Arsenal have been pioneers in the footballing sphere. Arsene Wenger is widely credited with revolutionising the English game when he became Arsenal manager, by implementing training and nutrition programmes based around sports science and introducing a new kind of tactical philosophy. The Invincibles went unbeaten for the entirety of the 2003/04 season, a first and unequalled achievement in the modern era. But there have been moments, like being the first club to field nine Black players in a Premier League starting XI in 2002, that reflect Arsenal’s cultural impact as well as its footballing prowess.
This is something that Dr Clive Chijioke Nwonka explores in Black Arsenal, the book he co-edited about the club’s relationship with Black identity. He looks at how iconic players like Brendon Baston, Paul Davis, David Rocastle, Michael Thomas, Kevin Campbell, Sol Campbell, Ian Wright, Kanu, Thierry Henry, and Bukayo Saka have attracted a multicultural fanbase, and in doing so, made Arsenal representative of a diverse city.
Arsenal in the Community has been using sport, social and education programmes to positively impact young people since 1985. There are dedicated women’s and girls’ programmes, the No More Red campaign tackles the root causes of youth violence, and the club celebrates Pride in partnership with its LGBTQ+ supporters’ club GayGooners.
As well as a special Love Unites training kit for Pride and the all-white shirt for the No More Red campaign, Arsenal has done a Jamaican-inspired pre-match jersey in honour of Notting Hill Carnival (which was worn by reggae singer Koffee at Carnival in 2022). The club released a limited-edition range with TfL featuring the Piccadilly Line moquette celebrating the club’s connection to the Underground (Arsenal is famously the only club to have a tube station named after it). Nwokna has described an Arsenal shirt as the “uniform” of the city.
And the club’s links with fashion run even deeper. There have been collab collections with London labels like A-COLD-WALL, Good Squish and Aries, and Stella McCartney has created ranges with Arsenal Women.
Foday Dumbuya, founder of London-based label LABRUM, designed Arsenal’s black 24/25 away kit, featuring the colours of the Pan-African flag. The brand held its S/S 25 fashion show for its ‘Designed by an Immigrant: Journey of Triumphs’ collection pitch-side at the Emirates, which Declan Rice walked in. Earlier this spring, Myles Lewis-Skelly debuted a pair of then-unreleased snakeskin Adidas x Wales Bonner Predator boots on the pitch. Just days before Arsenal’s league triumph, fellow midfielder and fashionista Declan Rice was profiled in British Vogue.
Writing in his Brands in Sport newsletter, David Skilling says, “Sport alone no longer defines identity; culture does. Arsenal aren’t abandoning their history, they’re expanding its language. By collaborating with brands that reflect the city’s creative pulse, they’re redefining what it means to be a London club, inclusive, design-led, globally relevant.”
The global relevance spreads beyond fashion, with the likes of 21 Savage referencing Arsenal in his lyrics, NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani professing his love for the team on the campaign trail, Spike Lee directing a short film for the club, and Anne Hathaway talking about Arsenal and the title race in press junkets for The Devil Wears Prada 2.
Arsenal is arguably the biggest club in London, it’s (currently) the best in England, and it has a fanbase that stretches around the world. With this new generation of champions pushing the club and the culture forward, Arsenal could go stratospheric.
*signed an Arsenal fan*
