Arsenal had been in possession of the Premier League trophy for less than 48 hours, and there it was, perfectly positioned in the corner of the boardroom at the training ground, mounted so it overlooked the training pitches the players had practised on all season long.
Everybody who entered the room could not help but fix their eyes on it. It was like staring at the Mona Lisa. From every vantage point, it stopped you in your tracks and demanded attention. Luckily, it was well polished to deal with the smears of kisses as it had been passed around during the coronation. But it was peaceful now, a thing of beauty and meaning to be admired.
At the end of a meeting, Mikel Arteta pushed back his seat to dash off to the next one, but on his way out, he couldn’t help detour for a less direct exit so he could reach out a hand to touch the trophy again. Yes, it was real.
Arteta had visualised it for a long time but when Arsenal finally got their hands on it, the feeling was not as he had imagined. “It was much better,” he says. “That moment when Stan and Josh are bringing the trophy at Selhurst Park. Martin comes in, he picks it up, they are walking over. I was just looking at the players’ faces, how much it means to them, and to see them gathering together and lifting it. It was incredible.”
Even those whose daily work revolves around Arsenal underestimated the number of people out there obsessed with the Premier League trophy. People needed to see it with their own eyes.
Unprecedented numbers descended upon Islington to celebrate, with around a million there on parade day alone. Some walked out their front door. Others flew in from outposts all over the world. Some were agile enough to climb trees and traffic lights. Others were pushed in wheelchairs and limped on crutches.
Tiny babies were held aloft. A 94-year-old local waved a homemade sign out of her window. Entertainment came in every style, from teenagers jumping around a jungle sound system to a composed artist capturing the crowd with paintbrush on canvas. This was a gargantuan cultural melting pot, with a myriad of backgrounds mingling together, and the one singular thing everyone had in common was Arsenal.
The scale and scope of it stretched way beyond football. It felt like a social phenomenon. Eberechi Eze could not believe what he witnessed over those heady days. Together with Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Jurrien Timber, he was part of the crew that felt compelled to go to Emirates Stadium at 5am after the first spontaneous mass gathering took place when Manchester City dropped points at Bournemouth and Arsenal were crowned champions. As the sun rose these players bumped into a few sleepless fans. They shared the moment, chatting away like old friends. Something they couldn’t easily explain gripped them all.
“There are no words to describe this thing properly, what we're feeling, what we're going through, what this moment means,” Eze reflected. “To see the joy that you've brought, not just to London, but all over the world, like videos of guys in Uganda doing backflips. This isn't just about winning the title as a group of players. This is about something that represents an area, represents values, represents people's dreams and London and all that stuff. This is what Arsenal is within the community, culturally. Arsenal is the culture club. It is deeply profound.”
Since 2004, the last Premier League title they celebrated, the world has changed. Social media was in its infancy; few mobile phones had the capacity to take a decent picture, let alone video; and the impact of elite football teams was not as widespread.
There was less toxic provocation and angry mockery in general discourse. For people who pin themselves to Arsenal, this modern triumph tapped into something. An explosion of overjoyed emotion splurged all over the streets and everyone – and when it comes to Arsenal that means absolutely everyone – was welcome.
It is worth reliving the reach of this outpouring. It started on the green fringe of London, as Arsenal’s players, coaches and staff gathered at the training ground to see the competition falter. At the defining moment the title was confirmed, they leapt into oblivion, screaming.
At the same time thousands of residents who live close to the Emirates opened their doors and rushed to the stadium. This wasn’t just a celebration. This was a movement. A crusade. A sacred quest. It was wrapped up in identity and belonging. The congregation was a rich flow of multiculturalism – or, more exactly, multiArsenalism.
The significance electrified North London but also had global impact.
In Kenya, the Samburu Gunners gathered. They are a semi-nomadic group of cattle herders in the vast, rugged landscape who share their love for a faraway football team.
In Australia, Melbourne to be precise, it was 4.30am and a crowded pub was in chaos.
In China, the Canton Tower, once the tallest in the world, was lit up with an Arsenal crest.
In Italy, Pierluigi sat at his piano and sang with all his heart as he played the chord progressions to The Angel.
