Arsenal!

Last weekend, I got a PR invite to go see a premiership football (read: soccer) match between Arsenal and Fulham. While -- as I've mentioned before -- I'm not entirely down with the whole "courtesty" and "relationship building" thing, bloody hell, when else am I going to get to see a game like this?



I'm not a football fan, really. I'm no hater, either, however. It's a cool enough sport, I just don't really follow it. But (as with most things) seeing it live is a whole different thing to watching it on television. And really, with the literary connections (um... if Nick Hornby can be said to be literary) they couldn't have picked a better team...

One of the other journos dropped out, so I was rather graciously allowed to bring a friend. The Patrick-half of Shatrick (which makes no sense to most of you) came along, and his excitement made up for any lack of it I had.
But it was pretty cool -- especially the box seats behind the goal. The stadium is new and super shiny, seats some 80k or so. And the atmosphere was pretty wicked. They divide up the fans, so the stadium was mostly full of red-dressed Arsenal fans, except for one tiny corner, in Fulham's white. They have a lot of silly chants and songs although I couldn't discern most of them over the general roar of the crowds.

Right. So the game. It ended up being 2-1 for Arsenal (always good when the home team wins). The first half was pretty dull, but the second half was cool -- even had a penalty shot (the source of one of the goals.) And there were no obvious dives, which was a bonus.

At one point, after one of the teams scored, the goalie held onto the ball (bad form, ap parently). The team (wanting the ball back, as time was running short) jumped him. All the players started pummelling him. The ball was eventually wrenched free (starting to look a bit more like rugby for a minute there) and one of the players ran to the sidelines clutching it like a six year old who was fed up with the game. Screw you guys, I'm taking my ball and going home. Made me laugh very very much...

So I've been pretty sport lately, eh? The NHL has a game in Greenwich in September... might try and see if I can get tickets... NFL's also going to be here in October, but I'm not likely to get tickets for that. They did a preregistration to buy tickets, and half a million people signed up. I didn't find out about it until after... either way, I'm not getting tickets. Shame, as it'd be hella cool.