Member of the Month – September

Name: Lubbers Family

Location: Sunshine Coast

My Arsenal Story: I grew up playing football and watching it on SBS with my Opa as my family is Dutch, I watched video of all the great Dutch players from the Cruyff era, but the late 80’s and 90’s was when I really began to watch a lot of football, my heroes were Gullit, Rijkaard and Van Basten at first but then a player called Dennis Bergkamp burst on the scene the first I caught glimpse of him was the 89-90 season when Ajax won the league, but the following season he scored like 30 goals in 36 games and was clearly going to be great. I followed at him at Inter a little but when he signed for Arsenal (who I already had followed a little as “my choice” in the English league) this was when I really began to follow Arsenal, and over the 10 years that followed how could you not fall in love with this club. I have since infected my children with Arsenal DNA and they are as made as I am about the mighty Red and White.

First Ever Match: Unfortunately I never made it to Highbury as it was a long way from Brisbane and life never led that way. My first match was a 1-0 win against Newcastle back in 2010, after 15 years of supporting the club from afar it was amazing to get there in person. I was also at the NLD that same year where we blew a 2-0 half time lead to lose 3-2 so hopefully I never have to live through that again. We are going over to UK and Europe for 4 months this October so the kids will get to go to their first live match, we will get to another 5 games, more if the CL fixtures are kind to us too, and of course we are all excited to see them in Sydney next year.

Favourite All Time Player: For me 100% Dennis Bergkamp, no doubt, of course there are all of the other but for me Dennis is the last of a certain class of footballer which I don’t think we will ever see again. AlsoI have to say I loved Wrighty too, there are no characters in the game like him anymore.

Favourite Arsenal Memory: Obviously there are so many from the Invinsibles and prior to that but for me in recent terms the FA Cup final against Hull was amazing, all of the tension from the “trophy droubt” 2-0 down in a flash and to come back and win in the fashion in which we did was phenomenal, was a long time between trophies.

How do we support Arsenal in our local area: Unfortunately on the Sunshine Coast there is a not a lot of venues that screen the football and the geographical spread makes it hard. We have fellow Gooner families to our house for the early kick-offs and occasionally go to the Pig n Whistle in Brisbane for a big game, but generally it is 3am trying to not yell at the tele and wake the kids or taking the kids to school late after mid-week CL or cup matches.