About the only thing I can stand about the Highbury Spy, is his love of a pre-match booze. I look back fondly to my half time slurp of the old two pint plastic containers in the North Bank – at a stage where the club just wanted maximum returns by doubling up on measures.

To my Pavlovian mind booze and footy are an integral part of my match day experience, bonded there from when around 50 of us Essex Road based footy fans met up for a pre-match beer (five of us left!) – “back in the day” where some fans decided if they were going to the match half an hour before they went. It was a Saturday ritual and tasted better than a prawn sandwich.

It is not my fault beer and footy go together, Saturdays, mates, booze, a few songs and swear words were the way of switching off from the week’s grind - bit by bit these pleasures have been eroded – football was a laugh not a grind. I won’t bore anyone with the history of Thatcher and Taylor, but I would welcome an update ‘from someone (probably who also likes a pint) in the know’ as to how these no booze at football measures are constructed and applied. (Your friendly steward perhaps?) Thatcher smacked our hands, deciding that it was booze and standing that caused all the violence at football, something I am not sure was ever more than an assumption (read this article for confirmation). In fact with a few of the old firms, booze took a backseat to their activities.

I remember that if you went in the old North Bank you got no half time pint. Then my friends in the East Lower pointed out that they got a pint at half time – they believed it was because they were valued season ticket holders. Hence a move from ‘turn up when you want’ and a swift purchase of a season ticket by yours truly!

“Back in the day” we never had to worry about Champions League matches, where now even the season ticket holders lose out on a half time pint. However, the club level have their bar and this is the only place to get a bevy at half time in a Champions League match (well other than the directors box I guess). So a ban that isn’t a ban if you have enough cash?

Having been to many Champions League games away it now seems clear that the UK is the only place an alcohol ban is applied in Champions League matches! We seem to have “turned on the taps” to all normal games, but again not in Champions League games. Unless of course you are in the boxed area upstairs where you are paying 80K a year for the privilege, here the booze flows freely but is not part of your fee for the box, you pay separately. So is it one rule for the richer? What is the thinking?

What is the betting that at the “Summertime Ball” you could buy booze anywhere (like rugby, like other sporting events) and probably even drink it whilst watching the entertainment. Maybe it is only us football loving Oiks that are incapable of “behaving” after a pint? Why are we the only country where at Champions League games (part of) the crowd are put on a no booze rule? Could someone please explain this to me? The club seems to blow hot and cold on this, offering reduced prices for beer before a game and again after to help ease congestion (or profits?). So in one way they see drink as a motivator, then they ban it at certain points for what reason?

Please don’t start me on the plastic glasses rule within a two mile radius of the game for local pubs, a crap idea but at least one you can avoid by drinking elsewhere. It annoys me totally when “someone” takes a decision on my behalf to remove my choice! Something I suspect many fans may well be doing in the future – as paying top prices for restricted services is not a great cocktail for success, also as more and more matches can be seen live at home or in the pub – is exercising their choice by voting with their feet. I don’t want a lot of drinks, just the CHOICE of a pint at half time in ALL home games.

If our own versions of Big Brother deny this option, then perhaps I will just watch the game elsewhere (now on my Sky subscription through X-Box live) with mates and the club can lose my £1,8025 per season. (sadly after 20 plus years of Arsenal I suspect that this may just be bluster on my part!). We have priced a new generation of youth out of the stadium, to them watching the match linked to their mates upstairs on X-Box whilst eating and drinking what they want may be preferable to the substandard service and choice offered at the stadium.

So when us old farts (“Drink – milk of the elderly” - Sir William Osler) get bored with paying top dollar whilst being told when and where we will be allowed to drink and actually wake up to the fact that you don’t have to be in the ground to watch your team things may change. More so when the ‘yoof’ also stay at home watching the match (on their X-Box whilst in virtual chat rooms with their close mates)… and the seven year waiting list becomes seven minutes again.

I feel that the ‘powers that be’ will offering cheap drink to try and get anyone back to a ‘traditional’ match day experience. So come on Arsenal please explain, why ban the booze at Champions League games?