I don’t know how old you are, me?  I am going to be 35 this summer and I am starting to feel it.  I was looking back through some of the old archive footage of Manchester United vs Arsenal battles over the years reliving some of my favorite moments and trying to recapture a bit of the feeling of being at so many of those great games.  I have to admit things are getting a bit cloudier as the years roll on and I almost flinched today as I heard Ryan Giggs referred to as the “Grand Old Man”.  Giggs is only a year and a half older than me.

Like practically any sport football is a young mans game.  Any career where you are effectively done at 35 is rough and as my age has gone upwards I have become more and more aware of my fading childhood memories and am acutely aware of the pain that goes along with seeing them fade. 

Childhood heroes are just that and they never really stop being anything but, and those that are the most keenly hooked into your soul are the ones that instantly transport you back to whatever age you loved them most keenly.  As much as my boyhood home was a terraced house in the East End of London, so was the Northbank at Highbury – a huge terraced stand at the South Side of the stadium where I stood and watched Arsenal for more years than I care to remember.  If I find a quiet place and close my eyes I can still remember the sights and sounds, the smells.   I remember getting their early and watching the “Home of Football” slowly fill up, I remember the hairs standing up on the back of my neck right before kick off as thousands and thousands of fans yelled encouragement in the second before kick off.  I remember loosing myself in delirium with goals, and I remember looking on jealously as fans of Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool who used to fill at least half of the opposing Clock End celebrate after scoring.  You have never seen anything more beautiful.

This is the world of my youth, that I am slowly and painfully leaning to give it away.  This process started early for me in my early 20s when I realized that “getting in shape and getting back into the game” where probably not going to happen.  I’ll confess that as they years went by I dreamed about being this guy that was finally discovered in his late 20s and somehow managed to play for Arsenal, raise the World Cup for England.  These day dreams used to get me excited enough that I’d lie awake a night to pumped to sleep.  As I approached 30 my fantasy switched to playing in MLS, and then being called over to Arsenal as a controversial old man and then at 35 … suddenly I realize that this grand old man can’t dream anymore.

Watching Ryan Giggs today, I realized that he is one of the very last who played back when I stood at Highbury.  Alan Shearer has come and gone.  Paul Gascoigne.  Chris Waddle.  Tony Adams.  David Rocastle prematurely.  Players I saw enter the game.  I’ll be rooting for the Wizard’s as always in July, but don’t surprised to see me shed a tear if Giggs is subbed in or out of the game, that Grand old Man is one of the last of my standing childhood heroes and when he is gone, I think I will love this game a little bit less.