IN NEITHER the Gunners nor the Bank of Friendship, two pubs within shouting distance of the gates of Highbury stadium, could they recall a young part-time Polish barman named Aleksander Kwasniewski. Nor should they; it has been 30 years since he pulled pints for Arsenal fans.

Since then the North London club have taken three of the last four Premiership titles, and the barman has become President of Poland, largest of the accession countries that joined the EU last weekend.

The one constant is that President Kwasniewski remains an ardent Arsenal fan, and he was reported to be delighted that the 2-2 draw with Spurs which clinched this year’s Premiership was shown on Polish television.

Yesterday the President arrived at Heathrow to begin a three-day state visit to Britain as guest of the Queen. Amid the fixed points of state visits, the wreath-laying, banquets and talks with Tony Blair, his personal highlight will be a return this morning to the club that remains close to his heart. He will tour the stadium and meet club directors.

Staff at the Polish Embassy in London were too excited by their President’s arrival to confirm the fine detail of his background. Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials involved in planning the visit, however, said that Mr Kwasniewski had spent some time in London during the 1970s, when he was a committed communist and an economics student at the University of Gdansk. He had worked as a barman to earn some money and to brush up his English.

The 50-year-old President, accompanied by his wife, Jolanta, a former estate agent, arrived at Heathrow yesterday morning to be greeted by the Prince of Wales. On their way into London they stopped to lay a wreath on the Polish War Memorial at RAF Northolt, which has among its 2,000 names 30 pilots who died in the Battle of Britain.Thousands of Polish servicemen fled their country after the German occupation in 1939, and fought with distinction on the Allied side.

Because of bad weather a flypast by a Spitfire of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight had to be cancelled. The rain had stopped by the time the President reached Horse Guards for his ceremonial welcome by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett.

After a private lunch with the Queen at the Palace, the President met Michael Ancram, the Conservative deputy leader standing in for the otherwise-engaged Michael Howard, and Charles Kennedy, of the Liberal Democrats.

The state visit has been in the planning for more than a year, but it is no coincidence that the Polish head of state is the first leader of the ten new accession countries to be accorded a state visit to Britain, which championed its EU membership. That Poland has 2,500 troops in Iraq has also strengthened Anglo-Polish ties.

Fears have been expressed that, with EU expansion, more than 1,000 immigrants a day, chiefly from Poland and Hungary, will flood Britain, but there is as yet no firm evidence of an invasion. The Polish community in Britain already numbers an estimated 150,000.

Lech Walesa, Mr Kwasniewski’s presidential predecessor, came to Britain on a state visit in 1991, soon after the fall of communism in Poland; the Queen made a return visit to Warsaw in 1996.

Last night the Queen entertained her guest to a state banquet at Buckingham Palace, where she served chicken consommé, fillets of sole and saddle of spring lamb. At a return dinner in the Dorchester tonight, he will have the opportunity to retaliate with a serious assault of Polish sausage.

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