In Myanmar, an Arsenal supporter in Pyinmana, a logging town 200 miles north of the capital, gave out free biriyani to fellow Gunners.
In Ethiopia, the main drag in Addis Ababa was at a standstill with tooting cars and people dancing in the street.
In India, a green open-top bus of red-shirted locals drove through Kozhikode, a coastal town in Kerala, with flares and flags and Freed From Desire blaring out.
In Nigeria, the bishop of a church in Lagos led his service by singing for Arsenal.
In New York City, the mayor attended an Eid celebration wearing a kurta made from the fabric of Arsenal’s away shirt.
In Islington, in the garden of a house just the other side of the Hornsey Road Tunnel, JD, so dedicated he follows both the men's and women's teams over land and sea, put a flame to a firework which lit up the night sky above the masses liberating all their joy at the stadium. It turned out to be an unforgettable party.
For Chief Executive Officer Richard Garlick, it encapsulated so much about why this season felt so significant. “Seeing all the connections coming together, the supporters, the players, the staff, the community and ownership, was so special,” he said. "We have awoken a giant, and seeing the joy and energy that awakening has sparked gives us all so much pride."
"When the time came to hire Mikel, the entire conversation we had with him was about culture and reinventing that"
Why is there this special connectivity? Where does it come from? There are many reasons. It starts with history, from the era when Arsenal was a pioneer in the 1980s to be the first club that made immigrants in London feel welcome. In an era when hooliganism blighted the game in England, the capital’s significant Irish, African, Greek, Turkish, East European and West Indian communities, amongst others, found Arsenal was a rarity in that it was a relatively safe and mixed place to watch football.
On the pitch, too, young black Londoners graced the shirt and became heroes. Then came Arsene Wenger, the first successful foreign coach, and a philosophy and style where only talent mattered, not passports. At home and overseas, people noticed. They identified with it.
More recently, there has been a significant shift in trying to pull supporters who had been drifting back in. That was one of Arteta’s priorities from day one. Co-chair Josh Kroenke recalls how instinctively he felt our former midfielder was keyed up to address not just the team but, more broadly, the sense of club when he was appointed manager in 2019.
“When the time came to hire Mikel, the entire conversation we had with him was about culture and reinventing that,” Josh remembers. "He loved being involved. You knew he had high ambitions on the coaching side of it, and talking about culture with him was a big conversation. You could see him lock in. He had done his homework, he knew what was going on, and he understood there was a big task ahead of him.”
Josh has taken on a central role in the story. Together with his father, Stan, when they first bought into Arsenal they stayed more in the background. But things really began to change during the winter of 2017-18 when Josh spent two months in London to observe fully and clearly how the club was running, to help him to better inform decisions to push the club forwards. “I really started to invest myself,” he explains. Then KSE took full ownership and that freed them up to back the club with more clarity.
His relative youth in ownership terms, and his own sporting background as a boyhood soccer player and then a college basketball player who was talented enough to have the responsibility of taking pressure shots in front of a 10,000-strong crowd, helps him to combine a business take with a human perspective when he spends time at Arsenal. Over lunch in the restaurant at the training ground, a string of newly crowned champions come over to say ‘hello' and greet the club’s owner with warmth and connection, not distance and deference.
He laughs when he remembers how he had forgotten about the microphones hidden in the saltshakers for the Amazon documentary which captured him supporting the manager at a tough time when the 2021/22 season opened with three losses. But, just as pertinently, it works both ways. “Mikel's picked me up before,” Josh adds. “Maybe he doesn't realise it, but we all need it every now and then, especially living in the furnace that we do at times.”
Josh remembers that as one of the challenging pivot points along the long route towards lifting a trophy. He anticipated it would be a tricky start to that season, with the team evolving, significant injuries, and an unhelpful set of opening fixtures. “When that fixture list was released, knowing the transition phase we were in, I turned to my dad and said, ‘We're going to start 0-3 and the world is going to call for Mikel's head'. And he kind of chuckled.” They are not easily phased. They had a process they planned on trusting.
