Arsenal fans have had plenty to celebrate at the Emirates this season, with Mikel Arteta’s squad winning 12 of their 15 home Premier League fixtures so far and mounting an unexpected title challenge.
Of the 42 league goals Arsenal have scored in their home stadium, none have been celebrated as wildly as Reiss Nelson’s 98th-minute winner against Bournemouth on 4 March.
It was a significant result for all Arsenal fans, the point at which many started to believe that their team was capable of going toe-to-toe with Manchester City, but a particularly unforgettable day for the club’s deaf supporters: for the first time, British Sign Language [BSL] was fully integrated into the Emirates’ matchday experience.
Arsenal initially trialled BSL for the game against Newcastle on 3 January and in subsequent matches before ushering it in permanently for the Bournemouth match, which coincided with Level Playing Field’s Unite For Access Campaign to promote inclusivity and accessibility for football fans with disabilities.
Arsenal were the first Premier League club to make it a permanent staple of their match-going experience. The customary goal graphic that is flashed across the big screens is now accompanied by a BSL interpreter signing the word “goal”. Interviews conducted pitchside and other video content displayed before, during, and after matches, now cater to the deaf or hard-of-hearing community.
The club’s push to make the Emirates a more inclusive environment came through discussions with supporters, including season-ticket holder Christopher Clelland, a representative from Arsenal’s Disabled Supporters’ Association [Adsa] who is profoundly deaf.
“We have a saying in the deaf community that ‘deaf people are always the last to know’,” Clelland Clelland tells i over Zoom, via Caroline Corrigan, a qualified BSL interpreter who works with the Adsa.
“That’s very much a part of deaf culture because we don’t know what’s going on.
“I started going about 30 years ago when I was 22, 23 so I was kind of late in terms of football but I absolutely loved Arsenal. My son has hearing so I was taking him to the match and my communication predominantly was with him.
“Then when he went off to university I started asking other deaf friends if they wanted to come to the matches with me and that’s when I started to notice more that I was missing information because I was no longer there with my son.”
Through his role with Adsa, Clelland opened dialogue with Arsenal to see if there was a way of improving the match experience for supporters whose first language is BSL.
“I think just through talking to our deaf fans it seemed there was an area of attending the game that they didn’t feel they were included in,” Arsenal’s Disability Access Manager Jon Dyster tells i.
“The first thing just came from producing a goal graphic in sign language and I think it snowballed from that to ‘well if we can do that on the screen could we do BSL?'”
“We got an interpreter that I’d worked with previously as we already provided that [service] for concerts at the Emirates. And from that, we trialled it over probably four or five games before we launched at the Bournemouth game.”
Clelland admits to being “gobsmacked” the first time he saw a BSL interpreter pop up on the screen before the Newcastle match.
“I just arrived as normal and was signing away to my deaf friends, having a drink and then I saw on the pitch that they had a BSL interpreter who appeared up on the live screen and I was absolutely stunned,” Clelland recalls.
“I just sat there staring up at the screen and it was just the best feeling in the world because it was that feeling of being included.”
Since the implementation of BSL at the stadium, Clelland says that he and other deaf fans have had far greater interaction with hearing supporters who are keen to learn what some of the signs mean. It has helped them feel more “like part of the Arsenal family”.
Some of the players have shown an interest too. Jorginho taught himself BSL during lockdown and helped promote the Unite For Access campaign before Bournemouth using sign language. Captain Martin Odegaard has also been taught how to sign the Arsenal badge using BSL.
In conjunction with Level Playing Field's #UniteForAccess campaign, Saturday's match against Bournemouth will be our first matchday with British Sign Language (BSL) fully integrated
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) March 3, 2023
More info here
While Dyster admits that it was nice for Arsenal to be a “trailblazer” on the initiative, he insists there is a collaborative spirit among disability access teams throughout the Premier League to improve accessibility for everybody who comes to watch their team play.
“I think with anything that happens with accessibility there’s always one that starts it and then others look at it and go ‘we want to do something like that as well’,” he says.
“I’m really glad that other clubs are now looking at it.”
To find out more information about British Sign Language and to start learning online, head to www.british-sign.co.uk
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