Arsenal through the generations

Handbrake Off: The Athletic FC's Arsenal show

The Athletic

Soccer, Football, Sports

4.6 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 3 March 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How much are football perceptions coloured by age? To what extent is the football experience consumed and digested differently according to how new or old you are to the game?

These questions came up when one of our Arsenal correspondents, Art De Roché, had what he described as an “existential” conversation with his friend in the wake of the week which virtually extinguished hopes of a Premier League title. Art is in his mid-20s. Arsenal last won the title when he was five, so there is no strong memory of such an achievement. It made him wonder to what extent this shapes his Arsenal world compared to older fans who were there to see major trophies and iconic eras from the club’s story.

So, The Athletic decided to pull together a multi-generational gathering to compare notes and feelings, to establish what four generations share in their Arsenal experience, and what differs, based on when they happened to be thrust into this world.

The conversation flowed between four supporters whose first game ranged from the 1950s to the 2010s. The cast is Arthur, who represents the teenagers, Art, the 20-somethings, Amy in the middle-aged bracket, and Richard, the veteran.

Produced by Jay Beale.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Athletic FC Podcast Network.
0:07.2	The only way to score is, of course, to play with a handbreak-off.
0:14.5	Hello, I'm Ian Stone, and this is Handbreak-Off, the Arsenal podcast, brought to you by The Athletic.
0:20.8	Now, as you will know, we didn't have a game this weekend.
0:23.4	So the good people at The Athletic thought they'd bring you a little special podcast.
0:28.0	And for some inexplicable reason, aside from the intro, they didn't need me to do anything.
0:33.2	So here's Amy Lawrence to tell you what it's all about.
0:36.6	Happy listening.
0:37.8	Hi, everyone.
0:38.4	Well, here at Handbreak, we thought this week we would do something a little bit different.
0:42.5	This idea was the inspiration of our very own Art de Roche, who, after the West Ham game,
0:49.1	when it looked like things were going a certain way as regards to the league,
0:52.9	I was talking to one of his mates and I think
0:56.0	in his own words had a bit of an existential crisis. But what it is to be an Arsenal fan and
1:01.8	wondering about how their experiences compared to others. And we had a little bit of a chat about this.
1:07.0	And I think often when you're on this pod art and when you're talking to some of us
1:11.6	who are a bit older than you and we're talking about things we've seen that Arsenal have won
1:15.5	and players we've seen that are invincible and all-time greats, there's an awareness that
1:20.4	your experience is not the same. So what we thought we'd do was a bit of a multi-generational
1:25.5	fan gathering. So we've gathered together representatives of different age groups
1:30.7	to try and get a handle on what we share about our Arsenal experience
1:35.2	and what might be completely different just by virtue of when we were born
	...

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