I know that we now have a £300 million debt to service but it shouldn’t take too long to repay the whole amount out of the catering profits alone!

The first time I went to Ashburton Grove I was not hungry or thirsty because we had been testing out a new pre-match watering hole and I was far more interested in checking out the actual view from my new seat. The next time I went my friend bought the coffee. He did have something to eat but as we hadn’t seen each other for a very long time discussing the prices of snacks did not really come very high on our list of priorities. It wasn’t until my third visit that I thought about buying anything from the snack bars.

The first problem was that, unlike the arrangements at THOF, all of the windows sold everything that was available. I say everything but, despite having been to our new home four times, I have still not found the promised bagels. At Highbury you were in a queue with like-minded individuals all queuing for coffee, a bagel or whatever. The bar was a totally separate scene where pub practices prevailed i.e. a scrum which was served by efficient bar staff who each took a section and served the customers at the front of ‘their’ section from left to right often serving more than one customer at a time.

At our new home everyone queues together in lines. There are several problems with this. I am sure there are loads of other Gooners who feel like I do: whichever queue you join it will invariably be the slowest to be served but that is hardly the club’s fault. It is however their fault that the catering staff are absolutely useless at their job. My brother, who has more money than sense, decided to get a pie about 20 minutes into the second half of the Brazil/Argentina match. I was beginning to think that he had been kidnapped by the time he returned, more than 15 minutes later. It took that long to buy one meat pie and one cup of coffee despite the fact that there were only two people in front of him in the queue. You would not be believed it if you made this up and put it in the new version of Fever Pitch!

When you do get to the front of your queue the amount of money that you are asked to stump up for relatively ordinary fare is likely to give you a heart attack! Just take a look at the photo and, if you have not yet been there yourself, you will see what I mean. A pie of any kind is £4.00, a hot dog (sorry Bockwurst) is £3.50 and a slice of Pizza £2.50. My family, two adults and two children, used to go to the match at Highbury and get a drink and a snack each for about £12. The same would cost £20 at Ashburton Grove! I am not too certain who the club thinks is attending matches regularly but I don’t think that the poorer members of the crowd can afford to keep up with these prices. I know that I can’t so they will just lose my custom for anything except the price of admission. In future I shall be eating and drinking before I arrive at Ashburton Grove and I suspect that a lot of others will too. On second thoughts, maybe it will take forever to repay the debt out of the catering profits – if I have anything to do with it there will not be any!