North London hasn’t seen anything quite like it in over two decades. On Sunday, an estimated 700,000 Arsenal supporters packed the streets of Islington to welcome their Premier League champions home, and the noise was, by all accounts, extraordinary.
The open-top bus parade wound its way through Holloway Road and down to Highbury Corner, the same route the club used back in 2004 when the Invincibles returned triumphant. For many fans who were barely toddlers then, this was their first taste of a title celebration, and they weren’t going to waste it.
“I’ve been waiting for this my entire adult life,” said one supporter from Finsbury Park, draped head-to-toe in red and white. “My dad used to tell me what ’89 felt like. Now I’ve got my own story.”
The players appeared visibly stunned by the scale of it. Captain Martin Odegaard held the Premier League trophy aloft for what felt like the hundredth time, and the crowd roared every single time as if it were the first. Manager Mikel Arteta, who has spent the better part of five years quietly rebuilding this club from the wreckage of the Emery era, looked genuinely emotional.
Police estimated the crowd peaked at around 700,000 at the parade’s height, with Islington Council having closed several surrounding roads from as early as 7am. Local businesses reported some of the busiest trading days in years, with pubs along the route selling out of draught before midday.
It’s been 22 years. Twenty-two years of near-misses, of watching Manchester City and Liverpool hoist the trophy while Arsenal fans muttered darkly about “next season”. The frustration has been so long and so familiar that some supporters admitted they half-expected something to go wrong, right up until the final whistle of the final match.
Nothing went wrong. This time, it all went gloriously, deafeningly right.
The question now, of course, is whether this Arsenal side can do what their predecessors couldn’t: come back and do it again.
