Steven Powell with Alysen Miller, Paul Matz and Julian Harris

A PROUD trade unionist, socialist and Arsenal fan, Steven Powell could tell you something about everything and make it sound entertaining.

Mr Powell, 67, who died last weekend, was born and raised in Wales, until his father, a policeman, secured a job in north London. Cut to the 1970s, and Mr Powell found himself at the heart of politics and community activism in Islington.

“To say that Steve was larger than life, both literally and figuratively, would sum it up really,” said Malcolm Clarke, who had a 25-year friendship with Mr Powell.

“He seemed to have an encyclopaedic knowledge about absolutely everything. You would think ‘how the hell does Steve know all that along with all the other things he knows?’

“He was somebody to socialise with, you’d never get bored. Steve could regale you with both knowledge and anecdotes about absolutely everything and they were always entertaining.

“He was one of the best orators I’ve ever heard. When we had our football conferences, Steve would often make at least one speech, and he always used to say ‘no conference is finished until the fat Gooner has ranted’. If I was looking for somebody to stand up and convince a room of 300 people that black is actually white, Steve would have been one of the first people I’d have thought of.”

Mr Powell was instrumental in the campaign to secure planning permission for Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium. The Gooner set up the Arsenal Independent Supporters Alliance (AISA) with Paul Katz, and that organisation gathered grassroots support for the new stadium and lobbied the council.

“Without Steven, the AISA wouldn’t have existed,” said Mr Katz.

“It was quite clear that if Arsenal didn’t get the planning permission, they would leave Islington. There were a lot of people on the bandwagon to get Arsenal out of Islington – they painted Arsenal as a conglomerate making lots of money and creating lots of nuisance … We were a community organisation in the borough providing an alternative point of view, and when it came to it, it was clear that an overwhelming majority of residents did want Arsenal in Islington,” he said.

Mr Powell was fluent in Spanish and lived in South America for a handful of years which “started a lifelong love of the continent,” said Dave Boyle, another friend of Mr Powell’s.

“He must have had a smattering of Spanish when he went over, but he came back utterly fluent. Sometimes I’d meet with him in a Spanish restaurant somewhere in Islington, and he’d just utterly seamlessly and fluently switch between languages, and sometimes switch between dialects for someone from Uruguay and Argentina. He would probably go once a year for a good few weeks, he’d plan his route and make sure he was seeing as many football matches as humanly possible,” he said.

Mr Powell was also an active member in the borough’s Labour Party.

MP for Islington South Emily Thornberry told the Tribune: “I got a great deal out of our discussions and I liked him very much. He was a kind, well-mannered, passionate socialist. He will be greatly missed.”

Bunhill councillor Phil Graham said: “When he wasn’t at football, he was at a picket line. He was a solid trade unionist, a solid socialist, and above all a friend.”