Gooner 48’s article says much of what I feel about so-called fans turning their backs on our club and walking out of the ground. I don’t get it, I never have and in over 45 years of watching Arsenal I have never left early. In my mind I cannot understand what there is to debate. However I must admit though to having a different angle on this matter, I started my own business four years ago and it was just not feasible to maintain my season ticket. However I do get to see Arsenal at away games Villa, Everton, Sheffield Utd, and other matches courtesy of some generous customers and friends plus the odd home game, again, circumstances allowing. I am now back on the list as I can better plan my working week.

I have been excluded from just turning up to watch Arsenal due to the huge demand to see the team, so my opinion of people who are lucky to watch our team yet choose to leave when things aren’t going as well as they were a few years back is pretty low. In fact I believe they are turning us into a laughing stock. I am sure that when the stadium was first planned, in hindsight we could have had an early leavers section - “a fast exit concourse” - that at least meant these half hearted supporters could leave without spoiling the game for the rest of us and as soon as the first person left a huge screen could come down so that our team would not have to witness the “faint hearted” leaving early. Another advantage of hoarding these people into one part of the ground is we could all hurl abuse at them or beg them to stay according to our viewpoint.

My main upset in this matter is that it is a massive insult to our club, our team, our manager and the rest of the fans who are trying to create an atmosphere something akin to the traditional northern clubs of Liverpool and Manchester. Some chance at this rate.

When my eldest son was in his early teens I would take him motor racing, mainly touring cars. I really enjoyed it, and it was great entertainment. My son loved it - he had all the autographs, posters and videos. However his one main gripe was that I always left early “to avoid the traffic jams”. He wanted to stay to the very end and see the last race and check in the last car in that race because he was and still is a real fan and a “petrolhead”. I enjoyed it, thought it was exciting but I was not a true follower, not in the real sense and just like our “early leavers”, I was glad I came but would now rather be at home than suffer the real experience of being a genuine racing fan which meant spending a couple of hours just getting out of the car park.

To leave my beloved Arsenal still playing and not see the end of the game would mean I would have missed Ray Kennedy’s winner at WHL, not seen Lens whack Robbie Keane 31 years later and unforgivingly missed Rocky’s winner in a semi-final 20 years ago.

I rest my case.

Ed’s note – The Gooner (printed version) and this very website will be addressing stadium issues concerning the matchday atmosphere and aspects related to it as we begin our second season in our new home. The hope being that through positive suggestion we can improve the situation that exists at the moment in terms of seats being empty at different times of the game and the noise the fans create.