After Arsenal's first home game of the 1996 season, a dull, routine 2-0 win over West Ham, I went to a pub a few minutes' walk from Highbury with a group of fellow season-ticket holders. It was a hot day, and we were thirsty, and there was a lot to talk about.
Arsenal had started the season manager-less: Bruce Rioch had been sacked during the summer, suddenly and strangely, after a single season. Arsenal is not a club that changes managers often. At that point, I'd been watching Arsenal for over a quarter of a century and had only known five, four of whom had been employed by the club in some other capacity before taking the job.