Russell James
I lived the first 40 years of my Gooner Life living off scraps of tickets here and there. 1988-89 was my best season – my Dad lived 20 minutes walk from Highbury, and if I was staying with him, I would walk to the ground on a matchday and pay at the gate. My keenest memories of that season are of interminable League Cup replays with Liverpool, and in the run up to Anfield – the 2-2 with Wimbledon and the 1-2 defeat to Derby (my second team, for family historical reasons – I still watch them when I can).
So when my son was born in 1998, I put down for two season tickets. Ten years later, I got the call from Arsenal and took my place in Block 98. Seven years on from that, I regularly attend the Emirates, and when I can, I go to away matches – with my daughter – SJ.
So why do I tell you this? I have always wondered about the chant. “We all follow the Arsenal, over land and sea (and Leicester). Why Leicester in particular? Why not Hull or Stoke. This weekend, I found out about that. With a visit to Filbert Street/Way/KP/King Power Stadium. Whatever… the home of Leicester City, newly promoted as Championship Champions.
If it’s north of Manchester, we’ll go by Arsenal coach – if it’s south, we drive. Having just got back from holiday after a 15 hour drive, the last thing I felt like was a drive north, but SJ has Osgood Schlatters Disease (sounds terrible – look it up, and it is an affliction of active teenagers – she’ll get better, thanks for asking, but it makes walking and indeed any leg based exercise difficult – which given she swims, hikes, runs and cycles, means she is bouncing off the walls from not being able to do sport). So she doesn’t get out much currently, and Leicester was in the calendar. And she was going.
As we drove North, we did our usual predict the score “4-2 the Arsenal” says RJ as usual – overly optimistic, despite having seen pretty much every 1-0 away defeat of the last four seasons and missing almost every away win. “3-1 – they’ll get no more than one,” says SJ -
I have never ever been to Leicester in my life. I like Kasabian, I like Walkers crisps, but pretty much despise Gary Lineker. So 2-1 Leicester – it should be an OK . The KP Stadium was neatly tucked into an area near the old Filbert Street. We walked a mile from the car, and unscientifically we observed a higher percentage of replica shirts than I have ever seen at any other ground – a good and loyal fanbase. Perhaps there will be some atmosphere at this new ground?
We had read that policing and stewarding could be heavy handed – odd, given that it is Leicester, not Millwall. As we approached the ground, the home fans were nothing but polite and bantery. As we entered the ground, the stewards were fantastic, the police understated – practically perfect.
So my first true test of the ground – the pie. A Pukka Pie steak and kidney – SJ has a Bovril (liquid pie – she is on a diet). The Bovril was Bovril – nothing more nothing less, but the pie was nice – certainly a change from Holland Pies that we suffer at the Emirates and many other grounds we have been to – whatever happened to the purveyors of local pies that made going to away matches a culinary voyage? Wigan retain a local supplier – let’s hope they are back in the EPL soon.
The away fans are seated in the North East corner of this neat ground. Twelve years old and looks soulless like many new grounds. We took our seats right at one edge of the away support – dangerously close to the Leicester-ites. What an interesting concept – Leicester allow a drummer in the stand nearest the away fans – so the noisier Leicester fans gravitate to that corner, and lo – there is boundless atmosphere. Boom Boom Boom “Shall we sing a song for you” boom boom boom “Oo the f***in ‘ell are you” boom boom, something disgusting and objectionable about sodomy boom boom, “you’re the worst support we’ve ever seen” boom boom boom. For once, the travelling Gooners were outsung, and somewhat unnerved by the strength of feeling. A few of my neighbouring Gooners disgraced themselves by getting involved in fist waving and name calling – Leicester had won the battle of the fans.
Leicester have had a tough three opening games – but have punched to their weight. And gave us a tough game. On the balance of play, I thought we should have won. But as with Besiktas, it was too close, and the midfield seemed to lack cohesion. Some observations from my conversations with SJ.
• Ozil - He gets a lot of stick, but what we saw was – industrious off the ball, did some good work defensively, tracked back when he made mistakes, tried to go forward, tried to pass forward, and when he got it wrong, tried to fix it – when he has the ball, he has so much time – he just looks lazy. He isn’t, he just exudes “Deliberately Casual” – we should embrace this talent in our midst and not trust what we see on the telly.
• Debuchy – We thought we would miss Sagna – we don’t
• Chambers – Came on early for a crocked Kos – one horrible mistake, but overall heart, workrate and determination – A future hero
• Sanchez (can’t get my head around calling him Alexis – it will come) – at the heart of most of what we did well, and a trier – but doesn’t seem to have a centre forward’s appetite for goal – not the solution to our problems up front, but a great addition
• Rambo – Looked out of sorts
• Sanogo - Whatever the question is, Sanogo is not the answer. Unless the question is perhaps “Which Arsenal player’s name is an anagram of Anogos?”. There must be something seen in training that we do not see in the thick of when it matters. He clearly has a reasonable football brain and gets into some great positions, but he just appears to have very little talent at controlling and directing a football which when I last checked are key leading football player skills. And he gets into a position, but then shows little movement, so defenders get to the ball before him. A year into Project Sanogo, and it is not working. But unbelievably it actually got worse when he was replaced by Podolski since we had nobody in the box to get on the end of things.
• The “Buy a f***ing striker” chant on 88 minutes – justified, but terrible at the end of an away game – the Leicester fans thought this was the best moment of the game – away support turning on their team during a draw.
And so 1-1. We quickly got back to the car (well, as quick as SJ’s knees would allow) and were on the M1 far quicker than I thought we would be – could be back in Hampshire by 8pm. And then the traffic went mental, we ground to a halt and lost another couple of hours. What a perfect end to an away day. At least the Tiny Totts got thumped.
