Robin van Persie: My story on how I became an Arsenal fan

Arsenal striker Robin van Persie confessed a childhood football jersey and big names joining the Club are the reasons why he was a fan of the Gunners as a child.

Speaking to Arsenal TV Online, the Holland International was full of smiles as he explained that he had two football shirts when he was 12 years old, one of A.C. Milan – presumably because of the Van Basten-Gullit-Rijkaard trio – and one of Arsenal, the one he picked for his first photo shoot.

On the change the Gunners went through when manager Arsene Wenger took over, the 27-year old joked that they were no longer labeled as “Boring Arsenal” as they then started to play “sexy football”.

On becoming an Arsenal player himself, the striker concluded by saying that he loves the Club – by him described as class – as every single element has class, from the manager to the players to those working to make the Emirates a better place for the fans.

On his early days, van Persie said:

I had two football team shirts, one of them was A.C. Milan and the other one was Arsenal.

I was about 11 or 12 years old and I did a photo shoot in that shirt. This guy asked me, ‘What shirt do you want to do the shoot with?’ It was my first shoot and if I had to pick one I [decided to do it with] the Arsenal one.

I started to support Arsenal because especially since the arrival of the boss and Dennis [Bergkamp] and [Patrick] Vieira and players like that, Arsenal did change from what they used to say “Boring Arsenal” to a really fancy sexy football playing team.

I love this Club, I think it’s a Club of class, if you look at our people who are working for Arsenal, from the boss to the people working at the Emirates, anyone who I speak to, anyone who is involved with Arsenal, they have class.