Sometimes you don't meet one of your work colleagues for five years. Sometimes your first meeting happens to be at Wembley Stadium for the EFL Cup final. Sometimes you just happen to be Arsenal and Manchester City supporters.
When the offer arrived for Stockport lad Oliver Thomas and lifelong Gunner Ben Knapton to attend the 2025-26 showpiece event, neither purely neutral journalist was in any position to turn down a one-of-a-kind experience – the one of a kind being the first-ever EFL Cup final to be fought between the top two teams in the Premier League table.
For an Arsenal fan too young to remember the Arsene Wenger glory days, and yet to enter this mortal coil when the Gunners last conquered the competition in 1993 – as was the case with every member of Mikel Arteta's current squad – the calm before the storm was, strangely, calm.
The pre-game optimism had reached its crescendo, as Arsenal came into the championship match unbeaten in 14 games in all tournaments while Pep Guardiola's Sky Blues had earned a paltry one win from five, while crashing out of the Champions League at the hands of perpetual winners Real Madrid. Fans, pundits and journalists alike were mostly siding with the men in red and white.
On my journey from humble Camberley to the hustle and bustle of Wembley Central, the first club colours I spotted just so happened to be that of the Gunners – a sight of little surprise given many members of Arteta's faithful had to take a quick trip across the tube, compared to the Poznan-loving travelling brigade making an entire weekend of it.
I declined to follow two of the Red Army onto the first train to Wembley Central, a peculiar decision in the eyes of the guard overseeing the platform, who asked me why I opted to hold on rather than hop on.
“I don't want to be too early, you know?” a hitherto upbeat Arsenal fan responded. Now, that hitherto upbeat Arsenal fan cannot help but wonder if he should have been too early. Maybe things would have been different had he abandoned this laissez-faire stance.
EFL Cup final: An Arsenal fan's diary
Still, with the springtime sun beaming down ideal temperatures for a day in the press box, I strode to Wembley with the same glass-half-full swagger of the plethora of Arsenal fans around me. And those Arsenal fans significantly outnumbered the Man City ones wherever you looked, from the Bakerloo Line to Wembley Way.
Upon convening with my colleague Oliver, there was only one place to start; why the Man City representative had sided with the enemy on Friday, before picking the sky blue option in our Instagram poll. Just like me, optimism had swiftly taken over for Mr. Thomas, even if he also could not help but notice the sea of red swarming towards us.
After a few vox pops with equally cheery supporters from both sides, our press passes awaited us, and the first sense of Arsenal-related apprehension crept in while yours truly was tucking into the cheesiest of burgers; no Eberechi Eze, no Martin Odegaard, and no Jurrien Timber in the Gunners' squad. Oliver cracked a smile when I informed him of these social media leaks, while I was doing my utmost to hide my genuine emotion; doom and gloom had replaced encouragement and expectation.
There was time to distract myself from the latest Arsenal injury crisis to play a quick game of legend-spotting, though; Marcel Desailly, Matthew Upson, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Rob Green, Glenn Murray, Michael Brown, Jermaine Pennant, Jeremie Aliadiere and Steph Houghton all graced the press room with their presence.
We are fans, but also journalists. So of course we had to film ourselves giving our pre-game predictions for an Instagram story. I stayed true to my guns and backed a 1-0 Gunners success, while Oliver's allegiances had truly taken over by this point, as he sided with a Man City victory in extra time as my head involuntarily shook.
By this point, I couldn't help but feel like an infiltrator while Man City fans poured into their allocated section, which just so happened to border onto the Wembley press box; nevertheless, the Arsenal-heavy tube was a precursor for the stadium itself, which still had the feel of a Gunners home game even after all 88,000 supporters had taken their seats.
The traditions were traditionally out in force, as Arsenal and Man City supporters traded North London Forevers and Blue Moons, while the latter also got in some very early – but ultimately not premature – Poznan practice.
The Arsenal roars were the loudest early doors, courtesy of James Trafford's astonishing triple save from Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz, but those bellows were soon directed towards referee Peter Bankes as Gooners quickly grew infuriated with the official's foul-or-not-foul decisions.
EFL Cup final: When the Arsenal army filtered out
Part of me wanted to question some of Bankes's not-foul calls in the same manner as those to my left, but the professional in me took over, as it did for Oliver, who professionally and silently watched William Saliba bully Erling Haaland all throughout the first half; the same was true for ex-Citizens player Brown, on commentary duty just to the right of me.
Neither set of fans truly ‘won' the who-can-be-loudest battle in the opening 45 – an argument can be made that Arsenal just edged it – but their silence was deafening at the start of the second half, when Arteta's men could not get out and were doubly punished by the omnipresent Nico O'Reilly.
The raucous celebrations of City supporters were not those of a side watching the final of the ‘Mickey Mouse Cup', but of those who knew that this final meant something more – further evidence came from the gentleman a couple of rows down from me in the press box, kitted out in journalist gear but evidently rooting for the boys in turquoise.
And there sat the Arsenal man; head in hands, blank expression, realising that the EFL Cup final curse would not be exorcised and that the quadruple dream had been well and truly dashed. I managed to bring myself to glance over at Oliver twice, a surreptitious smile etched across his face, but no show of emotion significant enough to distract him from his duty.
As Arteta's men huffed and puffed without success, it was striking to see the number of Arsenal fans who filtered out of Wembley with around 10 minutes still to go, many exiting just after Riccardo Calafiori's strike agonisingly struck the outside the post and went behind. In fairness, I could not have tried to fathom getting an overground train at Wembley Central at the same time as 50,000-odd others, especially when the day had turned into unexpected disaster for the Premier League leaders.
As the clock struck 90, I shook Oliver's hand for the second time today, before drowning myself in work to try to forget what just happened… by writing about what just happened. How paradoxical.
Oliver, understandably, managed to lift his head from his laptop to witness the first trophy lift up in the rafters, but was otherwise a cordial Citizen who refused to gloat in a Gunner's face – whether the opposite might have been true had we been observing from a fan zone, we will never know.