My passport is red and white

IN England I believe your football club is a part of your passport. You live with it, you die with it. It is a bit like a nationality — nobody in England would ever consider changing their passport during their lifetime. It is the same for their club.

That gives a club a responsibility. You have people who you know will go home and cry when you lose a game, who will suffer when you don’t play well.

So you feel you have a kind of responsibility to make them proud of their club. Of course in a short way that happens through results and the way you play football. But over a longer period I believe the values of the club that carry through the generations make people proud too.

Today, I notice more the popularity of Arsenal when I travel the world compared to when I am in England. That for me is down to the fact that we are recognised as a club who has a multicultural acceptance and a club who gives a chance to people who have a dream.

It’s a series of values we are proud to carry through the years.

The club can influence people’s lives in a positive way.

After 20 years at the club I feel responsible for every bad thing that happens to Arsenal and proud of every good thing that happens. I always say when you wake up in the morning and you can go to a football game, you hope it can be a moment of happiness in your life. We have to try to give that to people.

Arsenal has become my passport now. Only six months in a club nowadays is massive. You cannot be 20 years inside a club and not feel accountable. So of course it has become my identity. My passport is red and white in fact.

Extracted from The Wenger Revolution: Twenty Years of Arsenal by Amy Lawrence and official Arsenal photographer, Stuart MacFarlane. Authorised by Arsenal FC and published by Bloomsbury Sport, £20