Meet the Board

Steve's love affair with the Arsenal began back in 1956. Born & bred on the North Bank , he graduated to the East Stand upper before returning to the North Bank as a Bond Holder. Steve now enjoys a spectacular view from his season ticket behind the goal at the front of the North upper tier.

The club low point for Steve was losing to Swindon in the 1969 League Cup Final, the high point followed just one year later in the Fairs Cup Final beating Anderlecht 4-3 ending 17 barren years, it was the best night ever on the terraces of the North Bank.

Newly appointed as Company Secretary to the Trust, Steve has recently retired from the commercial world  where he enjoyed a career  as an Analyst working for various Blue Chip Companies.

Steve's son Richard is following keenly in his Father's footsteps, also a Trust member and season ticket holder.

Mary has been an Arsenal supporter since the late 1960s spending many happy hours in the West Stand. She has been a season ticket holder since 2003.

She became involved with the AST more by accident than design but is keen to further the aims of the Trust and feels that by bringing a feminine influence to proceedings she will encourage wider participation by women supporters.

Married, with an Arsenal supporting son, Nic who is also a season ticket holder, Mary lives in Margate. The family Dalmatian is named Dennis and there are no prizes for guessing who is Mary's all-time favourite Gunner.

Destiny claimed Jeffrey as an Arsenal supporter before he was even born. The club doctor attended his mother at his birth and his father was a life long supporter. Throughout the early years of his life Jeffrey lived just walking distance from Highbury.

The Freeman family have been season ticket holders since 1945 and Jeffrey has been a shareholder since 1964. His daughter, Rachel, continues the tradition.

The first game Jeffrey attended was in the early 1940s. It was a home game played at Tottenham as the Arsenal ground had been bombed. He left the match knowing one enemy would be defeated but another would be a foe for life.

In 1965 Jeffrey spearheaded a group of shareholders in a campaign to remove the then manager, Billy Wright. He found the Arsenal Board were much less accommodating and reasonable then they are today. However, when Wright went and Mee arrived - success followed.

Jeffrey is a divorce lawyer and continues to follow his hobbies of Life, Individuality and Brevity. During the decade he was born, Arsenal were the foremost team in England. He hopes his work through the AST will result in making Arsenal the foremost team in the world.

Tim grew up in Islington where he attended the club's local school, Highbury Grove Comprehensive. He became a season ticket holder at age eleven in 1984 - the first year that season tickets were introduced for juniors - then costing £25 for the entire season (the seat he now sits in costs twice that for one match!).

Tim is one of the country's leading corporate communications and public affairs advisors in the sports world and was previously a Board Director at Mandate Communications where he headed its Sports Advocacy practice. He has acted as an advisor to many sports governing bodies including the Football Association (The FA), England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), British Horseracing Authority (BHA) and London 2012. He also established sportsthinktank.com, the country's first think tank dedicated to sports policy issues and writes and lectures on sports policy issues. 

Tim acts as spokesperson for the Trust, and also manages communication issues including editing the website. He can be contacted at tim.payton@sportscommunications.co.uk

Nigel attended his first match at Highbury in 1974 (Leicester 0-0!) and has been a season ticket holder since 1985 and shareholder since 1991. His Arsenal highlight to date is Anfield 1989 (attended en route to the following day's Scotland vs. England game at Hampden). His favourite all time player is Tony Adams on whom he has modelled his own playing style.

Nigel cares passionately about the Club and sees the role of the AST as an important platform for improved dialogue with the Arsenal Board of Directors. He's keen to further the aims of the AST in whatever way he can.

A married father of four, he has worked in banking since 1988. Son, Henry attended his first match at Highbury against Farnborough in January 2003 age just three and a half years.

Nigel is the Trust's expert on all financial issues at the club and regularly analyses the Club's financial results for AST members and shareholders in general. He is the AST Treasurer.

Emma has been an Arsenal fan all of her life. Her dad grew up on the Seven Sisters Road. Fortunately he saw the light and went to Arsenal in 1954, instead of that other North London club.

Emma went to nursery on Upper Street in the early 1980s and was a junior gunner. She cites the arrival of Charlie Nicholas as one of her first playing memories. It was the signing of Ian Wright that sparked Emma’s continued obsession with Arsenal and she even completed her dissertation on the early social history of the club.

At the 2006 Champions’ League Final a dejected image of Emma in the Stade de France was beamed around the world by ITV. This was followed by an interview with ITN where Emma was named as the: “Angel of the North Bank.”

Emma lives in Highbury and has been a season ticket holder since the club’s move to the Emirates. She sits with her dad, a season ticket holder for over 40 years.

Like Mary, Emma brings a female influence to the trust board that is often not seen in many trusts. Her experience as a consultant working in the political football arena also offers the board a different perspective on issues.

Glyn has been an Arsenal fan since 1970. He is an Arsenal shareholder, a bond holder and sits on the half way line at the Emirates. Educated at Oxford University, he is now a partner specialising in corporate law at one of the UK's largest law firms, Nabarro.

Glyn is a founder member of the Arsenal Supporters Trust and takes primary responsibility for legal and compliance issues. Glyn chairs the AST AGM and other external meetings. Together with wife Carmen (the Trust’s most important member), he manages the AST Membership register.

Phil is a second generation supporter and has followed Arsenal for as long as he can remember. The first football match he ever saw on television was the 1971 FA Cup final. He attended Liam Brady's debut match, and saw Arsenal struggle through the seventies against the likes of Burnley, suffering on through the long wilderness years before George Graham's arrival. By the time Arsenal won the Littlewoods Cup he was attending every home game. By the 1990's he had become a season ticket holder, but family commitments have since reduced his attendance.

He mourned the departure of David Seaman less for the fading of a great keeper than for the fact there will never be another Arsenal player older than Phil himself. Phil has also been a regular contributor to The Gooner fanzine for over a decade.