This season, Josh has observed a quality in the camp based on having not just excellent players, but excellent people. “We’re very thankful for everyone, for coming together in the way that we have over a period of years. The cool thing about this group is they are all really good people. When you come into the building it is very warm. Mikel calls them ‘champions of life'. They want to see each other do well. Even if it's not them, they want to see the other guy doing well. That's the power of a real team.”
That team evolved in the summer of 2025. It was Andrea Berta’s first window as Arsenal’s ambitious new Sporting Director and he was extremely active. The priority was to create enough depth to prevent a repeat of the extensive injury crisis which hampered prospects the previous season. Eight new players joined and the super-talented teenager Max Dowman was officially promoted.
Berta’s character and intense ambition was a good fit and he got straight into assessing the situation and how he could help. “One of the things that struck me immediately when I arrived here at Arsenal was the human quality of the dressing room, of the players who were part of this team,” he says. “During the summer transfer window, a focus we both had, Mikel and I, was to improve the team technically. But first we wanted to improve it humanly, because for us, the group, its integrity and its maturity was the most important aspect. Without that, we knew we couldn't achieve certain goals.
“When a team like Arsenal hasn't won for so many years, it's natural that there's additional pressure, on the team, the players, the staff, and the ownership. Arsenal is a big family, embracing and protecting all the players, not just those in the first team but also those in the youth teams, guiding them and helping them grow and achieve their goals, while always upholding the club's essential values. The club transmits what the Kroenke family has built throughout their experience in sports: winning and sustainability.”
The team were on their pre-season tour of Asia when Viktor Gyokeres’s signing was confirmed. Richard Garlick and some members of staff were in a bar in Singapore and witnessed a huge cheer from local supporters as the news filtered through, another reminder of the impact the club has on the lives of its followers around the globe. New faces kept coming. Three Spaniards in Martin Zubimendi, Cristhian Mosquera, Kepa Arrizabalaga. Piero Hincapie became the club’s first player from Ecuador, which made for a great song. Christian Norgaard brought generous wisdom and support. Noni Madueke crossed London to join his great friend Bukayo Saka.
There was an extra emotional hit when Eze’s world was turned upside down and he got his dream move. With Tottenham closing in on a transfer, he was encouraged to make a fateful call to Arteta. “I'm only here because Declan told me to just call him,” Eze recalls, shaking his head in wonder. As a spiritual man, he sincerely believes it was meant to be, and that the message came from a higher power, through Rice, to change the course of his life. The signing of Eze, the boyhood Arsenal fan, who was at Hale End and had to move on and take a very circuitous route back, elated the crowd.
The original hope was to get everything done in time for his unveiling before the first home game of the season against Leeds. Getting the paperwork finalised was a race against time, however. Eze was not allowed to go into Emirates Stadium until he was officially an Arsenal player so had to be driven around the local streets as supporters were arriving for the match, not knowing who was in a car cruising by. It ended up being a madly emotional entrance all round, with Ian Wright bringing him onboard with his unique brand of love.
All the new players had to settle and learn the ways of the club. Eze was blown away by the attention to detail. “I've learned and realised everything matters. There's not one thing that you do that is neutral. It's either helping you or it's not helping,” he says. “So I've noticed the importance of attitude, mindset, the conversations you have, your application every single day. I can see that it's those little details that make the difference along the way. What Mikel has done is special. I don't think you'll understand the effect he's had and what it takes to create something like he's done. He's come in and completely changed the whole identity and turned it into something else and put it in motion and allowed it to express itself and be free. The opportunity that's provided is just insane. I have to thank him massively for that. I love that we were able to do this for him and to achieve this for him.”
As captain, Martin Odegaard takes a little extra responsibility for making new players feel at home. “I've been there myself a lot of times, I've been alone in different teams, I've changed clubs a few times, I know what it's like to come to a new place, and it's always a bit tricky in the beginning, and it takes some time for you to feel comfortable and settle in,” he says. “So I try to help them in any way I can, if there's something off the pitch, on the pitch, tactical things. Then the culture is so strong that it's not really needed to tell anyone. You just understand it as soon as you come into this building and you see how we work, how we all speak to each other, they will feel it straight away.
