The illustrious staff of Spectator’s sports section doesn’t go to church on Sundays. Instead, we have the far more entertaining, section-wide Sunday meeting. And taking the place of confession, there is everyone’s favorite ice-breaker, “What did you do this weekend?”
Obviously, there are some major differences between what you might tell the sports staff and what you might tell a priest, but the idea is roughly the same. And at least you know the sports staff is close to sober.
Usually, people’s descriptions go something like this: “I went to the football game this weekend. We got killed. So I decided to go drink until Roar-ee looked hot. Oh yeah, and I saw [insert colleague’s name here] at 1020. He was really drunk and it was awesome.”
So, it is with great confidence that this week I can say, I win. This weekend, I watched Arsenal play Bolton Wanderers. At Emirates Stadium in London.
I should point out that a number of fortunate circumstances made this possible—the fact that it was my dad’s birthday on Friday, that I was able to find an airplane ticket on short notice, and that I have an excellent connection at the club that invited me to the game. But the most important factor was all skill. You see, my weekends are five days long. Thanks to some careful academic planning, I don’t have class from 4 p.m. on Thursday to 11 a.m. on Wednesday. I know what you’re thinking, but in the words of the philosopher Ice-T, “don’t hate the player, hate the game.”
In any event, there’s nothing quite like Premier League soccer at 3 p.m. on a Saturday. There was a time, before television began dictating sporting schedules, when every team in England played a league game on Saturday afternoons and the country would stand still for two hours. It would have been similar to Sunday morning in the Vatican.
At 2:55 p.m., I was sitting in the directors’ box with what is known as the “Prawn sandwich brigade,” a derogatory term for the club’s VIPs. And as the tension grew in the stands, I felt a little silly sitting there in my tie and jacket instead of wearing my colors and chanting obscenities with the 60,000 raving-mad loonies who bleed red and white.
That said, cushioned seats on the halfway line made it a little better.
Arsenal moved into Emirates Stadium last season after spending close to 90 years at Highbury, another ground 500 yards away. In many ways, it held a similar place in people’s minds as Ebbets Field—a small, intimate stadium (seating only 38,000) in the middle of a residential neighborhood, housing a team that could just as easily play breathtaking soccer and lose to Wrexham. But the club’s finances demanded a change and so the old art-deco marble halls of Highbury gave way to the sleek, state-of-the-art Emirates Stadium.
When you step into the stands, it feels like something out of a video game. The delicately manicured pitch, the brilliant white gleam of the floodlights, and the swooping curves of the stadium’s design make the whole experience a little surreal. Not to mention that 11 of the world’s finest players are on the pitch. Bolton was there too.
Through the first half, Bolton played their typically physical game, and I was nervous they might live up to their reputation as Arsenal’s bogey team. The Gunners came close on a few occasions, and I nearly lept out of my seat while the well-dressed people around me gave a polite clap.
Meanwhile, the 60,000 fans went through their extensive repertoire, from yelling “Who the hell are you?” in unison at the Bolton players to singing for Arsenal’s wunderkind midfielder Cesc Fåbregas to the tune of Volare. I joined in under my breath.
As the afternoon grew chillier and the game wore on, I began to worry. Bolton was successfully keeping the play bogged down in midfield until the Gunners won a free kick about 25 yards from the goal. Kolo Toure, known to the fans simply by his first name and his cannon of a right foot, stepped up to take it. With all the grace of a charging elephant, he drilled the ball into the lower left-hand corner of the net to put Arsenal in front and the loonies on their feet. This time I didn’t care about the prim and proper Eton types around me—I was up with both fists in the air, screaming at the top of my lungs.
That was it for me. I figured I didn’t get to go to many games since leaving London to come to Columbia, so there was no sense in supporting my Gunners halfway. For the last half hour of the game, I didn’t hold back, calling for penalties, shouting instructions at the team, and turning to people I didn’t even know to say things like, “What the hell was that? Did you see that call?” Had I been on the terraces, people might have vociferously agreed with me. In the directors’ box, I only got irritated looks of “Yes. Quite.”
Tomas Rosicky made the score 2-0 shortly thereafter, and the result was sealed. Bolton had given up and once again, Arsenal would finish the afternoon at the top of the league. Unfortunately, it seems that I’ll have to follow the rest of the season from my dorm room. But at least when May comes and this Arsenal team goes down as one of the best in history, I’ll be able to say I saw them play.
And almost as importantly, for a few more days I can still say, “Guess where I was last weekend?”