Howard Lamb
OK, so thanks to the sudden deluge of the white stuff which someone up there decided to dump on Islington barely three hours prior to kick off we didn’t have another 5 minute spell at the top of the league. And we missed the opportunity to harangue Ryan Shawcross and Arsène’s buddy Tony Pubis.
Footballwise, the game itself probably could have started. The pitch was not frozen and hence not dangerous. The game might have been a farce in football terms, but in the old days they would have played it under similar circumstances. I remember an Arsenal game in the 1970s when we were one of the few clubs with undersoil heating and the only fixture to start as planned. It was a bit of a disaster as it was almost impossible for the players to direct the ball anywhere near either goal; we drew 0-0 and dropped a priceless point.
However, back to Saturday; the front 10 rows of seats in the Lower Tier were covered with 2 inches of snow, so you couldn’t really expect people to sit in them. Yet almost certainly there would have been plenty of vacant spaces further back as Berkshire exiles like me and Marcia had already taken the Elf & Safety decision to stay at home. Anyway, it was all probably for the best as Arsenal would almost certainly contrived a few more injuries – our squad have enough problems standing up on grass let alone snow. And we will hopefully be able to get to the rearranged fixture.
The bonus of staying at home turned out to be the chance to watch forthcoming opponents Ipswich v Leicester on Sky. Here was an opportunity also to see just how Arsenal v Stoke might have worked out had that game gone ahead.
From what I saw I wouldn’t like to see our current squad of snood/glove-wearing ‘softies’ play anyone in those conditions – Ipswich adapted quickly and Leicester were 3-0 down by the time they had worked out how to stand up. There was even a highly entertaining Roy v Sven sideshow when the referee took the players off in the second half for 10 minutes whilst he decided whether or not the game should continue. But overall if the snow carries on into January (as predicted) and Ipswich get Portman Rd playable (which after Saturday’s first league win in 7 games for them you wouldn’t bet against) Arsenal had better watch out – it might not be the pushover we all anticipate.
Later I also watched parts of Barca thumping Espanol 5-1, but prefer not to dwell on that. Suffice to say there wasn’t much snow around, but there was some bloke called Messi who seemed capable of making Espanol look as if they were playing on sheet ice.
