ARSENAL’S longest-serving member of staff is retiring after 50 years of working with the Gunners.

Company secretary David Miles started work in the club shop as a teenager in the double-winning season of 1971.

He was later promoted by Ken Friar, the “Mr Arsenal” club director who was given the “freedom of Islington” for his own long service.

“I interviewed David for his position when he was 16,” said Mr Friar, in Sunday’s matchday programme. “Over the subsequent 50 years, I can tell you that he has demonstrated the most remarkable loyalty I have ever known in a person.”

Mr Miles served as head of the box office – he met his wife Sue while working in the department – and later became assistant to Mr Friar and then club secretary. He is due to retire on June 28, the day which marks five decades at the club.

Mr Friar added: “He really does have Arsenal running through his blood.”