The Arsenal Australia Team
Tony was born in Hammersmith and has supported Arsenal since 1970 when he heard about the Fairs Cup win on the radio whilst living in Singapore. He arrived in Australia in April ’89 and narrowly missed the famous Title win a few weeks later after waiting so long to see the gunners win it again after ’71! To this day he still enjoys baiting his Father and youngest Brother from afar who are both Spuds!!Tony joined the Supporters Club back in 2007 at its inception and assisted in gaining the numbers of Members required to form the Club. As an original founding Member he was responsible for developing the Victorian group of supporters using Melbourne as a base. Quickly the group became the largest State group as they enjoyed wonderful support of an Irish bar, The Celtic Club, who had an affinity for the famous Irish players who had played for the Arsenal, in particular, Liam Brady. Over the years the bar has dedicated the entire 2 storey venue to Arsenal big matches and events. To date they have hosted 2 Arsenal Australia Supporters Club National Meets. Last season Tony took on the role of Chairman and is proud to lead a passionate and committed Supporters Club who are striving to be the best in the world. He regards the Arsenal FC Tour of Singapore when he travelled with 60 fellow Members of the Supporters Club as a treasured memory and is looking forward to July 2017 when we will have the pleasure of hosting Arsenal here in Australia.
Email: Chairman@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Growing up in the western suburbs of London I was lucky to see Arsenal quite a bit home & away. My 1st memory of Arsenal is watching the 1971 FA Cup final on TV as a 7 year and my 1st visit to Highbury was for the FA Cup 4th round win against Notts County in 1979. I was lucky enough to get to visit Highbury & The Emirates Stadium on many occasion before I moved to Perth in 2008 and have happy memories from both including “The Invincible’s” season in 2003/04 and the final season at Highbury in 2005/06. I was at The Emirates for Dennis Bergkamp’s testimonial & Arsenal’s 1st game at The Emirates in July 2006 and managed to get to most home games (and a few away) in the two years before my move to Australia.
Email: perth@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Warren is the Secretary of the “Arsenal Australia Supporters Club” and has been an avid Aussie Gooner since 1971. It started when watching the telecast of the Arsenal v Liverpool FA Cup Final and seeing his namesake “Pat Rice” play Right Back in the 2-1 victory.In April 2008, he visited Arsenal to organise the Club component of the annual AASC Members Tour Package and while there watched Arsenal defeat Everton 1-0 in the last home game of the 2007-2008 Season. Since 2010 he has organised and taken groups of Arsenal Australia Supporters Club members to London to cheer on the Gunners for themselves :-)Warren is also the Armidale, NSW Rep.
Email: secretary@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Graham has followed the Arsenal since he was a young lad in the late 70s. Most of the family are Gooners too including his wife (whose parents had a pub off Holloway Road), both sons, in-laws, uncles etc. He founded ozarsenal.com, ran the Australian Internet Supporters Group for 10 years and has also organised FA Cup and Champions League nights over the years.
He was one of the Official Supporters Club founders, was Chairman from 2007-2015 and has been Treasurer since then.
He has been on many committees and boards of various community and sporting groups as well as businesses.
Email: membershipsecretary@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Hi Gooners
I have been an Arsenal Fan for about 14 years and during that time have met Gunnersaurus in North London, Australia, and California, and watched many games with local Gooner Supporters groups across Australia and the World.
Whilst there are many my Fan highlights include seeing Martinelli’s famous run-the-length of Stamford Bridge goal and the only North London Derby not played in North London as it was played at Wembley.
My Great-Great-Grandfather was born less than a mile from the original home ground of the Woolwich-based Royal Arsenal. There’s a good chance my ancestors were actually at our very first games. Tickets were probably a bit easier to get in those days!
I’ve been a Member of Arsenal Australia since 2013 and been to most of the National Meets held annually since then. The Darwin event in 2021 and the 2017 Sydney Pre-season Arsenal Tour were real highlights, especially the Harbour Cruise on board with hundreds of other Gooners and sharing the cruise with the Legendary, Ray Parlour and the FA Cup that we had just won months before.
Over the past decade I’ve been to many of our local Adelaide events and enjoyed many memorable late nights at the Arkaba Hotel. The back to back FA Cups against Hull City and Aston Villa, were amazing evenings/early mornings!
Last year I was fortunate to witness and savour the atmosphere at the Emirates and it was incredible, it’s so exciting to see the recent progression of the Club and fan base world-wide but particularly here in Australia.
Thankfully making it back into the Champions League this Season means we get better times for our fixtures and we can build on the great turn-outs last Season and continue the growth of the Adelaide and South Australian Supporter base.
I am looking forward to catching up with the all the SA Gooners this Season at The Arkaba.
Cheers, Simon. Email: Adelaide@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Originally from Stevenage in England, I came over to Australia in 2008 for a year out. Turned up at Arsenal Australia AGM in Adelaide with backpack and suitcase, but decided to make Brisbane home after I met my 2nd love (after Arsenal). I come from a family of Gooners, so luckily had no choice in being a Gooner! Dad took me to my home debut at Highbury in 1984 vs Coventry as a 7 year old. It was a boring draw, but I was in awe of the stadium and atmosphere, and although I was scared being so high up back of Highbury’s East Stand, I was hooked.
I’ve been season ticket holder from age 13 in West Stand where I sat for 10 years, but definitely consider myself a Clock Ender where I stayed, until I had 1 season at The Emirates. I still hold a season ticket, in hope that I will take it back over one day.I’ve been lucky enough to follow Arsenal both Home and Away and across Europe for many years, mostly during George Graham’s and Arsene Wenger’s successful days. Particularly memorable overseas trips include Parma, Copenhagen, Paris and Madrid. I only missed a couple of games home and away during Invincible’s season, but stupidly one of them was the Spuds game, as I was in Egypt for my parents’ Anniversary.
