After twenty years, has the Emirates finally come of age?
The stadium could finally deliver the glory it once promised, writes ‘I’ve never felt the Emirates like this in my whole career … It was a beautiful moment’ Bukayo Saka 10 May 2026 - THE OBSERVER / Sport Jessy Parker Humphreys It is twenty years since Arsenal bade farewell to their home at Highbury and moved 500m down the road. “The heart wants to stay at Highbury but the brain wants to go somewhere else,” said Arsene Wenger at the time. That somewhere else was a 60,000-seat stadium – an attempt to usher Arsenal into a new era of more fans, higher ticket prices and proper hospitality offerings. Initially earmarked to be called Ashburton Grove, it became the Emirates as a result of a naming rights deal, and so it has stayed for the past two decades. The finale of the 93-year Highbury era could have been a first ever Champions League title. They contested the final for the first time in 2006, playing Barcelona in Paris in a match marked by Jens Lehmann’s famous dismissal after 18 minutes...