“We really care for each other. We really help each other. We fight for each other. We give everything, every single day, for each other. We're so into it. We live this so intensely every single day. The energy, you can't describe it. There are so many people behind the scenes as well, physios, chefs, all types of people giving everything they can for us. We come in, we meet someone in the reception with a smile on their face, even if you win or lose, giving you energy.”
As the season began it soon became clear the rock upon which the league challenge was built was a committed attitude to defending and collectively giving nothing away. The defensive diamond built around David Raya and his golden glove, the metaphorical stepbrothers William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes, with Rice patrolling in front of them, was a superb foundation. The full-backs supported them, the midfield aimed to keep control, and the range of attackers was needed to chip in whenever they could.
There were so many magic moments required to win a league as relentlessly tough as this. Everybody contributed along the way. Raya’s countless reflex, match-winning saves – particularly at the London Stadium when everything was on the line. Zubimendi announcing himself with two sublime goals against Nottingham Forest. Gabriel Martinelli’s single, crucial, Premier League goal to lob Gianluigi Donnarumma. Gabriel and Mikel Merino’s headers to defeat Newcastle. Eze’s quintet over two games against Tottenham.
Gabriel Jesus after a year out coming back in to score against Aston Villa. Saka’s massive goal to beat Brighton away on a pivotal day that also saw more brilliance from Raya. Riccardo Calafiori’s improvised scorpion clearance. Hincapie’s crunching tackle to protect the game against Everton. Myles Lewis-Skelly coming into midfield in the run-in to breathe new boldness and confidence into the team. Gyokeres’s goal just before half-time against Fulham sending everyone crazy with belief. Odegaard creating that vital strike for Leo Trossard at West Ham. Kai Havertz rising to score the winner against Burnley…
A special mention, too, for 16-year-old Dowman. First the cross for Gyokeres to score in that game against Everton and then the elation of his record-breaking, solo run. The energy inside the stadium went to a new dimension and it was a defining image to sum up the collective will to make it happen this season.
There were moments off the pitch, too. Ben White, having run his body into the ground in the name of Arsenal, stole the show with the microphone at the parade (he will never need to buy a burger again). Norgaard was one of the most important voices in the dressing room when the hardest questions were asked of the team. Jurrien Timber’s excellence lifts levels but, in a deeper sense, supporters wait for his bible verses to drop.
Rice, such a hero all season, also took time to meet two young supporters, Alex and Dan, whose friend took his own life, in order to support the Together Against Suicide initiative conceptualised and driven by Arsenal supporter Roman Kemp. Madueke, who so enthusiastically fitted in with the Arsenal family, took a walk around the stadium with the community for the No More Red campaign which tackles youth violence. Saliba’s immense consistency is a shining light but behind the scenes so too is his renowned humour, which brings lightness and breaks the mood when Arsenal need it. Just to emphasise it again, this team is full of what Arteta calls 'champions of life'.
People who love Arsenal are often attracted to something beyond just the shirt or the game. Whether it is Postman Dave who delivers round the streets of Highbury or Anne Hathaway lending Hollywood stardust by parading the club colours on the red carpet at the premiere of the biggest movie of the year, they feel part of the values the club represents.
Maintaining momentum over a season in which bumps and blips are inevitable requires a lot of imagination to come up with small things that can make a big difference. Arteta, following in the traditions of the greatest managers of the past in Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger, is an innovator and a master of using inspiration in all sorts of thought-provoking forms.
Music played a huge part in motivating the team along the way. Louis Dunford’s The Angel has become such an important part of the fabric of the Arsenal experience, and the local songwriter gave several performances for the players this season, including at the big fundraiser “A Night To Belong”, which was back for the first time since the pandemic to support the work of the Arsenal Foundation. He was also there to sing for them after winning the league, and Sampha played Indecision – with the moving lyric to 'let it all work out'.
Over the season, the songbook extended inside the dressing room. Arteta is a big believer in the power of music and the team established a few new favourites. An original piece, which namechecks everyone, was found by a member of staff and introduced one day, taking off immediately. It became an anthem, one that will always take them back to this team and this season.
