by Pádraic Gilligan, Co-founder, SoolNua Consulting

It is finally over. Without any need to win their last game of the 2025/2026 season, Arsenal Football Club will be crowned winners of the English Premier League for the first time in over two decades.

To put this in perspective, when Arsenal last won the Premier League I was 43 years old, married to Rita and father to 6 children, the youngest of whom were 8 year old twin girls. Pat and I were running Ovation Group and, having survived an annus horribilis in 2002, had our collective shoulders to the wheel laying the foundations for robust incremental growth in the mid noughties and eventual acquisition by MCI in 2008.

During those 22 fallow Arsenal years, I was blessed with way more highs than lows in my life. Those twins are now in their thirties, one married, the other due to marry in September. The other 4 children have gifted us 13 grandchildren, the youngest of whom is almost 15. The acquisition of Ovation Group by MCI allowed Pat and me to start Ovation Global DMC and take the Ovation brand all over the world, to over 100 destinations. It also provided rigorous training for us as global business leaders in a truly exciting, expanding enterprise full of amazing, talented people.

Both personally and professionally, I have been gifted with more bountiful blessings and joys than I could ever have imagined, and certainly more than I ever deserved. But a Premiership shaped hole was getting bigger and bigger for my team of choice and, despite only 3 finishes outside the top 4 since 2003/2004, it took until now for Arsenal to win another title.

In a recent post on Arseblog, Andrew Mangan’s essential, indispensable blog for all Gooners, Andrew makes the point that most Arsenal fans will now forever recall where they were when Arsenal won the Premiership in 2026.

I would like to record that here. So where was I at approximately 11pm Frankfurt time on Tuesday, 19 May 2026, when the match between our title rivals, Manchester City, and Bournemouth was being played?

Unsurprisingly, I was at a business event industry event, IMEX, in Frankfurt, with no access to a screen or stream showing the live game. I was, of course, getting updates on my phone but, like Andrew, once I knew Bournemouth were one up, I could no longer look at my phone because, if I did, Man City would certainly score. I know. There is no rhyme, reason or logic to this unless, of course, you are an Arsenal fan. For the best explanation of this ludicrous, ridiculous and totally irrational mindset, please read Fever Pitch (1992) by Nick Hornby. He explains it.

The days and hours leading up to this final denouement were full of chatter, speculation and not a little teasing. On the day of the Arsenal v Burnley game, 24 hours before the City game, I chatted to Ray Bloom, Chairman of the IMEX Group and passionate supporter of Brighton & Hove Albion (and soccer in general). We were both in action at Exclusively Corporate, IMEX’s event that brings corporate planners together in person, and I asked him what he thought. He put Arsenal’s situation simply and dispassionately: “Well, they know what they have to do. Just win the remaining two games. It’s theirs to lose.” That comment provided no solace for me, and no hope, and I began, secretly, to hate Brighton. However, his later remark, “I actually think they’ll do it,” was like a sudden change of wind direction when you have been on a bike battling the headwinds and now there is a tailwind and it is all downhill. Redemption.

I went from a very successful Exclusively Corporate to SITE NITE Europe, the annual event that brings together the global incentive travel community at Depot 1899 for great food, drinks and unbridled positivity. Always the perfect place to connect and re-connect, it was all going swimmingly until I looked at my phone to discover that after 30 minutes it was still 0-0 at the Emirates, in this must-win, second last game against Burnley, the team in second last position. At that stage, according to my expectations, Arsenal should have been up by at least 2. Crippling anxiety immediately took hold and I simply had to depart, not wanting to dilute the high spirited SITE event with my ever-growing gloom.

From the dark privacy of my hotel room I tried to find the game on TV, scrolling through around 100 channels in German, French, Arabic, Chinese and English. Not one was showing the Arsenal game. Again I relied on my phone and found Arsenal to be one up, thanks to a Havertz goal from a set piece. 1-0 is the WORST score for anxiety so, again, the phone was abandoned and I counted down the minutes until I felt the game would be over, distracting myself with a crossword from last weekend’s FT. After 11pm local time the final score was confirmed: 1-0 to the Arsenal, with echoes of George Graham, some minor relief, and new pressure already mounting for the next night’s game between Man City and Bournemouth.

The following evening I was at the SITE staff team dinner enjoying the most amazing truffle pasta served from a huge parmigiano wheel (at La Famiglia, Frankfurt, in case you are interested). I did the Irish goodbye as my younger, fitter and more energetic colleagues headed for that smorgasbord of IMEX parties, and could not avoid a sneaky peek at my phone to discover Bournemouth 1, Man City 0, with about 40 minutes gone.

Back in the room, I returned to the now familiar ritual: too anxious to watch, too invested to look away. I put the phone face down on the bedside locker, picked it up, put it down again, picked it up. I tried the crossword. I read the same paragraph in a book four times. I paced. I prayed, in the loose Arsenal fan sense of the word. And eventually, eventually, the score on my screen settled and stayed settled. Bournemouth 1, Manchester City 1. Full time. A draw but 2 points dropped by City. It was done.

I sat on the edge of the bed in ultra funky nhow hotel in Frankfurt and let twenty-two years catch up with me. Quietly, mind. No roar, no fist pump, no waking the neighbours. Just a long exhale and a slightly embarrassing prickle at the back of the eyes. There would be time for noise later, in the company of others who get it, especially my son Colm and soon, hopefully, one or two of my grandchildren (most of them have already declared for Man Utd, Liverpool and Real Madrid but Colm and I harbour quiet hopes for Séan!)

And that brings me to the others. Across our industry there are quiet pockets of Arsenal supporters who have been carrying the same low-grade ache for the same long stretch. Jonathan Richards, Hamish Reid and James Rees will each have their own version of where-they-were on the night of 19 May 2026; their own hotel room, kitchen counter, friend’s couch or train carriage where they watched the final minutes tick down. I look forward to comparing notes with each of them.

Some clubs you choose. Some choose you. And when, after twenty-two years, the wait finally ends, you find out who else has been waiting alongside you.

Up the Arsenal.