This is me and the legend at the Emirates today. Bloody sun came out, ruined the selfie, but I’m the grey fuzz on the left.

And its not my first visit to that noble stadium. Been there a few times. But previously I’d only gone in ‘Club Level’ and today I was down and dirty with my own boys (read: scum) in the ‘away fans corner’. The most hated area of any pitch. Except the Emirates. Not because Arsenal fans are nice, nor polite, nor welcoming. But because they’re nothing. They don’t shout, they don’t sing, they don’t nuffink. They just sit there. Being smug. Its like a ‘liyberry’. As we told them. Repeatedly.

‘Club level’ is the corporate bit. About 30% of the whole ground. Expensive and mainly filled with people who don’t care about the footy, they’re there for the freebies.

The Emirates is not famous for its atmosphere. Oddly, old, shitty Highbury had oodles of the stuff. But new, slick, sanitised Emirates has somehow silenced the Arsenal faithful. So ‘we’ did all the shouting and singing. And swearing. Lots and lots of swearing. The guy behind me apologised at one point after one serious chain of abuse following an Arsenal ‘dive’. Apologised? Do I look like the Pope? He spoke my mind. All expletive.

So they built this uber-stadium, just 10 years ago. And, in previous visits I’d drooled over the carpeting, salivated over the beautiful, tasteful decor, reached near-climax at the wonderful toilet facilities. And stated that: one day all stadia will be like this. Its so post-millenial, so clean and super.

Until you get to the ‘away fans’ bit. The design budget apparently ran out just before they finished that particular corner of the ground. So they just copied the old, circa 1922 model of facilities provision. “The look we’re aiming at” claimed the now unfunded, almost pro-bono, design team, ” is ‘squalor'”. And they succeeded. Its a shit-hole down there. Crowded, insufficient toilets, poor facilities, dingy, dirty, fucking horrible.

But who fucking cares? When we went there and came away on even terms. We weren’t brilliant. Neither were the Arse. We were probably less-not-brilliant than they were as we gained our forth draw in a row. But heh. Its the Arsenal. They smash teams to bits. But not Spurs. Not today.

Happy very hoarse-voice, post-screamy, Sunday.

A xxxx