![]() ![]() He was practically a straight-A student at GCSE level. Jenkinson’s father may have been football-mad, but he never allowed his son to take a career in the game for granted. “It happened a few more times - every now and then one of our neighbours would bring him back to the front door and go ‘Oh, here’s Mitch.’ It used to be like a UPS delivery service.” So Mitch had our address written in green paint on his shell. But my old man didn’t want to take any chances, so he decided to paint our address on his shell. The first time he went missing, we got him back. “We backed onto a park, and he used to escape from our garden. “Mitch ended up blind and deaf,” recalls Jenkinson. He distinctly remembers watching Arsenal face Charlton Athletic, the club he signed for as a seven-year-old, on their way to that 2004 title.Īway from football, Jenkinson enjoyed Christmases in his mother’s native Finland and raising a menagerie of pets - including Mitch the tortoise. He grew up watching the Invincibles he loved Lauren’s marauding runs from right-back and Robert Pires’ graceful efficiency from the left. When his busy football schedule permitted, he’d occasionally get to join his father Steve for a game at Highbury. He had Arsenal wallpaper, an Arsenal bedspread, and enough replica shirts to kit out a full team. Jenkinson’s childhood bedroom was a shrine to all things Arsenal. And that’s what I’ll always be from now on.” I’m at a point now where I’m enjoying being a fan again. It means when I come back to England, I can go with the old man again. And I love it: I follow the games like I always used to and me and my dad got a season ticket back. It took a while but now I’m safely back in that bracket. “I think I just needed a little bit of time to become a fan again. Now enjoying his football again with Newcastle Jets in Australia’s A-League, 31-year-old Jenkinson has been able to reconnect to the club of his heart. I needed a bit of time to get over the fact that I wasn’t a player anymore.” “I was so sad that it had come to an end. “It was difficult,” Jenkinson tells The Athletic. ![]()
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