It gets busy at times, but I do really enjoy my role in Ticketing, helping Aussie Gooners to get tickets to Arsenal games at the Emirates.
Email: tickets@arsenalaustralia.com.au
I’ve been a Gooner now for over 50 years, after watching Arsenal win the double on TV in 1971 and seeing Charlie George score the winner against Liverpool lead me to choose my team for life.
My first visit to Highbury was in 1975 where Alan Ball scored a last minute penalty to secure a 2-1 win Over Norwich. From then on until I emigrated to Australia I’d get to as many matches as I could. One of the last ones before that move was at the old Wembley in 1987 witnessing Charlie Nicholas brace against Liverpool to end our 80s trophy drought.
For the past 30 years I’ve mainly watched Arsenal from a distance but the highlights over those years were definitely travelling twice to Singapore to watch us play and of course their visit to Sydney in 2017.
It would be great to meet all the NSW Gooners for a beer and a chat at one of our match day events across the season at Molly Malone’s, so get in touch via email link below, or on our official facebook page where we’ll keep you up to date on events.
Born in Nottingham in Northern England I grew up playing and watching Football. From a young age I was passionate about anything to do with Football, whether it was watching Forest or County in Nottingham, or in fact any Football on TV.
My first memory of watching Arsenal was the 2001/2002 FA Cup final with THE Romford Pele aka Ray Parlour & Freddie Ljungberg both scoring cracking late goals to win us the Cup and secure our 3rd Double! Although I was quite young at the time, I’ve been hooked ever since.
In 2004 I moved over to sunny Perth in Western Australia, but never stopped supporting the Gunners. I discovered and joined the Arsenal Perth/WA Group of the Arsenal Australia Supporters Club in 2012, and have loved every Season since. Memorable highlights include the early Cup winning years when we had tremendous Supporters Club nights beating Hull City and Aston Villa finally breaking our drought after 2005.
Eventually, after becoming a long-term Member with the Club, I started to get more involved and began helping with the growth of the Perth Group, by assisting the Group Leaders with organising Match day Meets and other Member Events.
I’m now honoured to become the Perth/WA State Representative and a member of the Arsenal Australia National Leadership Team.
I am looking forward to catching up with regular fellow and meeting new WA Gooners at our upcoming Matchday Meets and Events!
COYG! Tony
Email: perth@arsenalaustralia.com.au
Rod Jeremiah – Victorian State Rep
I have been a Gooner since the first Arsenal match I watched, the 2002 FA Cup Final. I was hugely impressed with the ‘Its Only Ray Parlour’s goal, but when Freddie Ljungberg’s screamer hit the back of the net I was hooked for life. I’ve since been over to watch many games at Highbury, the Emirates and even had the pleasure of being behind the goals when Aaron Ramsey headed home the winner in the 2017 FA Cup final.
I’ve been an active Member of this fantastic organisation, the Arsenal Australia Supporters Club, since 2008 where I’ve been involved in many annual National Meets as well as regularly attending local get togethers and as a Member have made life-long friends here in Melbourne and around the country. As the Club has grown over the year I have also enjoyed the experience of travelling with Gooners from all over Australia on overseas Tours organised by the Club to London as well as the recent Pre-season Tour in Singapore.
My name is Fabio and I am a passionate Arsenal fan since the early 2000’s after watching Dennis Bergkamp’s wonder goal against Newcastle. After that I was hooked and could not get enough of the Arsenal and been following ever since. Finally after hundreds of late nights/early morning matches on the TV. In 2016, I fulfilled my lifelong dream of going to the Emirates to see my Arsenal North Bank Terrace stone and watch my first ever Arsenal game! It was against Chelsea and we took it to the blues and won 3 nil! In 2017, got to see the Arsenal on our home soil where Arsenal Australia Supporters Club held some amazing events. It was then being a long time member I decided with fellow Gooner Sean to spearhead the Darwin and Northern Territory branch. Now part of the Arsenal Australia team, I’m looking forward to growing the Darwin and NT branch and making more memories with the Arsenal family… COYG!
I’ve been an Arsenal fan my whole life but I consider myself to have been a Gooner since 1995. As a kid I always supported Arsenal as my ‘English Team’ as I grew up as a Dutch Australian watching the Oranje and supporting Ajax with my Opa (Grandfather). It wasn’t until 1995 when we signed DB10 that I really started to passionately support the Arsenal. What an amazing time to support The Arsenal right?!!! During the early Wenger days in the late 90’s, I loved watching Wrighty, Bergkamp, Thierry Overmars, Viera etc. Titles and trophies flowed, then in the early 00’s I got watch the mighty Invincibles!. How could you not fall in love with the style and class of those Legends?
I have been a Member of Arsenal Australia since 2007 when the Supporters Club was established. I also attended the first ever National Meet held in Adelaide and went on the first Arsenal Australia London Tour organised by the Club in 2010. Over the years I have been fortunate through my Arsenal Australia Membership to have successfully applied for tickets to see the Gunners live on a few occasions and also had the pleasure of watching Arsenal in Sydney on their Tour here in 2017 with the Arsenal Australia crew. I have a Family and we have lived mainly up on the Sunshine Coast with a few years spent in Geelong, Victoria. Previously, whilst regularly attending Matchday Meets in Brisbane, I haven’t had the time or opportunity to support the building of Arsenal Australia group in Qld. However now, as my Kids are older, and I am living centrally in Brisbane, I am ready to commit more of my time. I look forward to seeing all you Queenslanders down at our Venue and at other Meets to cheer on the mighty Red and White. Cheers, Chris.
Email: brisbane@arsenalaustralia.com.au