CHENNAI: The time is close to 10 PM British Standard Time, and the tube stations heading towards N7 are buzzing, like never seen before in the last two decades. Slowly yet steadily, the crowd starts rising, as if there’s going to be a rebellion of sorts, you could only hear, “North London Forever”.
If you are lucky enough, you might have heard the next few lines of the famous rendition that has now become Arsenal’s anthem. For the past twenty years, the fans—day in and day out—have marked themselves at the stadium in belief, smiled a bit and cried a lot, all now let out the famous lines, “North London forever, whatever the weather, these streets are our own and my heart will leave you never.”
In the late hours on Tuesday, it felt like a perfect ending to a highly-charged emotional movie that lasted 22 years. It was no different in Shenley, where Arsenal have their training centre, the entire team were singing, dancing away in joy.
Amidst all of this chaos, their skipper Declan Rice casually posts on Instagram “I told you all... it’s done”. Pan the camera across from the dressing room, and you see Bukayo Saka, who goes “22 years, they were laughing, they were joking. They’re not laughing anymore.” pointing at a very peculiar thing.
In the backdrop of that video, there’s a Premier League silhouette, which he pointed out, a silhouette which has become a staple motivation for Arteta’s Arsenal. First introduced after the 2022/23 season, the club’s director of football, Edu Gaspar said, “Here, we leave the trophy dark like this, but under there, there is a way to make that shiny. We will make that shiny [when we win the Premier League].”
Immediately that became the new running joke. Three years later, that trophy now is shining, and the running joke: everyone who trolled the club for that. Experts can argue all they want, ‘Oh, Arsenal didn’t play pretty football, Arsenal are Corner FC, Arsenal are playing WWE when other teams are playing football’.
Through it all, though, they kept collecting the only currency that matters in this title race—three points. The Premier League was, is, and will always be a marathon, and no one really tries to be Usain Bolt in a marathon. What Arteta has also done successfully is beat his mentor Pep Guardiola in a Premier League race for the first time.
The 44-year-old has done it his way, be it lighting up the training ground on ‘fire’ or secretly hiring professional pickpockets to rob his own players during breakfasts at the club. He deals with things in his own way, and has also fought off criticism in as many years of managing the club, knowing that his team were in the right direction. If Arteta was this off the field, at the Emirates Stadium was a different passionate group—the fans.
After being humiliated season after season for bringing out boring tifos, the Arsenal fans brought out their ‘A’ game, and delivered the blows, including the famous ‘Over land and sea’ ship that shook the opposition and their fans. Or be it the time when they brought out that ‘These streets are our own’, Arsenal fans were playing with fire, and it could only be possible if you have complete confidence in your manager.
If you are still scratching your head, wondering what it means?
A 62-year-old Ian Wright shed every skin of fame and joined the thousands at the Emirates Stadium celebrating the title. Thierry Henry too didn’t shy away, with a cheeky message, which included ‘Finally, now my kids saw us winning a title’. On social media, Arsenal posted a video of the players going wild, and humming ‘Championes, Championes, Ole, Ole, Ole......’, a video that has over 4.3 million likes now on Instagram.
The celebration didn’t stop there either, as somewhere during the middle of the night, around 3 AM in London, the crowd who buzzed themselves around the Emirates Stadium found the club captain, Rice walking. Moments later, Rice pulled the crowd in for a groupie. Even the younger ones, like Max Downman, who became the youngest-ever footballer to win a Premier League, at 16, played a vital role in their title-winning season, and now were a big part of the celebrations.
Six years, multiple people coming and going out, a few things stayed the same, Arsenal’s trust in Arteta, and Arteta’s trust in the process. Like that, 8,060 days of waiting was over, the monkey was off the back, loyalty had paid its dividends, and Arsenal can finally write ‘Premier League winners’ on social media for the first time.
22 years ago, they were the ‘Invincibles’ at the Highbury, with Patrick Vieira lifting the trophy. Now in 2026, they are the ‘Unforgettables’ at the Emirates Stadium, with Declan Rice going to lift the trophy in a few days’ time.