Belonging in the universe

There is a letter in my files that I occasionally take out and read.

It came from Arsene Wenger. That sentence sounds unlikely enough. The next part sounds even less believable.

A few years ago, I discovered an asteroid and named it after him. Technically, it is called 33179 Arsenewenger. It circles the sun somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.

Astronomers ‘‘discover’’ asteroids in a fairly technical sense. I suspect Wenger would not have considered himself undiscovered.

To my surprise, after hearing about the asteroid, Arsene wrote to me. I have treasured the letter ever since because it marks the only occasion my interests in football and astronomy have properly collided.

Supporting Arsenal from New Zealand requires a certain level of dedication. This season I watched all 38 league matches, usually at an hour when only bakers, dairy farmers and astronomers are awake. While sensible people slept, I sat in the dark with my dog, Connie Springer, on my lap, muttering encouragement and occasionally less printable advice at the television.

This year, gloriously, Arsenal won the league. Now the season is ending. The Champions League final arrived last weekend, the last excuse for setting an alarm at four in the morning.

Wenger never won it, which still feels like one of football’s minor injustices. Last week, in Middlemarch, my telescope was collecting light while fog drifted across the paddocks. A hedgehog wandered along the path with the calm confidence of a creature that had never experienced the emotional uncertainty of supporting Arsenal.

Standing there in the fog, I was reminded of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch. Hornby understood that supporting a football club is rarely about success. It is about belonging. Arsenal connected him to North London. Somehow, from a paddock in Otago, it still connects me to the place where I grew up.

That place was Orpington, a town not generally celebrated in poetry, song or tourism brochures. Yet football has a curious ability to make distant places feel close. A goal scored in London can still brighten a cold morning in Middlemarch.

Somewhere between Mars and Jupiter, 33179 Arsenewenger continues its slow journey around the sun. Meanwhile, in a paddock near Middlemarch, an astronomer and his dog are still getting up at four in the morning to watch Arsenal.

One of those things makes considerably more sense than the other.