April and May 2019 saw the finales for Game of Thrones and Marvel Phase 3, two of the most significant pop-culture franchises from the past decade. If I wanted to be dramatic, I would suggest that as I entered a new stage in my life, my thirties, much that was familiar had begun to slip away. The departure of Aaron James Ramsey was the final nail in that coffin.
It is only today when he finally changed his social media bios and posted a photo of him wearing the black and white of Juventus, that I realised how closely the last decade of my life is tied to the Welshman’s career in North London. Jaded as I was last summer, by depression, by a sudden questioning of my life’s purpose, by Arsenal’s season and the end of Arsene Wenger’s tenure, I’ll be honest in saying that the first intimation of Aaron Ramsey leaving Arsenal was met by my indifference. Or at least what I took to be my indifference. Until, halfway through the season, all the sneaky emotion barrelled through and I found myself exactly where I didn’t want to be. Missing yet another Arsenal player before he had even left. Missing him suddenly, fiercely, as if the intensity burned through my general apathy to remind me exactly why and how much I loved Rambo even as his eventual exit was all but confirmed.
In June 2008, when Aaron Ramsey arrived at Arsenal as a seventeen-year-old, I was only two years older and preparing to leave home for the first time. On February 27, 2010, not even a week after my 21st birthday, I was unable to believe Ihad just seen at the Britannia Stadium. I have had the bad fortune of experiencing Eduardo’s injury on my actual nineteenth birthday, but this, this was something that burrowed in and hollowed out a space for itself. This was a peer, far too young, too talented for something that devastating. Someone teetering on the cusp of carving a more permanent place for himself in a midfield already glowing with the talents of Cesc Fabregas, Tomas Rosicky, Samir Nasri and Jack Wilshere.
After his long return back from that horrific double-leg break, I felt compelled to write this piece for Football Paradise in support of a guy I still strongly supported even though an outspoken contingent of fans didn’t. I believed in him even when he was out of sorts and underconfident, even when he was playing out of position but never complained. Back then, there was no guarantee of anything. Back then nobody knew the integral part he would play in bringing back silverware to the club after an nine-year-drought.