Arsenal Scotland Supporters Club
Our Supporters Club was formed in 2004 by Gooners living in Scotland who follow The Arsenal.
Our current membership, now in the hundreds, include Gooners who moved to Scotland for work, university or marriage, plus others who became fed up with Scottish football and loved watching Arsenal; we have several “Lifelong Gooners” – or at least have supported The Arsenal since childhood 😉
We will have more to share about our 20th, including a special day at The Emirates!
But let’s start with some reflections from Martin O’Donnell, one of the founders of ASSC who has served as Chair, Secretary and ‘Tickets’, about how it all started.
Arsenal Scotland – has it really been 20 Years?
“In my case I had been going to watch Arsenal since 1994 as I had mates in London who would sort out a ticket for me. West stand lower or sometimes the North Bank. They said “Why don’t you go to the games up norff?” And so they would post me tickets for Newcastle, Liverpool, Manchester, Bolton, Blackburn, Boro, etc. I’d take mates but I was the only Gooner wearing colours.
“I wanted to go with other Gooners!”
Approach to Arsenal FC
“After speaking with Gooners at pie stands, pubs, M6 services and so on, I wrote an email to Arsenal FC asking if there was a supporters club in Scotland. ‘No’ they replied , ‘ but here are a list of other Scots asking the same question. Nobody worried about email disclosure in them days.
So I emailed the three Gooners that lived near me in Edinburgh and adding another Gooner who played online Arsenal Fantasy Football with me. The five of us met in a pub in Edinburgh in early 2004 just as the Invincibles started that Season, on their way to win the League and become Legends.
Initially, the idea was to meet up to watch live games on the telly, the others thinking it was impossible to get tickets. “Erm….. no”, I said, “I can get four tickets for away games! Been going to Highbury and away games for years. Been to the last two FA Cup finals in Cardiff!”
They stared at me like I was mad! A game changer, now we were talking about actually travelling to see The Arsenal play.
Start of Arsenal Scotland Supporters Club
“The criterion to establish an ‘official’ Supporters Club in those days was to submit 30 names and addresses of Arsenal fans in Scotland. Of course, as all of our brothers and sisters, mums, dads and aunties were also total Gooners, 30 names were quickly collected. (I gather it’s 100 names now.)
We opened a bank account, agreed who would be Chairman, Treasurer and Secretary, all as per the guidelines that Arsenal sent to us. Arsenal FC said they just wanted one club to cover all of Scotland, so we said “fine by us.”
Using those four tickets, four of the guys went to the Everton Away game on 15th August 2004 at Goodison Park, each wearing Arsenal shirts and kilts. That was our first proper club trip. Fàbregas was named in the first eleven; at 17 years 103 days, becoming Arsenal’s youngest ever Premier League player. Bergkamp opened the scoring and Reyes made it 2 Nil at Half Time. Ljungberg added a third goal in the Second Half and, despite conceding moments after, Robert Pires scored Arsenal’s fourth in the 83rd minute. Final score: 4-1 to The Arsenal.
A few weeks later Arsenal FC sent us a letter dated 3rd September 2004 that Arsenal Scotland Supporters Club were now fully recognised. Within 12 months, membership grew to about 250.
Charity Fund-raising
“On Boxing Day 2004, the Tsunami disaster hit Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. We decided that should try a wee fundraiser in Edinburgh as club activity for the Tsumami Appeal. We booked a pitch and invited a few random teams to play us. Arsenal Scotland fielded two teams; Radio Forth provided a team as ‘somebody knew somebody’. The result was that we raised around £1,000.
TV games settled for a while in a pub called “Da da da’s” in Shandwick Place in Edinburgh; our first AGM was held there in August 2005. Later we moved to The Mercat Bar along the road at Haymarket.
We became more than a supporters club. As membership grew the ‘somebody knows somebody’ was used to full effect as we started to raise funds for charity to have quiz nights, race nights, charity walks and so on.
Bob Wilson as Honorary President
“In 2006, we wrote to Double Legend Bob Wilson inviting him to become our Honorary President.
Replying that he was very pleased to accept, Bob has been our President ever since. Making a donation of £1,500 to The Willow Foundation, we were invited to the Emirates to present Bob with the cheque. He took three of us onto the pitch , again in Arsenal shirts and kilts, so we could hand to him a giant cheque. I thought we’d be chased off the pitch but Bob kept saying to go further on to get a good photo. I was amazed as I looked up at myself on the jumbo screens.
Since the Tsumami Appeal our club have raised over £100,000 for many charities and deserving causes associated with Arsenal and Scotland, including £50,000 to The Willow Foundation.
Linking Up
“After a few seasons we made many friends from the other supporters clubs, notably with the AFSC, Dover, NorthWest, Maidstone, Sligo, North Wales, South Wales, East Sussex. Herts & Beds, Essex, West Midlands, Norfolk, etc.
One of our former members moved away back to Bolton and he then formed Arsenal Manchester now with over 1000 members of their own.
Match Tickets
“We learned how to request tickets and after small numbers initially we eventually had 50 members at Highbury for a home match against Bolton in 2006. Arsenal helped us so much for that trip.
Then we figured out it was best to request tickets to see cup-ties as those tickets were easier to source.
But then we got into the trips abroad in Europe!
When Arsenal made it through to the Champions League Final in Paris, we said to all the members, “Look, we have zero chance of tickets but why not just go to Paris and enjoy the party?.” The result was that 53 members made the trip, 11 of us getting tickets to go into the stadium to see the Final. We lost the match, but the trip was fantastic. We found a wee Scottish Bar called The Highlander, right next to the Seine and filled it two nights running. Some of us took the open top bus tour all around Paris, with our Scottish Gunners banner hanging over the side. We had members in hotels, sleeping on floors, on park benches. Great stories, including some which will definitely stay in Paris!
Since then, we have had JockGooners all over Europe and on the US tours. We’ve had at least one member at every Away fixture in the Champions League or Europa League over the past ten seasons (Covid excluded) – and that includes the Europa League Final in Baku!
David Danskin
“Having researched the role of David Danskin, the Scot who was one of the founders of Arsenal FC and its first captain, we arranged for a blue plaque to be placed on a building near his birthplace in the Fife town of Burntisland. Bob Wilson unveiled the plaque in July 2007, in the presence of David Danskin’s grandson and other family.
Fast forward to 2019 and we also arranged for a headstone to be placed at the unmarked grave of David Danskin, in Coventry, where he moved to after retiring from football. Arsenal officials including Venai Venkatesham and another Double Legend Pat Rice attended on our invitation along with many of Danskins decendants.
As recognised in Arsenal’s view of its history, the club was formed by fifteen players at the Woolwich Armoury, mostly Scots. We are incredibly proud of Arsenal’s Scottish roots, from David Danskin to Alex James , from Joe Baker, Frank McLintock, Bob Wilson, George Graham and Alex Cropley to Charlie Nicholas, and more latterly, Kim Little and Keiran Tierney.
Present & Future
“Over the past 20 years Arsenal Scotland Supporters Club have tried to be much more than just a club sourcing tickets for its members. As we did at the outset, we help create social groups for Gooners, with designated meets at pubs in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen as assured places to watch televised matches.
Currently, we have around 350 members all over Scotland.
Tickets are much harder to come by these days so we have encouraged most of our members to also have a Red membership with Arsenal. Including a small number of season ticket holders we usually have 10 members at home fixtures and 20 at away games.
Some fly to London, some go by train and a few hardy souls get in the car and drive there and back on the same day. It is just possible, with a 12.30 kick-off, to drive down, watch the game and still get home in time for MOTD.“
We only do it for The Arsenal. COYG!