An Arbitrary Milestone for Arsene Wenger: Reflections on His 20 Years at Arsenal

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

On the 20th anniversary of Arsene Wenger taking the reins at Arsenal, VICE writers share their precious memories of his time in charge of the club. Some of them are fond, some of them are tinged with a poignant melancholy, some of them bleed the bright, red blood of frustration, and some of them pertain to being battered 8-2 by Manchester United.

Others are, like, really nice though. Without further ado, here are our reflections on two decades of Le Professeur.

Arsene Wenger is your dad, my dad, everyone's dad. Arsene Wenger is dad. You can just see him really seriously reading a broadsheet newspaper in his favourite leather chair with his long angular legs folded in front of him, can't you. You can see Arsene Wenger wordlessly picking you up from detention in a Volvo that smells of fags. Arsene Wenger going with the family to a branch of Costa Coffee and just ordering "tap water, please". Arsene Wenger has a really close bond with the dog. Arsene Wenger doesn't ask for much but he does ask you be completely silent, just for half an hour a week, while he watches Hairy Bikers. Arsene Wenger is dad. Arsene Wenger is your dad.

Now a sharper and superior writer would spin this now into some sort of '… And he's also the father of modern football!' bit, but I'm not going to do that, because he isn't. Arsene Wenger has been at the forefront of modern football: sure. He's been up there, jostling for position. He's been in fourth place, up near the top of modern football, for a while. Talk of Arsene Wenger is always couched in identifying how he is different, how this foreignness is extraordinary, how he came over here, with his broccoli and his love of academia, and his unerring Frenchness, and he sat Tony Adams down and patiently explained pints weren't an ideal isotonic pre-match drink, Tony, maybe try water instead, and he reached a pinnacle of the game so unmatchable – an entire season, unbeaten – that he had to invent another game to keep his mind sharp, so he reversed the boosters, turned the rocket right around, developed a previously unheard of brand of anti-victory, crafting team after team of beautiful feather-legged losers, played a weird game of stadium moneyball against himself, lost a League Cup final to an Obafemi Martins goal. Arsene Wenger is the man who signed Thierry Henry and won the league undefeated. Arsene Wenger is also the man who signed Marouane Chamakh and came fourth, again.

So there is duality to Wenger, but the consistency comes from the man himself. He is, after all, a world-class manager. He has been up at the pinnacle of the game for 20 years. That in itself is extraordinary. Look at the managers he was up against in his first season in the UK: Brian Little, Ruud Gullit, Ron Atkinson, Jim Smith; Joe Royle, George Graham, Bryan Robson, Gerry Francis, Fergie. So many have folded out of management entirely, sinking down the divisions before sacking it off entirely. So many managers who hit the heights Wenger has moved in go over to international football, oversee a tournament or two, do a season or two in the UAE, some punditry gigs. Being at top for so long isn't just an incredible achievement in terms of focus and success, it's also an incredible feat of stamina. On those weeks when hundreds of Arsenal fans wave laminated placards saying 'Wenger Out' because he hasn't signed enough £50 million strikers for their liking, that career of patience and endurance is doubly impressive. Who, frankly, could be arsed?

But these before-he's-even-dead eulogies aren't about the man's achievements, it's about the man himself, and I love him. I love him. I fucking love Wenger. His wry smiles, his sideways looks. The fact that the smartest man in English football consistently gets trapped inside his own coat. His patience with Abou Diaby. The fact that he effectively bought an entire stadium, cementing the club's future for years to come. That time he got really up in Mourinho's face. His enduring Fergie respect-beef. This fucking wavey fashion shoot. The fact that his first name is almost – very, very almost – the name of the club he manages. Wenger is sewn deep into the very DNA of the club I support, and I couldn't be happier about it. Happy 20 years, Arsene. Long may you reign.

When Arsene Wenger took over at Arsenal, I had just celebrated my fourth birthday. I wasn't too far past the stage of my life when I was still shitting myself and getting away with it so, to all extents and purposes, Wenger is all I've ever known. George Graham is an echo of history to me, Bruce Rioch an indistinct smear. I am one of the Arsene Wenger generation; late-era millennials who think football exists merely in 'Wenger Out' hashtags, rambling Facebook statuses and code.

It's perhaps because we've never known anything else that Arsenal fans of my age seem most prone to harbouring 'Wenger Out' sympathies. We have taken the great man for granted and, with our internet-age attention spans, we have reduced his achievements to a footnote of the past and set about roundly abusing him on Twitter, at train stations and at the few drudging league matches that the majority of us can afford to attend. We have the spirit of rebellion in us and, completely incapable as we are of turning that into a coherent political movement, we have turned it full force on an austere sexagenarian who fills us with truculent resentment, a mean grandad who refuses to buy us a world-class striker for Christmas, no matter how big a strop we throw.

Then again, Wenger's devalued stock with early twentysomethings is understandable, considering the timing of his greatest triumphs. All through my childhood, Arsenal were swashbuckling title winners, and that felt like the way it was meant to be. The 1997/98 Double win is still a faint memory for me, even if red and white flashes of Wright and Bergkamp stand out. Only when Henry started jinking and shimmying towards his pomp did I start paying close attention; it was impossible not to at school in North London, where the glory of Wenger's golden era was reflected in every spat, every squabble, every conversation with a mate's slightly overbearing dad.

