Following a recent article by Graham Willis about his disappointment in our small museum following his tour I thought I would share my thoughts. Recently I took a tour of our new stadium. I had toured Highbury in our final season and wanted to see first hand just how different things were. There was one small difference though, my tour of Highbury was with a standard guide - my tour of our new stadium was with the one and only Charlie George. For me this improved things tenfold, firstly as you get to meet the great man himself, but secondly because he is an Arsenal fan, who shares our hopes and concerns, but has the privilege of a little inside knowledge. And it's some of his knowledge and comments I wish to share along with a few tales of my day.

The tour began with a nice little goodie bag, a photo of Charlie in his playing days, a key ring and bits like that. After this, and a quick hello, it was up to the directors seats in the stadium. Here we got to see the view from where our chairman and the like sit in their big comfy armchairs. And it was whilst here that Charlie shared some interesting information. He advised us that the Club Level and Boxes at the new ground make as much money on match day as Highbury did as a whole. You can then add to this the remaining seats, the programme sales, etc and a match day starts to look very healthy. He stated that the waiting list for standard seat season tickets now stands at 40,000 people. With regards to the boxes there is also a waiting list, this stands in the thousands and seeing as they have to pay £25,000 up front for a block of seasons, the future looks bright on the ticket front. These figures (along with some about the Highbury housing) prompted Mr.George to state the following (if memory serves me correctly):

"Our shareholders will not be selling their shares, why would they want to? In four years time this football club will be solvent. That just does not happen, yet we have made it a possibility. In four years time we will be solvent, the only football club who can make such a claim. So why would the board sell? If they want money they would sit tight and wait four years when the shares will be worth double, or treble or even more. But they won't sell anyway because like us they are Arsenal fans."

He then went on to say:

"If they can find a way to acquire a few more shares to further stabilise our stand of not selling then that would be all the better." This possibly the most interesting statement he made, especially when he said it with a tone of that's what they are trying to do as opposed to a thought of his own.

The tour progressed with the changing rooms, dug-outs and all your usual stuff. Charlie is a funny man, sharing some comments along the way. He said "Did you know that Tottenham won something last year? Honest, they won pitch of the year. But I said to our head groundsman Paul Burgess, Don't worry Paul with the amount of crap they have on their pitch it's bound to help the grass grow". He also said that he hopes we don't lose this Saturday in the derby because when they beat us "they never shut up, anyone would think they had won the European Cup!"

You then continue before finishing in the press room, where Charlie shares some more info and his personal experiences, before a few photos and signatures. It was great to hear a local lad who stood on the North Bank talk with such passion about his time with us as a player and how much love he still has for our football club. With regards to Arsenal he said of the future:

"I told my mates back in June that Arsene would sign a new contract and I was right. Arsene is a man of honour, intelligence and ambition. He has started something with this team and he hasn't finished so why leave? We have a really good team, who will only get better. If we add a few players to the current squad then his next team will be complete, just you wait and see. Look at us this season, we were supposed to be struggling but so far we are looking down on most. He is the best signing the club has ever made, he has changed the club, training facilities, and this stadium was his idea."

Following the questions he signed the photos that came in the goodie bag for everyone. However my dad and I had taken a yellow 1971 cup final shirt, the 1971 cup final programme and the 1971 Tottenham away programme (we all know that happened there). We asked if he minded signing these instead...he said "of course not". What a gentleman and what an absolute legend. We then had a photo, me, my dad, Charlie George and my now signed 1971 cup final shirt.

The tour is then finished, but you can go to the museum for free and have a look around. As Graham mentioned the most disappointing part of the tour. Too small and not enough silverware on show. However everything that had preceded it was pure class.

If you get the opportunity I strongly advise going on a tour of the stadium, and I strongly advise you do it with a legend.... and who better than Charlie George?