You don't have to be an Arsenal fan to recognise the man in focus in the picture above. That's Martin Odegaard, magical playmaker, and Arsenal captain. It's the blurred-out figure in the foreground though that makes this moment so special. You see, the camera that Odegaard is holding is the figure's, a man named Stuart MacFarlane. MacFarlane is an Arsenal institution.
He's been around the club for more than three decades: even though he only became official club photographer in 2001, he and his camera had been capturing special Arsenal moments since 1991.
He's so integral that coach Mikel Arteta asked him (a couple of seasons ago) to give the team talk before a North London derby, where what he said captured brilliantly the emotions of a lifelong fan. "This is my club," he said. "I ******* love this football club. I ******* love all of you. Thirty years photographing some amazing players, world class players, some great teams. And I look at you lot... this is a great team. I've been a fan all my life. This is what we do, we have to go out and win." He ended his speech with a simple call: "Show [the fans] how much you love them. Okay?" Arsenal went out and beat Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 that day.
For Arsenal, MacFarlane is as much part of the team as anyone else.
On Sunday, when they beat table-toppers Liverpool 3-1 in a sloppy, intense affair to go second, just two points off them, the whole team celebrated hard. Mikel Arteta did a Jurgen-Klopp-tribute run down the touchline of the Emirates after Leandro Trossard had made it three to seal the win. The players danced around the pitch once the final whistle blew, fans loving the win over a great team -- and these are the times where MacFarlane comes into his own, racing onto the pitch to capture the emotions, the joy.
So it was poetic that he would be the one captured: Odegaard saw him come running toward him, went and took his camera, and pushing away his remonstrations, asked him to go celebrate while he clicked a couple of photographs with the Emirates in full flow behind him. It captured a beautiful little instant, one of a fan living his dream. Who amongst us wouldn't want to be in a MacFarlane-mould shoes at *insert club of your choice*? Who amongst us wouldn't love to be treated the way MacFarlane was by the captain of our football club?
Naturally in this instant-video-reaction era, several pundits chimed in with their slices of criticism as the visuals of the celebration took centre-stage. Gary Neville said, "I just still think there is a little bit of immaturity". Jamie Carragher said, "Just get down the tunnel, you've won a game, it's three points... You've been brilliant, you're back in the title race. Get down the tunnel." Carragher laughed it off in the aftermath, saying it was just him paraphrasing a Neil Warnock joke, but you could see the pundits really did believe in the criticism: surely this celebration was over-the-top, surely you can't do all this when the end goal - the league title - is still so far off.
But there was a spontaneous joy in those celebrations that captured the essence of this whole endeavour. If you can't show you are happy when you are, if you can't celebrate a big win over a direct rival... what's even the point of it all? For forgetting to obsess over the long-term, for living in the moment and enjoying their win, for ignoring the celebration-police, Arsenal -- and especially the pair of Odegaard-MacFarlane -- take our moment of the weekend.