As an Arsenal fan, the night of May 19 was not one Colin Nixon will forget in a hurry.
Manchester City's draw with Bournemouth confirmed the Gunners as Premier League champions, ending a 22-year wait for the club to return to the top of the English game.
For Nixon, it was particularly special. He was Bukayo Saka's first grassroots coach, when the Arsenal winger was just six years old and playing for Greenford Celtic.
About 15 minutes after City's slip-up officially ended the title race, Nixon's phone rang. It was Saka's father, Yomi.
"He wanted to thank me and congratulate me," Nixon says.
"I was like, 'hold on a second, I should be ringing you'. But he said, 'no, you were the first person on his journey and you are the first person I've rung’.
"That was emotional. It just shows you the family that he's come from and it's why he is the person that he is."
Nixon still texts Saka and speaks with Yomi on the phone fairly regularly. At Arsenal's open-top bus parade through the streets of north London, Nixon also bumped into Saka's mother, Adenike, by chance.
In 2024, Saka and Nixon met up through their work with the Chase football coaching programme, which helps those from low-income backgrounds get into coaching by fully funding their qualifications.
At that event, Saka spoke glowingly of Nixon's impact on him, crediting his grassroots coach with starting his journey to the top of the sport.
Two years on, Nixon is watching on as a young aspiring coach takes a training session of his own through the Chase programme. Nixon knows better than most the impact this coach could have.
"It's just very humbling that Bukayo and the family still think so highly of me," he says.
"Let's be honest, a lot of these professional footballers have forgotten about where they come from. But we're talking about a kid that still has his Greenford Celtic shirt framed in his bedroom.
"We've always stayed in touch from the moment we left."
Holding a close relationship with the family is particularly welcome as an Arsenal fan. Nixon laughs: "They offer me tickets. They put me in a box as well, so that's very nice.
"I'm quite happy wherever. Stick me in the Clock End with the Ashburton Army, that'll do me!”
Was he one of those at the Emirates Stadium when Saka turned up at 5am, still celebrating the title win? "No. But if I knew he was going, I would have been!"
Nixon will be watching this summer as Saka plays his part in England's World Cup campaign.
Assuming he can shake off an Achilles injury, Saka is expected to have a key role for his country. On Wednesday night, he wore the captain's armband in the second half in England's final warm-up fixture against Costa Rica.
Nixon has seen Saka lift the Premier League trophy and he has seen his face plastered on billboards. What he really still sees, though, is that Greenford Celtic player.
"I was coming here today and there are all the New Balance adverts with him," Nixon says.
"People look at that and see Bukayo Saka and New Balance. I look at it and still see him as a kid, that six or seven-year-old kid.
It's very humbling that Bukayo and the Saka family still think so highly of me
Colin Nixon
"He's still got that big smile on his face that I remember from when he was a kid. It takes up the whole of his face.
"When I started coaching, I never envisioned anything like this. He's doing me so proud."
There have been plenty of extraordinary moments for Nixon over almost two decades, watching Saka go from a six-year-old full of dreams to a Premier League champion with those fulfilled.
Perhaps none, though, have been quite as surreal as a chance encounter a few days after Arsenal won the league.
Nixon is a black cab driver and could not resist the opportunity presented to him when an unexpected passenger sat down behind him.
"I picked up Thomas Tuchel the day after the England team was announced," Nixon says.
"Thomas got in. I said, 'I'm really sorry, I don't normally do this but I'm going to need a selfie. I used to coach kids football and you're now taking one of the kids I trained to the World Cup’.
"He was very surprised but good as gold. We did the selfie and I sent it to Bukayo saying, 'don't worry, I've had a word and you're starting every game!'
"He replied with some laughing emojis. But now we'll have to see if he does start every game!"