That made it particularly painful when, having been the undisputed masters of the capital, Arsenal's candle began to dim. Suddenly other clubs were rivalling us and, no matter how tightly we clung to our faded grandeur, we could no longer claim to be the best. We had been Invincibles, God love us, and now we were losing to teams like Birmingham, and Wigan, and Tottenham Hotspur. The older I got, the worse Arsenal became. By the time I was going to university, we were being thumped 8-2 by Manchester United, and were, in a relative sense, absolute shite.

That meant that, unfortunately, Arsene's professional nadir coincided with my early adulthood. I was refining my political opinions, my personal philosophy and my general worldview, and he was presiding over a 6-0 pumping at Stamford Bridge. To say this hasn't dampened my enthusiasm for his management would be disingenuous, even if my admiration for him refuses to sputter out and die. While someone a decade older might have experienced their personal peak at the same time as Arsenal, I missed out on that euphoria, and instead had to watch Arsene get outmaneuvered by Tony Pulis twice a season, which is not particularly fun.

In my adult years following Arsenal, Arsene's painful defeats stand out amongst the victories. He has given me Sebastien Squillaci, Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh, and permitted everyone I have ever allowed myself to love to leave. He presided over a League Cup defeat to fourth-tier Bradford City when I, wrapped in a heavy-duty scarf and coat in an attempt to keep out the marrow-chilling cold, had travelled several hundred miles to see it. That is probably why I am now a football journalist, a profession which expressly debars a man from caring about the fortunes of his childhood team.

Will I remember those disappointments when I look back on Arsene Wenger's tenure, as well as the duo of cathartic cup wins that look to have marked the conclusion of his time at Arsenal? Yes, I will recall them with a strange fondness, like I'm fond of all the other moments that I realised my near-total disillusionment with this awful world. I'll remember the unbudging stubbornness, the infuriating inflexibility and the fatalistic idealism that have characterised late-era Wenger, with far greater clarity than I'll remember his radical years as the pioneering Professeur. That said, through the eyes of a child, I'll also remember the schooldays, the glory days; the flair of Bergkamp, the fire of Vieira, the hair-on-end football, the – "HENRY!"

Hey guys, did you ever used to imagine that Arsene Wenger was your dad? Haha, me neither, lol! No, but seriously guys, cut the bullshit. What was it like when you imagined that Arsene Wenger was your dad? You'd come bounding in from school and place your beret on the side board, looking crestfallen.

"You look, err… little bit crestfallen my son?"

"Papa, I've come fourth in every single school race at sports day today."

"Well look, err… what matters is not always the winning, but sometimes the consistency in the results," he'd say, ruffling your hair.

Then you wake up on Christmas Day and run downstairs to open presents, only to be met by Papa Wenger. "Look, we must be patient and not rush things. I can tell you are a little bit excited, but the day is only young and Christmas still has plenty of time to mature and develop."

"But can you at least give me a hint at my present, Papa?"

"Well, I wouldn't like to comment on speculation, but we work around the clock to bring in new Christmas presents every day, only two or three but of real top, top quality."

Then, he'd watch as you opened the new Ozil 5000 and AleXisbox 360, smiling that same old Papa Wenger smile, because he knew all along what he had in store.

You may laugh at the idea of Wenger feeling like a dad to many Arsenal fans, but the fact of the matter is that, for the majority of young fans, the Wenger years are all they can remember. I am old enough to still recall George Graham and briefly Bruce Rioch, but other than that it's been Wenger year in, year out, for better or more recently worse.

I say worse, but really it's worse in a way that's kind of like your dad. You know he loves you, is fiercely committed to you, would protect your image and integrity at any cost, has essentially raised you, but he is still stubborn and traditional in a way that sometimes you just can't understand.

In 1996, the year Wenger took over Arsenal, Americans could watch live Premier League matches via satellite for the first time. It would cost anywhere between $10 to $20 per game, but you could do it. I imagine some did, or maybe caught a replay on ESPN2 on Mondays. I was not one of them. I was seven years old and, like most American kids, only knew soccer existed on the Saturday morning fields of our local AYSO youth league.

It's impossible to summarize just how much the American soccer landscape has changed while Wenger watched the clock in the North End tick away week after week, so I won't try. Anyways, you're probably sick of hearing about it. But, suffice it to say, Wenger has managed Arsenal for only six months less than the entire existence of Major League Soccer.

Arsenal pre-Wenger is a history book. Americans have no tales from dads or uncles about parking themselves in Highbury or in front of a TV or radio to watch Tony Adams in the 80s. For many of us, we are the first in our families to like soccer. Our stories are ones of watching however we can, with whomever we can, often in solitude and while nursing brutal hangovers on weekend mornings during our high school and college years. No matter what, Wenger was there, and is probably the only one who has always been there. He's been managing Arsenal longer than we've lived in any one place, watched with any other person. I know what Arsenal looks like without them, but what does Arsenal look like without Wenger? We have no idea. We've never seen it.