A weekend of contrasting footballing experiences (PART TWO).

Ahh, the Emirates. An eye-opening experience, and not a particularly pleasant one at that. As I mentioned before, this was the first time I have visited a Premier League ground, let alone one of the biggest teams in the country. Anyway, I don't really know where to get started on my account of the day so I will simply (lazily perhaps) list the positive and negatives in bullet points:

Positives:

• Architecturally wise, the stadium is fantastic. Its pretty much a smaller version of Wembley, with a fantastic design. The acoustics of it would be fantastic, if it was made for the right supporters. Here are a few pictures I took of the Emirates;

  

• The Boca Junior fans were absolutely fantastic, and gave us a great insight into how crazy South American supporters are. There were only around 200 of them, but they all huddled round together and sang non-stop for 90 minutes. They had umbrellas, flags and a strange variety of instruments. I caught a small clip of them on my phone which I will upload here. Unfortunately I can hear myself talking over through most of it!
• The standard of football was pretty good as expected, even though they were only friendlies. It was great seeing players like Van Persie, Gervinho, Thierry Henry, Rafael Marquez etc in the flesh.
• Being in a full 60000 seater stadium was a strange feeling, but gives you an awe-feeling seeing so many people clustered together, even if most of the inhabitants were complete twats (see negatives!)

Negatives (And there are quite a few of them):

• The stadium is indeed very nice but I fucking can't stand having to sit, especially through two games! Being stuck in the middle of a row, I could'nt be arsed to trawl past and annoy everyone by going for a piss/drink/whatever. Even if I did want to go grab a drink, it costs an extortionate £2.50 for a bottle of coke/water and an even worse £3.90 for a bottle of Carlsberg, which is also the rankest lager you can possibly buy. Buying food at football grounds is a very rare occasion for me and this wasn't one of them when you're looking at extremely inflated prices just to get a plastic frankfurter in a hard roll. So instead, I sat through and sulked for 4+hours, with an aching buttox because I had been sitting down for too long.
• Mexican waves. Dreary fucking me. This lasted non-stop for about 5 minutes during the Arsenal game. Seriously. Things like this are reasons why I fucking hate modern football. Obviously I didn't join in because A) I'm not a fucking twat (Ok, I am but you get the point), B) I'm not 12 years old and C) This isn't the 1980's and we're not Mexicans! Wankers.
• Speaking of wankers, the two people sat behind me were the biggest fucking idiots I had the misfortune of sharing the same air with. Typical new breed football twats. Not only was the imbecile behind me leaning against my chair the entire match, but they proved what complete idiots. Every time Arsenal got possesion he was shouting "USE DA WIDTH, USE IT NOW, USE IT NOW, AHH FUCK SAKE YOU WANKER". Everytime they were'nt in possession he was ordering the Arsenal players to "WIN THE BALL BACK, GET STUCK IN YOU USELESS CUNT". He kept refering to Gervinho as 'that new Ivory coast lad' because he could'nt be arsed to learn his name and then as he kept grewing further frustrated in the match he started calling his own players 'Niggers'. Charming. The 20 minutes that the oxygen thief fucked off for at half-time was a relief.
• The whole spectacle was full of cringe-worthy Americanisms. The P.A announcer only calling out the first name of each player so the crowd could collectively shout the surname was absolutely tinpot in my opinion.
• Arsenal fans. A large majority of them were again, knobbish new breed post Euro96 football fans. They BOOED at the final whistle, because their team had conceded a late equaliser to New York's only attack of the game in a FRIENDLY. For gooners it must be frustrating with their constant spurning of chances and general lack of end product, but booing at the end of a friendly they have just drew just shows what complete bellends some of them really are. They are currently experiencing their "dark days" because they have not won a trophy in 6 years yet they haven't finished outside the top 4 since Wenger has been at the club. Piers Morgan is the celebrity fan that typifies Arsenal - ignorant, up-his-own-arse and has only been supporting them since '98.
• This doesn't just apply to Arsenal, but London really is a complete shithole. There are no redeeming features of the place.

Overall, I found the whole experience as plastic as the seat I was sitting in. I have nothing against Arsenal on a footballing level ; they have created some of the best football sides I have witnessed since I entered planet earth in 1991. But the whole experience had a horrible corporate feel to it, and I am in no rush to ever enter the Emirates as a neutral ever again. Funnily enough, had we beaten Huddersfield in the FA Cup we would have played their last season and I might not have had to experience the fickle Arsenal fans.

I feel sorry for the older Arsenal fans. I gather that Arsenal used to be quite a heavily working-class support base at Highbury throughout the 80's and I imagine most of them have been priced out and replaced by these day-trippers (I do realise the irony in this but hey - they put the tickets on general sale and I like visiting new ground) and glory-hunting post Euro-96 arseholes like Morgan.

I can't figure out what the attraction is in supporting Arsenal other than the football itself. On my train home to Herne Bay, there were tonnes of Arsenal fans getting off at all the stations we stopped off at, and it wasn't even the earliest train back. I have to confess, I do feel a bitter that so many of these people ignore their local clubs in favour of the big London fans. As much as I fucking despise Gillingham, I have much more respect for somebody with a season ticket there than somebody who travels into London to get their PL fix every other weekend.

Although getting a large crowd at Dover v Arsenal XI game next week would be great for the clubs coffers, I also think it is a crying shame that people in the town only care when we are playing a bigger team. It's a bloody friendly FFS! Speaking of which, my plans to make every single DAFC game this season is in serious jeopardy after discovering that the holiday I booked for Wednesday evening has been voided as too much holiday has already been booked for this week. Bastards! Its only a 4 hour shift and there are many people that can fill in for me. I will find out this evening if somebody has agreed to swap with me.

Overall though I had a good day with my pals, Fish and Russell. Whether they share the same sentiments as me remains to be seen, probably not as they think I'm a miserable whiner. But if you gave me a choice between the Emirates league fixture and a pissing rain & wind swept FA trophy cup tie at Crabble, the latter would win it every time. I'm not one of these people who thinks I'm a proper fan purely because I support a non-league team, but yesterday certainly made me feel glad that I support Dover and not a soulless boring club like Arsenal. DTID.