Part One: She gave it a 110% and still came out with nothing
I have a bone to pick with SAFC (I’m overlooking the fact that we sometimes play a bit rubbish). You see, I occasionally have my applications for tickets for away games turned down. This is because I don’t have enough “loyalty points” to get a ticket. The fact that I travel from Nottingham to watch home games counts for naught. Diddly squat. Bugger all. Sweet FA…
By the rules of the Ticket Office I’m a bit of a part-timer and possibly bordering on the treacherous. I have to accept the fact that other supporters are more fanny than me.
I don’t stand a snowball in hell’s chance for the N*wc*stle game which is fine. The good folk who run the gauntlet to watch the game from the roof of Sid James’s have my utter admiration and respect. I watched the second half of our last one on the tele in a Dr Who behind-a-cushion fashion as it is. Chopra’s hideous “miss” had me piling behind the settee to avoid the replay. The draw was a fair result.
However, even a large away allocation for what one might presume is a relatively tame fixture doesn’t guarantee me the satisfying clunk through a turnstile. Last season I was denied the pleasure of a mere half hour train ride and copious quantities of beer with 5000 of my brethren to see my beloved Black Cats down the road at Derby. I was gutted not to go and tempted to try my luck at finding a spare in a pre-match pub. At 4.50 on the match day I was quietly pleased when I heard that I’d dodged the bullet of enduring a 0-0 dullfest. Perhaps my loyalty is a bit suspect.
This season has seen the usual stream of wafer thin rejection letters float gracefully down from my letter box instead of the thud of chunky tickets. When I saw that we only had a 2k allocation for Arsenal my heart sank. My aim this last couple of seasons has been to get round the old skool grounds; White Hart Lane, Goodison and Fratton Park. I only REALLY wanted to go to one shiny new stadium .That was The Emirates.
I like Arsenal and I loved Highbury; I went a couple of times in my teens. I got one of those proper ground/proper club feelings which seems to be a vibe found only at lower league teams now. I’d met Arsenal’s youthful Liam Brady, Frank Stapleton and David O’Leary after one of our games; it was a few years before my move south and I hadn’t tempered my industrial Darlington accent. Combined with their rich Irish brogues it led to a verbal exchange that even Dr Doolittle couldn’t sort out. And I’d got in through a cash turnstile. Happy days.
I sent off my application hopefully but with a sense of impending doom. In the meantime I endured an unattractive victory ground out against Stoke. This was sandwiched between two Whacky Races style journeys through North Yorkshire and County Durham trying to fend off the fiendish attentions of The Dick Dastardlys and Muttleys of the Potteries who noticed that our shirts were of the more quality red and white striped variety. I managed to get through unscathed, perhaps a bit more Penelope Keith than Penelope Pitstop.
The match itself resembled 22 drunks kicking a can around. Correction – it was eventually 21 blokes attempting the kicking bit and an idiot trying to keep it in order. Has anyone else noticed just how much post – match airtime is now devoted to crap refereeing rather than the game itself? In this case it was Stoke who had a player on the end of a dodgy card but only after a nailed on penalty was denied us. Again (the handball was clearly visible from Jupiter). Thank goodness we won. My feelgood factor was fleeting. I got home to receive confirmation that I shall not go to the (foot) ball in London.
Cue stamping, bottom lip out.
That’s it…Time to infiltrate the home end at The Emirates.
Part Two: Sit up straight, Fingers on Lips
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 tifters 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.