Imagery is another significant driving force. Arsenal learned from the errors of a corporate tifo last season and engaged with local supporters and fan groups to up their game. One of them is Ed Fenwick, a supporter who started 1886 with his friend, Max, ten years ago to create original, independent t-shirts and fanzines. He was contacted by the club and invited for a coffee to open some dialogue about how to do better. “What we tried to do is support this thing we are totally in love with but also try to hold the club to account,” he says. “That seems to have opened up a space and the club are now working with photographers and designers. They asked if we were interested in doing something for the club. We went along with it to create something which is what tifos are meant to be. They are not meant to be milk toast, pieces of fabric that just say, ‘We love you Arsenal’. The result was amazing and it has galvanised the crowd.” Against Tottenham at home, a huge collage of North London domination on top of a knockout phrase from The Angel – these streets are our own — dropped from the North Bank roof and the roars of approval hit hard.
Beth Shea is Arsenal’s Senior Events and Experience Manager. She focused on listening and learning from those with their finger on the fans' pulse. It has to be authentic. “Who knows our history better than our supporters?” she says. “It is about what resonates with them. We have these forums who have come together from many creative backgrounds to create iconic club moments. It is about delivering these moments through more of a supporter lens. You could see Bukayo Saka walking across and giving a little look at the tifo and knowing it’s different to what we’ve experienced before. It is so important.”
It’s a connection rediscovered, a team fuelling its supporters and supporters fuelling a team.
As Arsenal’s PA Matchday Announcer, Peter Mujuzi is another who plays his part in driving that, whether through his choice of music or his calling of goalscorers’ names. “The energy we’re trying to bring may change from game to game but essentially we’re trying in the moment to feel the pulse of the supporters because, at the end of the day, the fanbase connects with the team and the team responds to that.”
Faith is another aspect that some of the players leaned into during the season. Eze describes how it adds another layer of support to the work they do. “It is that spiritual element of not just working with what you can see, but the feeling in the group like we're trying to affect the unseen,” he explains. “There's a big demand on that in this team. There are a lot of religious people, we spend a lot of time talking, praying, doing bible study, so there's a huge importance on affecting the unseen in this team.”
Every detail this season counted. Every positive vibration was needed to counteract the blows and pile-ons, to prompt a reaction when needed. Losing to Manchester United stung. Drawing at Wolves shocked. Losing to Bournemouth devastated. This was one of the areas that Arteta handled expertly. His priorities were to take pressure off the team, and deliver positive messaging, during the toughest moments.
Josh remembers going out for dinner with Arteta as scrutiny was intensifying after United inflicted a damaging defeat at home. “I left with the confidence that we are going to do this,” he says.
Whatever metaphor worked, Arteta was all in. He came out ready to halt any waves of negativity. He called for unity, courage, enjoyment and invited everyone to get on board. “Jump in this boat,” he said, “It is going to be fun. A lot of incredible things are going to emerge.”
He wasn’t wrong.
The course built up to a crunch time over the last six weeks of the season in which something inside Arsenal crescendoed – this feeling of being part of something hurtling along its own course. Arsenal got to breathe what the actor Tom Hiddleston described as “rare air” and they breathed deep.
It began with Rice’s immortal command, spoken in the moment at full time as football digested the reality of Manchester City seeing off Arsenal at The Etihad. With that result, and the equations leaving the title in both team’s hands simultaneously, as far as the rest of football was concerned the destination of the Premier League lurched towards City. But Rice spoke from the heart. He felt something in Arsenal’s performance that day – a deep belief that they were hitting form that would push them through. “It’s not done,” he said, shaking his head in defiance.
It wasn’t only Rice who felt that so strongly. Berta saw something across the club at that moment that made him feel the same. “We never lacked the conviction that this was and would be our season, because we felt it and knew it. After the City game, despite the defeat, we understood that we were back, that after a difficult period in terms of results, we were back to playing as we could and should. Declan said it but we all felt it, 'It’s not done'.”
From there, each match involving the champion and challenger as they slugged it out swept Arsenal along the current towards the dam-breaking possibility of victory: First a nervy three points against Newcastle. Then something unusual happened as they demolished Fulham and the half-time whistle provoked a roar of appreciation from the crowd, sensing Arsenal were growing stronger. Two days later, City crucially slipped up at Everton. The following day, Arsenal’s players arrived to play Atletico Madrid and were bursting with excitement to see the red smoke and hear the crackling cheers as the team bus was greeted by thousands of fans who turned up early to play their part – yet another idea proposed and organised by supporters and helped along by the spirit of collaboration with the club.
