I grew up a stone’s throw from Highbury Stadium, where every Arsenal goal sent a thunderous roar rolling through our Victorian terraced home. In 1971, their double-winning triumph turned our neighborhood into a sea of red and white with scarves, shirts, banners, and replica cups.

Ecstatic fans cheered from balconies, donned homemade champions' hats adorned with Arsenal rosettes, and jostled with tie-wearing police on horseback as Arsenal paraded the cup from their open-top bus, inching through Highbury’s packed streets en route to Islington Town Hall. Joy and euphoria swept through North London, coaxing strangers to smile and shake hands, while lifelong fans embraced, bouncing to the chants of: “We are the Champions!” Clap clap, clap clap clap! “We are the Champions!” Clap clap, clap clap clap!"

**Photograph by courtesy of Sally Bosley’s Badge Shop.**

On match days a tide of red and white-clad fans surged through our streets like devoted pilgrims, flocking to Highbury for their ninety-minute ritual. They worshipped, they prayed, they roared—then vanished. Left behind were the relics of their devotion: half-eaten burgers, crumpled bags of chips, empty beer cans, and pint dregs perched on garden walls—the only traces of a football crowd.

I listened to the chants— “We’re the North Bank, we’re the North Bank, we’re the North Bank Highbury... We’re the Clock End, we’re the Clock End, we’re the Clock End Highbury”—as forty thousand fans marched past my parents’ bedroom window. The sweet smell of onions and grilled meat drifted through the air, preceding the familiar shouts: “Anybody need a program? Program, guv?” and the furtive murmurs— “Tickets for the match, anybody need tickets?”

I longed to belong to a clan with a way of life but I couldn’t join Arsenal’s because my brother Ron and I had already committed to Leeds United. I didn’t commit because Ron supported Leeds or because they were one of the best teams in England.

It was because of Hot Shot Hamish.

On Saturday mornings, Ron and I raced to Mister Lawler’s sweet shop on Gillespie Road to pick up our comics—Tiger & Scorcher and Roy of the Rovers. Mister Lawler kept them in a reserved folder for us because the adventures of Hot Shot Hamish and Billy’s Boots made these coveted issues vanish from the shelves in no time.

Hamish Balfour was a towering lad from the Hebrides, a gentle giant blessed with a lethal "Hot Shot" so fierce it shattered crossbars and ripped nets apart. But beyond his legendary strike, I loved Hamish because he was misunderstood, could never quite squeeze into his shirts—and because he had a pet sheep named McMutton.

One of Leeds United’s finest, Peter ‘Hot Shot’ Lorimer, was also Scottish, and one Saturday night, while watching Match of the Day, he blasted in a thunderous volley. Ron leapt up and yelled, “He’s just like Hot Shot Hamish!” From that moment on, my allegiance belonged to Leeds United, a club two hundred miles north of us, playing their football at Elland Road, West Yorkshire.

When I was eleven, I left Gillespie Primary School having played just one game for the school team. Competitive matches were a rarity—our squad was a sorry mix of acne-ridden apathy and boys so clueless they could have made dribbling a new dance craze. But I knew one thing: If I were ever to be discovered as the next genius of English football, I needed to play in a proper match. That meant wearing a real kit, scoring a goal into a real net, and—most importantly—playing in a real official game organized by adults.

Gillespie Primary had only seven kids plucky enough to play, so we could only face schools willing to field a seven-a-side team. For our one and only official match, Mr. Singh led us to Clissold Park beneath a miserable grey sky on a dreary English afternoon. His beige tweed jacket and brown bread sandwiches—stuffed with bright pink salmon paste—convinced me he had no business coaching football. Still, my two best friends, Neil, Gabriel, and I huddled against the cold and trailed behind him to the pitch.

Neil, my best friend, was from Mauritius. His was the only friend’s house I’d ever visited. When he opened the front door, an overwhelming smell of incense and the soft strains of sitar music greeted me. His stern father appeared and instructed me to remove my shoes as I stood in the hallway. As we padded up the stairs to Neil’s room, his dad’s dark eyes followed us.

“Neil!”
“Yes, Baba?”
“Make sure you do your homework, okay?”
“Yes, Baba,” Neil replied, wincing before beckoning me into his room.

