The last time Arsenal won the league title was such an extraordinary, one-of-a-kind football season that it defied belief.
The 2003-04 campaign was the season of the Invincibles, the storied Arsenal squad which brilliantly, miraculously went a whole 38-game season undefeated.
A ridiculously talented team, its core players — Campbell, Vieira, Pires, Bergkamp and Henry — would feature in any discussion of the greatest Arsenal players of all time.
That was Arsenal’s second title in three years, and with a richly talented squad and Arsene Wenger at the helm, surely an unprecedented period of Arsenal dominance of English football would follow?
Except it didn’t. The playing squad was pared down as Arsenal prepared to pay for and move to an expensive new stadium. The greats of the Invincibles slowly moved away or retired, to be replaced by the likes of Alexander Hleb and Emmanuel Eboue — decent enough players but never destined to be household names.
A sense of mediocrity settled over North London, as finishing fourth and qualifying for the Champions League — qualifying, not winning — seemed to be the limit of our ambition.
Really, this shouldn’t have come as any surprise to me.
I started supporting Arsenal in the mid-’70s, plumping for the Gunners on the strength of their being the team which featured on the Brian Moore-hosted Big League Soccer the week I decided to take an interest in football. (The road not travelled ... they were playing Stoke City.)
The glory days of the 1970-71 double were far behind an Arsenal squad which was largely unspectacular — apart from the shining star, Liam Brady, whose posters from Shoot magazine were on the wall of my childhood bedroom.
There was no prospect of silverware until 1978, when Arsenal made the FA Cup final. And lost, having no clue how to overcome the yeomen of Ipswich.
We lost the FA Cup final again in 1980, to West Ham, after Trevor Brooking scored what must have been the only headed goal of his career. And then not very much happened for a decade, as Arsenal reverted to non-trophy winning type.
Then George Graham, a member of the double-winning team, became manager and imposed a militantly defensive style of football on Arsenal. ‘‘1-0 to the Arsenal’’ became a theme tune as a limited squad ground its way to a much desired league win in arguably the most famous title-deciding match of all time, the 2-0 win over Liverpool at Anfield in 1988-89. I still have a souvenir coffee mug from that era.
A couple more trophies arrived, including a title two years later, until another of Arsenal’s periodic fallow periods followed.
Then came the early years of the Wenger era, a preposterous time for hardened Arsenal fans accustomed to only periodically threatening to trouble the engravers and medal makers. Three league titles came in quick succession — I still own a VHS tape of highlights of the first double season, but not an actual machine to watch it on — accompanied by four FA Cups and a Champions League final appearance which the team would surely have won had goalkeeper Jens Lehmann not lost his mind and got sent off.
But, after the Invincibles, the expectations of dynasty evaporated as Arsenal returned to type. The FA Cup was a happier hunting ground, but the league was seldom on the radar screen as Russian oligarchs and Saudi princes bought their way to the title.
Arsenal tried that too, selling shares to a Russian billionaire and a US magnate, but their money only ever got the side close enough to be an also-ran rather than being a genuine part of the title conversation.
Life moved on and my spending money no longer had to go on any Arsenal triumph-related merchandise. Instead it went on a wedding, a mortgage and on raising two children who had to get used to Dad swearing at the telly and offering sage advice to a series of referees who have done us wrong over the seasons.
Those children are nearly adults now. It has, almost literally, been a generation since an Arsenal premiership.
The hair has gone grey, the knees have cried enough and stopped me from playing football myself any more, and being hard of hearing has been a welcome development as it means being oblivious to the shouts of delight of other fans of football teams that actually won something occasionally.
Although, little did we know it, in December 2019 Arsenal made the change which would make all the difference in the world. A former captain, Mikel Arteta, became head coach to little excitement from the fans.
While he had been a popular and dedicated player, he had never managed a football club at all, let alone at premiership level. His apprenticeship had been as part of Pep Guardiola’s coaching team at Manchester City. This did not suggest imminent greatness.
You know the rest of the story. A trio of second place finishes — twice to City — as Arsenal flirted with triumph and always managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
This season has, mostly, been no different, as the number of different times Arsenal have tried to not to win this league title beggared belief.
There was the meek surrender to Villa in December before almost being embarrassed by bottom club Wolves; drawing 0-0 with Forest before bottling it to Man United in January; losing to both Bournemouth and Man City in April; and then needing the VAR to keep our title challenge afloat against West Ham a fortnight ago.
As my football-loving colleagues can attest, I have been regularly claiming that Arsenal can stuff it up from here all season long.
And why wouldn’t I? That has been what has happened for 22 long, long years where the bar of expectation has regularly been set incredibly low.
This was not a cruise to the championship like the Invincibles. This is not a star-studded squad and only the generational talent that is Bukayo Saka would likely feature in any future debate about Arsenal greats.
But what it was, was a team effort. This time, for once, Arsenal’s collection of square pegs finally fitted into the round holes, and everyone stood up when they were called upon.
Purists may not have liked our methods, such as a reliance on set piece goals and two stifling defensive midfielders, but after such a long wait, a return to a touch of the George Graham era — three 1-0 wins in our last four games — was a welcome piece of nostalgia.
So is being able to contemplate visiting the club’s online store again for another milestone-marking purchase.
This may not happen again any time soon. Indeed, as a fatalistic fan I’m almost certain that it won’t.
In fact, I still can’t quite believe that it has happened this time . . . but I can’t stop smiling about it.