Momentum surged on. Next came the madness of West Ham, and a VAR decision which is forever etched in Arsenal’s minds to cancel out a late equaliser and preserve three more precious points. Referee Chris Kavanagh’s words are already part of Arsenal folklore. “After review, West Ham No.19 commits a foul…"
The following week started with another win against Burnley to stretch the gap, which loaded pressure onto City at Bournemouth in the knowledge they could not afford to drop another point. The following night, Eli Junior Kroupi did an impressive Thierry Henry impression on the south coast. Then came the nervous countdown to full-time, to find out if a 22-year wait was finally over.
Josh had been in London for the Burnley game and then hopped on a plane back to the States. As he landed, his phone buzzed with news of that Kroupi goal. At full-time he dialled through to the man who masterminded it all. Arteta answered. “I got a video call from Josh immediately and we were almost in tears,” he remembers. “It was like, ‘We’ve done it!’ That joy, that relief, immediately, and the realisation that we are where we want to be.”
Eze felt this run-in was part of what he calls “a spiritual battle”. Arsenal’s faith was tested and eventually rewarded. “To do it the way we've done it after 22 years of seeing so much potential and so many opportunities to get there. Where I've grown up the majority of my friends are Arsenal fans and the love that you have for Arsenal is it's linked with suffering. There's beauty within the suffering and you have so much joy within — not achieving what you wanted to achieve or not quite getting there or finishing just before the line.”
Sometimes in the middle of a celebration it is hard to find the perspective to appreciate the depth of an achievement. To lead a championship as intense and demanding as the Premier League for most of the season and then find the energy for a sprint finish to win it. To top the league stage of the Champions League, reach the final undefeated, and take the holders and team Arteta regards as the best in football to penalties. To engineer a cultural revolution and improve year on year. So many key decisions, and so much resilience and hard work by so many people, precedes the moment of triumph.
It was time for a party at the Palace. Arsenal concluded their league campaign at a boiling Selhurst Park. The owners carried the trophy out onto the pitch (to be presented by Emmanuel Nmecha, a player and ambassador for the North London United Down's Syndrome team which plays at the Arsenal Hub and has a decade long connection with the club) and it was staggering how much things had changed. There were vigorous protests against KSE when Arsenal were one of the clubs that signed up to a European Super League. Now here they were hoisting the trophy in front of the cheers of lucky fans who got themselves into the away section (and a few other sections besides), with chants of U-S-A raining down on them. “I'm not naive to think that I'm always going to be the most popular figure with supporters, but it's nice to just know that regardless of difference of opinion, they know how much we care and are behind it,” Josh Kroenke said. "It meant the world to my dad and me to see people being able to enjoy themselves throughout the club.”
The players soaked up that champion feeling, lifting the cup with songs in their ears, medals round their necks and their families and friends close by. They did their best to savour it with the fans, before heading into central London for a well-deserved blowout. “That's why it means so much to us, because we've been through it three years now, and to be that close, either it breaks you or it gives you even more fuel,” contemplated Odegaard. “We've felt that pain. Failure — if you can call it that — is a part of the journey to success. You need to take that pain, and you need to feel it, and you need to use it, and that's what we've done. Then obviously the outside noise is a part of it as well, and you need to live with that, and I think we've done that brilliantly. The answer has just been hard work, sticking together, and now it has paid off.
“I was actually at home just watching my phone in the evening after we did it and I got properly emotional to see how much it means to people and just how connected everyone is. That something we do can mean so much to so many people, it's just an unbelievable feeling.”
They took those vibes into the next challenge that was right in front of them in the shape of the Champions League final in Budapest. The Arsenal fans outnumbered their PSG counterparts in the city, and it was notable how many club legends also made their way to be there too. Twenty years after the 2006 final, Arsene Wenger, Thierry Henry, Sol Campbell, Robert Pires and Jens Lehmann were watching on to see if this generation could surpass them.
