In happier, and more just, circumstances, Evan Gershkovich might have been at the Emirates on Saturday afternoon to watch Arsenal hammer Sheffield United 5-0 to maintain their eager pursuit of a first Premier League title in 20 years.
Instead, Gershkovich continues to languish in a jail in Russia. In his absence, a banner was held up by Arsenal fans to mark his 32nd birthday and seven months of incarceration. It read: “HAPPY BIRTHDAY, EVAN — 7 Months, 25 Matches, Bring Him Home #FREEEVAN”.
Gershkovich is a journalist for The Wall Street Journal but also a football lover and Arsenal devotee, so there was something touchingly poignant in this recognition from fellow supporters on the North Bank — a reaching out to him from his soccer tribe.
That banner serves a wider purpose too. In a news cycle that seems filled with horrors, Gershkovich’s terribly unfair plight can slip out of awareness; though not, of course, for those family and friends who long every day for his release from Moscow’s Lefortovo prison.
“A timely reminder that he is still unjustly behind bars,” Andrew Allen, a fellow Gooner and the deputy editor of Arseblog, says. Knowing one of Gershkovich’s colleagues at the WSJ, and hearing of their shared passion for Arsenal, he helped to organise the banner.
There have been tortuous debates in recent weeks about mixing sport and politics, which Allen promptly cuts through: “As far as I’m concerned, this banner and the predecessor [a banner was held up before the 3-3 draw with Southampton in April] are not political acts, merely a show of support for a fellow Arsenal fan in a shit situation — an act of kindness.
“I doubt Putin will have a sleepless night but we hope word of it makes it to Lefortovo prison and for a brief moment puts a smile on Evan’s face. We can’t really ask for more than that.”
It also draws fresh attention to the arrest of a reporter simply for doing his job. Gershkovich was detained this year on March 29, while on assignment in Yekaterinburg, 1,000 miles east of Moscow. The state security service accused him of spying on Russia’s military industrial complex, an allegation vehemently denied by Gershkovich, the WSJ and the White House. Joe Biden, the US president, has called the reporter’s detention “totally illegal”.
Some analysts have speculated that the Kremlin may have seized him as a bargaining chip for a future prisoner swap with the United States. Moscow has said that talks on a possible exchange would be possible only after his trial and, last month, Gershkovich lost an appeal against his detention, meaning that he stays in jail before another hearing due at the end of November.
His sister Danielle told National Public Radio that in handwritten letters to his family Gershkovich said he was keeping his spirits up through exercising, meditating and writing. He was most recently seen publicly in a glass defendant’s cage at Moscow city court.
Football may seem a triviality in this context but that banner reminds us of how the game is so important to so many for shared connection; an outlet, a passion, a way to come together. It is all those things, and more, for Gershkovich; the soccer-loving son of Soviet immigrants who found a devotion for Arsenal through watching the Invincibles and marvelling at Thierry Henry in particular.
At Princeton High School in New Jersey, he was captain of the team as an elegant and assured central midfielder. The school put on a game last month, teams clad in T-shirts declaring #IStandWithEvan, in tribute to a much admired alumnus.
Football was Gershkovich’s way of meeting people in an unfamiliar city when, on the outbreak of war in Ukraine, he suddenly found himself stationed in London. He went to some Arsenal games and joined colleagues to play matches.
“As soon as he arrived in London he joined our five-a-side team in the Vauxhall Power League,” Ed Ballard, a colleague at the WSJ, says. “He’s an incredibly gregarious guy, one of those people who becomes everyone’s friend very quickly. To join a football team was a nice thing for him to meet people.”
Arsenal were still top of the league when Gershkovich was arrested. “I hope he’s out in time to see us go one better this year,” Allen says.
While they wait for positive news about talks to free the journalist, football fans are doing what they can to look after one of their own.
“I think the banner is really just to emphasise that he is a regular guy who is missing out on all the normal interests and joys that we take for granted, like watching Arsenal, maybe going to the Emirates or kicking a ball about with friends,” Ballard adds. “That’s been taken away in a very unfair and arbitrary way.
“I am sure everyone has their own thoughts about how they would love to see him again but for me it will be amazing to see him back down at the Vauxhall Power League on a Wednesday night with people who very quickly became his friends, kick a ball, and then go to the pub afterwards and buy him a beer. I only hope it is sooner rather than later.”
