I LOVE the north London derby. Always have done, always will do. 

Not only is it one of the biggest games in domestic football, it’s a match watched all over the world.

As someone who has attended nearly 100 clashes between Arsenal and Spurs over the last four decades — at Highbury, White Hart Lane, Wembley, the Emirates and the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, I simply can’t wait for tomorrow’s clash. 

As a supporter, I can recall searing highs that still make me smile. Such as being at White Hart Lane in April 2004 to watch Arsene Wenger’s soon-to-be-Invincibles win the Premier League. To win the title at the home of your bitter rivals on a never-to-be forgotten afternoon will take some beating. 

I’ve experienced so many memories in the course of nearly 40 years watching the derby, good and bad — so where to start?

My first Arsenal hero, Charlie Nicholas, always used to score against the Lilywhites. Perhaps that was why he was my first hero. 

My first north London derby was in April 1984. At a gloriously sunny Highbury. As a callow youngster, I only really recall two things from that day: The vicious atmosphere caused by dreadful and prolonged fighting everywhere in N5 that afternoon — between the warring factions, incongruous in their jaunty uniforms of bright sports casual gear. 

The second, far happier memory, was Nicholas dribbling through the Spurs backline as he fired home the winner in front of the North Bank — prompting an eruption of unbridled delirium. 

The recollection of the cacophonous reaction to the late winner in sealing a stirring 3-2 victory, even now, simply writing these words, still gives me goosebumps. 

The season after, in a hard-fought 0-0 draw at Highbury — with both sets of players surely hungover during the early New Year’s Day clash — Graham Roberts put Nicholas in the stands in the only real action of note. I never forgave Roberts for the callous challenge.

Arsenal’s pair of thumping 5-2 victories in 2011 and 2012 also live long in the memory. As does being in a raucous — and dangerously overcrowded away end — White Hart Lane, as a wide-eyed schoolchild on March 4 1987, to watch George Graham’s glorious Gunners win through to Wembley. 

In my mind’s eye I can still picture the late, great David “Rocky” Rocastle, fire home, along with fellow goalscorer Ian Allinson, as underdogs Arsenal reached the 1987 Littlewoods Cup final in front of 12,000 travelling Gooners. The win made all the sweeter after the Spurs PA shared details of how home fans could apply for tickets for the final — at half-time. A big mistake. 

More recently, as a journalist I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Tony Adams, who was captain that night. 

In a voice — decades on — that still growled with the insult given that evening, Adams told me that his team channelled Spurs’ misplaced confidence as motivation, while they sat in the dressing room at half-time, during that momentous match. They certainly did. 

The flip side of course are those crushing north London derby defeats. 

Being at the 5-1 League Cup semi-final thrashing in N17, in January 2008, still makes me shudder. 

As does the awful 3-1 defeat in the semi-final of the FA Cup at the old Wembley Stadium in 1991, a fired-up Gazza, Gary Lineker and all — which is still up there as one of the worst defeats I’ve ever experienced as an Arsenal fan. 

The others? Being at the Parc de Princes in 1995 as “Nayim from the half-way line” moved from a speculative shot to a galling song, compounded by the fact he was a former Spur. Another trip to Paris in the spring, this time for the 2006 Champions League was the other. Mind you, being at Wrexham to watch Arsenal lose in one of the biggest shocks in FA Cup history in 1992 was another particular low point, but I digress. 

Later, when covering Arsenal week in week out as a reporter, I’d always study the look on Wenger’s face when he was invariably asked if he thought there was a power shift in north London. A question and topic that would invariably arise any time Spurs managed to string together consecutive wins in the weeks leading up to the derby.

Sitting in front of him at those long-lost press conferences at London Colney, Wenger’s creased face was always a mixture between wry amusement, bafflement and slight frustration. The unsaid subtext always being: “Power shift? You must be joking.”

When I went travelling a very long time ago, I recall finding a bar in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, that was showing the north London derby, moments before kick-off, 6,000 miles away in north London. 

Situated in an unprepossessing backstreet, away from the waves of bicycles and humanity in Hanoi’s evocative old town, somehow I thought I would be the only person watching the game, and strode the through the blacked-out door. How wrong I was. 

The bar was mobbed — full of locals packed into the place, with many in red or white colours, shoulder deep, barely able to lift a beer, such was the lack of space. 

The Gunners won of course, as they always used to do, making it a rollicking evening. It also proved to me that Arsenal v Spurs is a massive global event. 

Because the north London derby is not only one of the biggest games in domestic football, it’s a match watched all over the world. 

Just ask those Gooners in Hanoi.