black cats blog Fingers in Lips

Posted: February 23rd 2009
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The outpouring of dismay at not being allocated a ticket for The Emirates clearly had an effect on my Arsenal supporting brother-in-law as I begged and pleaded with him to tell me of ways to get into his stadium to see Boys Against Blokes. I’d like to think felt sorry for me and in a moment of overwhelming family loyalty said that I could use his season ticket. Partly correct, but the painful truth is that after seasons of thrilling European jaunts and Premiership Title sparring, he couldn’t be arsed to watch Sunderland three days before playing Roma. His mate felt the same so my son Henry and I gleefully packed our titfers and set off for London, eating jellied eels and practising swearing in cockney (I lied about the eels).

I haven’t often sat in a hostile home end – it’s much trickier to remain anonymous in smaller grounds – so I felt that we had a fair chance of invisibility in a huge arena which by all accounts didn’t contain too many “ waaankahs”. I simply had to make sure I didn’t create the problem. A friend pointed out I find it hard enough keeping my gob shut for ninety seconds, let alone almost two hours watching the lads . I’m pretty sure there was a sweep amongst my pals to guess the minute I would let out an involuntary “Haway Man!” .The general consensus was that I wouldn’t keep a lid on it in the unlikely event of us scoring.

There are two equal but opposite forces at work in such a situation to facilitate appropriate behaviour; the fear of being battered by a nutter and respect for the unsuspecting hosts. I also avoided pre-match alcohol; ejection could have been nailed on had a drop passed my lips. I was once blotto in the home stand of The City Ground with Forest supporting friends during our Terry Butcher era. We were sitting amongst angry hardcore Forest fans. We went four up (all in the first half if my memory is correct). My mates still take great glee in mimicking my reaction to our fourth. I emitted a strange wheezing sound and lurched into jumping about mode. On realising my faux pas I immediately crumpled back as if restrained by a faulty ejector seat. I chewed my fingers to shut myself up until they bled.

Any worries about being “found out” evaporated outside of the stadium. I can get misty eyed spotting kids playing Sunday League or spying distant floodlights. On a day which gave the first hint of Spring, The Emirates looked impressive and beautiful and I’m not ashamed to say I was in awe. There was a laid back, friendly atmosphere outside of the ground with an eclectic group of people taking pictures and chatting as if we were milling around the bottom of the Eiffel Tower. I got amongst it. Cheeese!

My Gunners’ shirt- wearing nephew was our Trojan horse and we penetrated the defensive wall seamlessly. We had been a bit alarmed by the swipecard season tickets ( Henry and I have enough hassle ripping vouchers neatly out of our SoL booklets) . Andy was a meticulous host (ok, he didn’t want us to fall at the first hurdle by looking like idiots at the turnstiles - I’d caused enough chaos on the tube by crumpling my ticket). He gave a masterclass demonstration of the wiggle of the card in the machine. Game on.

After recovering from the opportunity to buy (and resist) wine from the hatches I decided to practice my cunning Arsenal disguise by joining in watching the Villa vs Chelsea game on tele. Thing is, I didn’t know what result an Arsenal follower would want – tarty London rivals to be beaten or for Villa to remain within reach? The Gooners didn’t know either. They were all a bit anxious and edgy with mutterings of discontent about playing Uefa cup football next season. Different world.

My act was going well until we emerged from the steps to the top tier. I was confused by a smiling, hand-shaking, meeting, greeting, steward who appeared to have been trained by the Disney Corporation. We couldn’t Adam ’n’ Eve it! Most of the stewards in our bit of the SoL won’t look you in the eye and make you feel a little bit dirty. Coupled with the stunning view of the pitch I lost concentration. “Areet pet” I blurted. Ooops. 

Within seconds of Andy showing us our seats I’d blown our cover again with a spontaneous “hello” and handshake with the cheeky chappies aka canny blokes next to us. One was married to a Durham lass so I failed to get beneath the accent radar again. Our childish wonder at padded, sprung seats and the giant screens was a bit of a giveaway too as we bounced up and down happily gazing at the beaming camera-savvy visages of the Arsenal squad.