It isn’t only supporters, but former players have also found a reconnection has fired up with this team. Freddie Ljungberg and Theo Walcott have been around all season. Nobody’s joy was bigger than Martin Keown and Ian Wright as they soaked up songs from the crowd at Selhurst Park while Arsenal celebrated the trophy. Andrey Arshavin and Kieran Gibbs hit the streets for the parade among the million or so supporters. Patrick Vieira sent a message from the last Arsenal captain of the Premier League champions to the current one.
Arsenal approached the Champions League final in the best way they know — a phenomenal group effort. They did their utmost to handle such high-quality opponents, led 1-0 through Havertz’s fine finish, and restricted PSG to a penalty equaliser, before the fates of the shoot-out favoured the Parisians. Taking it all in, the emotions were a mix of pain, pride and fuel to go at this again someday soon.
In the early hours, small groups of Gooners in the Hungarian capital went about their night in remarkably stoic spirits. They were hugging, throwing themselves into gallows humour, metaphorically holding each other up.
The climax to the season has increased the conviction within the club to keep pushing forwards. The planning meetings for next steps were underway even before the last ball of 2025-26 was kicked. “I've never had any doubts about the Kroenke family's ambitions to win, just as I've never had any doubts about the hunger for victory that Mikel has and transmits,” Berta observes. “The parade was unique, but at the same time, it gave me a sense of enormous responsibility for all those people who have shown their love for this club, a responsibility to continue doing our job to the best of our ability, striving to be ever more ambitious, because we have a duty to make all these extraordinary people happy and proud. So the next step is to continue on this path, all together. A club is made up of different components, many of which remain in the shadows but are indispensable. We must continue to work according to our values.”
There was something healing about morphing straight from the heartbreak of Budapest into the welcoming love of Islington and one of the most magnificent parades ever seen in the UK. That reminded everyone about what was important throughout this momentous season. Arsenal won the toughest league in the world. They won by resolutely trusting their process over several years. They won by unity, with everyone playing their part to the best of their ability – from ownership, to management, to coaches, to players, to club staff, to supporters, to Gunnersaurus and Win the dog. They won by strengthening bonds with a fanbase that a few years before had been disconnected. They won by linking up with great players from Arsenal’s past to recognise the importance of history playing a part in the present. They won by making fans from all over the world feel like the streets of North London Forever were their own, too.
There were four buses on Arsenal’s parade through the five-mile route through Islington. The Premier League champions, the backroom staff, the women's team with their FIFA Women's Champions Cup on display, and a bus carrying representatives of a community with whom such a deep connection is shared. The last one carried Arsenal values just as much as the others. One of those on it was Freddie Hudson MBE, the Director of Community who has worked tirelessly in the department that helps local people who need it most for 40 years. He articulates what it all means:
“For our community to come onto the streets and see those buses parade in front of them, for them… They see themselves in that trophy, because of their connection with the club. Their belonging to Arsenal is beyond the trophies, beyond the results of a game or position in a league. Their belonging to Arsenal is a deep level of trust, a deep level of loyalty, a deep, deep level of connection and belonging, and the trophy parade was the coming together of it all. The joy in their faces was so, so special.”
Leading the parade was a mobile sound system. Among the DJs were members of Ezra Collective including drummer and band leader Femi Koleoso. He symbolised a lot of the aspects that show the best of modern Arsenal: the power of music, fandom, London, second generation Nigerian, positivity, gratitude. “Words don’t even express how much it meant to me,” says Koleoso. “The way Arsenal represents people like me, to have that sense of belonging, means the absolute world. That is probably the most one of one thing I have ever done in my life and it will live with me forever.”
By midnight, those streets were calming down. Most of the near-million associated champions headed home. Refuse collectors were hard at work sweeping through the detritus of the madness. Trucks inched through the roads gobbling it all up. Thousands of metal barriers were in piles, ready to be scooped up and taken away so that the neighbourhood could return to a version of normal, whatever that would look like. But it was hard to escape the feeling these streets were changed somehow by the big emotion of the previous few days. Something happened here, to make this place feel more meaningful, more magnetic, more burnished in red, more “our own”.
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