As some 32% of the readers of these accounts are from outside the UK and many of the UK readers are from outside London and as it is possible that more than half of you have no interest at all in the English Premier Football League. I think that we may need a:
GLOSSARY
Arsenal Football Club
It was founded in 1886 in London. It was the first club from the south of England to join the football league and is now the third most valuable football club in the world, valued at $1.2 billion. Currently 3rdin the Premiership.
Emirates Stadium
The current home of Arsenal FC. The stadium opened in July 2006 and has an all seated capacity of 60,355.
Gooner
An Arsenal fan. Global fan base estimated at 27 million.
(Deranged Gooner)
Classic example of tautology.
Manchester City
The otherManchester Club. Currently 2nd in the Premiership.
Blue Scousers
Everton Football Club.
Tottenham Hotspur
This is the other North London club and the rivalry is intense.
White Hart Lane
Tottenham’s ground which is less than four miles from the Emirates.
Winchmore Hill
A suburb of North London.
The Yids
Racist term applied to Tottenham FC and their supporters by Gooners.
I always find it very hard to buy a present for Caroline. From the beginning of March, I am constantly on the lookout for any clue as to what she would like for her birthday in June and then, after that, it’s a constant worry about what to buy her for Christmas. I on the other hand am very easy to buy for. Any gadget will do for me and that’s why the automatic pepper mill was my best present at Christmas.
Last November and by then desperate, I gave up searching for clues and I asked her outright, “What do you want for Christmas?”
The trouble is that Caroline has everything she needs and she wants for nothing. “I’d like to go to a football match,” she said. “I’ve never been to one. But I don’t want that as a Christmas present,” she added quickly. “I want something I can unwrap.”
Every time we travel into London from Winchmore Hill on the train we pass about 100 yards from the Emirates Stadium, the home of Arsenal Football Club.
I looked at the fixture list and discovered that on January 5ththey were playing there against Manchester City. Caroline has always told me that if she is a supporter of any football team it is Manchester City. She was brought up in Alderley Edge only a few miles from City’s ground.
I asked her some questions to find out how keen she was. “Can you name any Manchester City players?” I asked her.
“Yes – Francis Lee, Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee, Denis Tueart, Joe Corrigan,” she rattled off effortlessly.
I was impressed. “Would you like to see Arsenal play City?” I said. She was thrilled. “Will Dennis Tueart be playing?” she asked. “I doubt it,” I told her.
I went online to buy tickets - £340 for two. The tickets were £94 each but service charge and handling fees added over £150.
We agreed that was ridiculous and much too expensive. I mentioned this to Julian the Butcher across the road and the next day he told me that he could get me two tickets for £140. I didn’t ask any questions.
The kick off was at 7:45 on Wednesday evening and I arranged to meet Caroline at 6:00 in a pub on the Holloway Road only a quarter of a mile from the ground. I was early.
As I approached the door two Heavies stopped me.
“Let’s see your ticket!”
“I haven’t got one, My wife has them and I’m meeting her here. Do I need a ticket to come into a pub?”
“Arsenal supporters only in ‘ere. Where’re you from?”
“Winchmore Hill,” I said.
“Is that Manchester?”
Eventually they were persuaded that this short, overweight cripple leaning on his walking stick was neither from the north, nor likely to start a fight and so I was allowed in.
The Emirates Stadium is magnificent. It is actually quite beautiful and there is so much space everywhere. There is even a lift/elevator that took us up to the level of our seats. By 7:00 p.m. we were sitting ready to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the pre-match entertainment but there was neither.
Twenty years ago, I used to go to White Hart Lane to watch Tottenham and to the old Highbury Stadium to watch Arsenal. The differences in the experiences then and today are colossal.
Now, everyone is seated. There was no singing or chanting and in fact at 7:25 most of the seats were still empty, as people seemed to be in the bars behind the seating areas.
Ten minutes before kick off the place started to fill but it was still very quiet. Even when the game began there was no ‘Wall of Noise’ as I had been expecting and had warned Caroline about.
The people on both sides of us and behind us, continued their conversations. They were obviously paying very little attention to the game and I was quite distracted as I listened to a list of the problems to be encountered when sailing in the estuary at Maldon.
Some of those near me were still in the suits that they had been wearing in the office at work. At half time I was tempted to go and look for the vol au vents and quiche stall but I didn’t as I expected there would be a long queue. No wonder there is no atmosphere in the stadium!
“Where are all the hooligans?” Caroline asked me. “No one has thrown anything and I haven’t heard any bad language – except from you.” She was right. It was like being in the crowd on a cold day at Lord’s cricket ground.
It reminded me very much of the crowd behaviour at the Busch Baseball Stadium in St Louis where Caroline and I had seen the Cardinals play the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2006. No one there but us seemed to be watching the game either and there was a constant hubbub of chat. People were constantly getting out of their seats and going to the bar or to the food outlets.
We were sitting behind the goal at the Clock End about two thirds of the way up. Every time the ball came into the penalty area, everyone in front of us stood up blocking my view and so I had to stand up too. I stand up more slowly than most people and I kept missing the goalmouth action. For the rest of the time the view was fantastic.
The enmity and hatred towards Tottenham is tangible. That evening they were playing two hundred miles away on Merseyside but, “Stand up if you hate Tottenham,” was the regular chant and everyone who heard it did and so I did too. Otherwise, all I could see was the back of the person in front of me. This chant was uttered whenever there was a lull in play and as a result I was up and down about thirty times in the first half.
Our favourite chant was an exchange between those to our left and those to our right.
LEFT Who do we hate?
RIGHT Tottenham
LEFT Thanks very much
RIGHT Thass’all right
Poor Tottenham! At the end of the game I was informed with some glee by a deranged Gooner that, “The Blue Scousers had fucked the Yids.”
It was a 0 – 0 draw and it wasn’t a very good game but Caroline had loved it and so I suppose that was the important thing.
Sadly for Caroline, Dennis Tueart, her favourite player, didn’t play. That was a shame because his direct aggressive style on the right wing was just what the game needed.
Glossary(continued)
Denis Tueart
Along with Francis Lee, Colin Bell, Mike Summerbee and Joe Corrigan, he was a star Manchester City player in the 1970s when Caroline was a girl.
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