We sat in his tidy bedroom until the door opened and his mum entered, carrying a tray with two tumblers of orange squash and a plate of four brown triangular cakes.

“You want a samosa?” Neil asked.
“What’s that?” I said.
“It’s samosa!” his mum snapped.
“I don’t know what that is,” I admitted.
“It’s got lamb inside. Try one,” Neil suggested, taking a confident bite.

His mum adjusted her wayward sari and eyed me with suspicion. Under their gaze, I picked up the warm, oily parcel of flaky pastry and took a bite. The spiced lamb was a delight, and I smiled in relief.

“Ah, it’s delicious! Thanks!”
“It’s samosa!” his mum declared again before exiting. Neil grinned as we slurped our orange squash, washing down the tasty mouthful.

My second best friend was Gabriel who I’d known for years before school. He was one of the first kids left in my mum’s daycare. Mum offered child ‘minding’ for local folks. She never advertised—word of mouth brought people to her door. Her reputation was solid, but she was as strict and heavy-handed with other children as she was with her own. (Dad shared the same trait.)

Gabe arrived with an untucked shirt, a runny nose, odd socks, and creased pants. Back then, he was a lanky three-year-old with a strong Nigerian accent. His elastic face and wide, innocent eyes mirrored his ever-shifting nature, bouncing between joy and sorrow in an instant.

As we followed Mr. Singh, Gabe and Neil listened as I explained the difference between a real football pitch and our school playground. I knew this from my brother’s stories about his school team playing at Chase Lodge, Tottenham’s training ground. As we entered the park, their eyes widened as I described the crisp green surface, sharply painted white lines, and taut nets.

But reality proved disappointing.

“There’s no grass on this pitch!” I blurted, struggling into my stiff, bile-colored shirt—nearly lopping off my ear in the process.

This mud-colored dust bowl, I later learned, was called a cinder pitch: a massive, uneven field littered with remnants of Strongbow bottles, old newspapers, and dog shit amidst the broken glass. The temperature was a frosty nine degrees, and as the wind whipped up dust, an icy drizzle trickled down our backs.

Just as I thought I saw a tear in Neil’s eye, I noticed the goals—vast, rusted iron girders with flaking white paint, so broad and high that scoring seemed inevitable. Yet the most crushing disappointment was the lack of nets, despite the hooks along the crossbar where they should have hung. My dream of scoring into an actual net, wearing a crisp shirt on pristine grass, dissolved into the drizzle.

We failed to score until well past the hour mark. Until then, the game was a dour, miserable mess, with most kids shivering in the fading light, confused about their positions. Mr. Singh, sensing that ninety minutes was torturously long, hid under an umbrella and magically produced another salmon paste sandwich and a flask of tea. (If only he could’ve magicked up a net.) Our opponents, Conewood Primary, wore brand-new bright orange shirts with black collars. While ours reeked of stale dung, theirs smelled like freshly cut hay.

The redeeming moment came around the 80th minute when we were 1-0 down. An almighty scramble erupted in front of their goal—eight players hacking at the ball until it spilled free to Willy Walker’s feet. (We’d begged Willy to play to make up numbers, but being a year younger and six inches shorter, he’d needed convincing.) In slow motion, he dummied the first challenge and toe-punted the ball low and hard. Their unsighted keeper had no chance.

The moment he scored, our entire team leaped into the air, limbs outstretched like seven blissful little stars. We piled onto Willy in a spontaneous eruption of joy, forgetting the terrible pitch, the cold, and our stinking shirts. Even Neil shrieked in delight, embracing Willy with tears in his eyes.

After the game ended I waved goodbye to Neil and Gabe, both grinning wildly—Gabe’s smile taking up half his face. After ruffling Willy’s hair, I walked home, replaying the match: the disappointment of the pitch, Neil’s tearful face, the adrenaline rush at the whistle, the breathless wonder of having the ball at my feet, the confusion and fear of not knowing what to do with it. I smiled and realized three things before I rang my doorbell.

A last-minute equalizer felt as vital as a win. Anything was better than losing.
Scorers earned instant popularity and acclaim.
I wanted to be the hero buried under a bundle of joyous teammates.

The Genius of English Football

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