From Shah Alam To London: One Arsenal Fan’s Journey That Started In Standard One
Football slowly became more than just watching matches. It started shaping how he travelled.
- Rizal's Arsenal journey began in Standard One, sparked by a "HENRY 14" jersey his sister brought back from the UK in 2002.
- Decades later, a few sleepless nights and non-stop WhatsApp messages pushed him to spontaneously book flights to London.
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For most people, football is something that lives on a screen, a weekend match, a highlight reel, maybe a late-night group chat. But for one Arsenal fan from Shah Alam, Rizal Redzuan, it quietly became something that followed him through most of his life.
It started in 2001, when he was in Standard One and first found himself drawn to Arsenal. Not through a stadium or a big moment, but just as a kid discovering a team that somehow stuck.
A year later, his sister returned from the UK with a jersey, simple, red, with “HENRY 14” printed on the back. He still has it today.
That jersey, in many ways, never really left his story.
From Shah Alam to everywhere in between
Over the years, life moved from Shah Alam to Petaling Jaya, then to the Gold Coast in Australia, and back again. But Arsenal stayed somewhere in the background through all of it.
Football slowly became more than just watching matches. It started shaping how he travelled. If there was a game happening somewhere, that often came first before anything else, even before the usual tourist spots.
Stadiums before sightseeing. Matches before monuments.
The first time at the Emirates
His first Arsenal match came on New Year’s Eve in 2011 — Arsenal versus QPR at the Emirates Stadium.
After years of watching from afar, it was the first time it felt real.
Since then, he has attended quite a number of Arsenal matches, usually planning carefully and sourcing tickets through legitimate fan communities to avoid inflated resale prices. For him, it was never about VIP treatment, just being in the stands.
Sleepless nights and a sudden decision
This latest trip to London wasn’t planned months in advance.
It came after what he describes as a few sleepless nights, constantly waking up to WhatsApp calls and messages from friends who were already caught up in the moment.
“I just kept getting updates non-stop,” he said.
At some point, the decision became simple. He was going. Flights were booked soon after.
The long way to London
The journey wasn’t direct. Kuala Lumpur to Istanbul with AirAsia X, then Istanbul to London with Pegasus. And the same route again on the way back, including another overnight stop in Istanbul.
It wasn’t the fastest or easiest route, but that wasn’t really the point of the trip.
Football, strangers, and familiar faces
One of the more unexpected parts of the trip was where he stayed. With a friend of a friend, someone he had never met before.
But in football circles, that kind of thing doesn’t feel strange. There’s a shared understanding among fans that makes strangers feel less like strangers.
Even the smaller details of the trip reflect that same culture. He wore a TroopzTV cap from an Arsenal fan creator he has followed for years, something that represents more than just merchandise, but the wider online fan community he grew up around.
More than just a football club
Looking at it from the outside, travelling thousands of kilometres for a football club might seem excessive.
But for him, it isn’t really about one match or one moment in London.
It stretches back to a jersey in 2002. A name on the back. A kid in Shah Alam who never really stopped following a team he connected with.
And now, years later, that same journey has led him all the way to London, not as a tourist ticking off landmarks, but as a fan finally standing in the place he’s watched on screen for most of his life.
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