We relaxed into the rituals and whimsies of the Arsenal fans – the old skool tradition of swaying to Elvis’s “Wonder of You” before the game and the oh-so-European shouting of the players’ surnames during the announcement of the line-up. Pleasantries exchanged and an understanding from the good souls sitting immediately around not to “out” us, Henry and I moved into reverential mode as the gaps around us filled with those possessing  slurred and hostile voices. Heads down and low mutterings for the next couple of hours…

It helped that of the Big Four we enjoy watching Arsenal. Even if they are fifth. They have skill, youthful exuberance and pace by the bucketful on the pitch and in reserve on the bench and in the sick room. Perhaps missing is the maturity, wisdom, experience and stability the likes of Scholes and Giggs offer to Utd.

We were genuinely thrilled to see Arshavin’s promising debut. He’s tiny - could hardly see him from where we were. At half time we were intrigued by a bloke wandering round the perimeter of the pitch firing free tee shirts high into the crowd from a cannon. I had once been excited to catch one of many stale Wagon Wheel biscuits being chucked into the crowd by Mr and Mrs Magpie at Notts County. We needed little Andrey to launch free tees at us from a mig fighter, so lofty was our perch.

The game ended 0-0 in a good way for us; Arsenal toiled against our dogged resilience and we even managed a couple of chances. The game helped us keep our cover well – as the Arsenal fans groaned with horror at our few counter-attacks, we echoed their sound at our failure to make them count. As the Gooners roared moves forward, we mirrored delight at our stalwart, organised, defence. As they lamented their lack of converting chances in the final third, we uttered surprise at the nervousness and ineptitude of their finishing. For every word directed with venom at the unfortunate Bendtner our love for him grew as the bile increased. And I kissed the hand clenched firmly over my mouth every time our magnificent goalie Fulop pulled off save after save. Torture.
 
The hardest part was not reacting to those spitting out anti-Mackem venom around us. Our rich smattering of former Spurs’ players added to the mix and much abuse was hurled at individuals. We contented ourselves with the home fans’ frustration. Malbranque contributed well; it was hard not to counter the howls of “fat Spurs baaaarstard “ with a heartfelt “Steeeeeeeed!”.

Worse still was to come. One particularly irksome bloke behind had a very low view of us.
“See the problem with teams like Saaarndland,” he wailed “is that they ain’t used to playing on superb pitches like this. They raise their game, see?”
Fists clenched – don’t shout out that we don’t play on effing coalfields. Deep breath - don’t point out that some of his lads spent the first fifteen minutes slipping on their Arsenal arses with wrong studs for the overwatered surface. Next…
“That’s four fakkin’ points they’ve nicked off of us this season,” he moaned.” Fakkin disgrace”.
Henry wanted to correct his maths and tell him it was in fact only two. Leave it saarn! Let him think it’s four… 

We narrowly avoided instinctively jumping up and down chanting “We are Sunderland” when a vitriolic burst of “who the fakkin ‘ell are you?” rang out around us aimed at a passionate burst from the visitors’ corner. We suppressed our laughter when a pretty, petite blonde behind us kept bellowing with a bricky’s gob when we got possession “Shhhhh***t!” “Gaaaaawd” “Faaaaark!”. She clearly hasn’t seen our finishing before.

 

The hardest part was hearing the Arsenal fans verbally crucifying their own players. Bendtner was slammed relentlessly and their campaign to put the boo in Eboue was shocking. The jokes and downright spite levelled against him never stopped from before to the end of the game. I cringed when he came off the bench. I hate to hear fans on a player’s back and have never, and will never, boo one in our shirt. Sadly several Mackems are not without guilt; Paul McShane must hate being around the SoL. Their constant whining about playing Uefa cup footy and whatsmore on “bleedin Channel 5” was just funny.
 
Like a wuss, I cried quietly at full time – partly relief, but also the emotion of the occasion and simply bursting with pride at our performance and following. I was a little envious when our players wandered over to feel the love from our fans in the far corner but as I stood absorbing it I was astonished to see quite a few beaming tearful faces around us - people standing still in the rapidly thinning crowd . Eye contact with our fellow closet Mackems produced knowing winks and mouthed “gerrins”.

As we savoured the moment one bloke was a bit too demonstrative and blew his cover. The quiet around us was punctuated with an irate “Fakk off you fakkin happy mackem”.

Job done.