London Calling

I hate summer. Hay Fever and no football! I don’t even like the years with international tournaments because it just doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s not Arsenal.

So the summer consists of watching old Arsenal videos and making sure I pre-order the Season Review dvd! I guess that’s why each summer I get excited by the thought of a 600 mile round trip to watch a mixture of first teamers, youths and trialists play a low key friendly at Barnet. But I do and I love it!

Decided to go down for the weekend and stayed at my Gooner mate Georges’, near the ground. Barnet’s a nice little ground to get going again, and it’s always a good chance to get the lungs stretched ready for the season – I mean there’s always a ref at every game! It’s also a first chance to check any new signings close up against opposition that whilst (with respect) not being in our league, always give us a competitive game. Now obviously scoring immediately on your debut is never a bad thing but aside from his skills Hleb appeared to be more than willing to do the grafting as well. And most important he showed me respect by playing the first half mainly on the wing nearest the stand I was in, and changing wings at half time!

The trialist (that we signed) Song certainly looked competent enough at the back, and it was also good to see Justin Hoyte fit again. Hoyte (and his youth centre back partner Ryan Garry) seem to have been rather forgotten by most people due to the injury problems they’ve both suffered but if he can stay fit Hoyte will be putting needed pressure on Lauren for the right back berth. I have a lot of faith in him, and although he played a lot of pre-season at left back I think it’s more relevant that he was involved than which side of the pitch he was on. Then again Nutty played his first season for Arsenal mainly at right back…
Hleb fires in a pass at the Barnet Game

Another great thing about the Barnet friendly every year is bumping into people that you haven’t seen all summer. Football buddies are a strange thing. For the most part they are people you see dozens of times at matches during the season, drink with, celebrate with, and talk about things you’d never dream of talking about away from football. Yet during the summer they’re (almost) forgotten. Then the season starts again, you catch up, and it’s like the summer never happened.

Another shot of Hleb and the boys at Barnet

(Quick aside – As I write this I’ve got the telly on in the corner and they’ve just run an ad trying to sell season tickets for St James’! The season has already started, they’ve already lost a game, and they’ve still got season tickets for sale. Don’t believe the media hype about Newcastle fans as it’s just not true, but I’m sure I’ll come back to that theme!)

So then I had to make a decision. Amsterdam or Austria – I couldn’t do both. Now I’m sure Austria is great but Amsterdam is one of my favourite places. It’s just a superb place filled with superb people. And before you get the any wrong ideas I took my stepdaughter Gina with me. It was her first time watching Arsenal so you may as well do it in style and we booked into The Marriott for the weekend. And we even got to see a man fly! Nearly.

Poor George. It would be fair to say he’d been enjoying the ‘flavour’ of the city a bit, and we were crossing a road at the lights. With trams, cars, and bikes hacking around some of those junctions are damned confusing so we stuck to the ‘wait ‘til there are Dutchies crossing’ principle. We all stroll across the road with no problems except for George who hears a noise in the sky. Looking up he sees a helicopter, stops crossing and ambles slowly backwards a few steps gazing at it. By now we’ve turned to see where he has got to and behind him there’s a tram that has just pulled up at the lights. For some reason he turned right round and the tram was about 6 inches away from his nose. Thinking it’s still moving he raised his hands and, much to the drivers (and our) amusement jumped about 4 foot in the air! We had tears streaming down our faces as he sheepishly completed his crossing.

The Amsterdam Arena is a superb stadium. Half hour on the metro from the city and a (friendly) search by their security and you’re in. As with most away trips abroad they’re pretty thorough and they’ll confiscate strange things. Unlike most trips there’s a big cupboard they put everything in and you get a cloakroom type ticket. On the way out they’re waiting to return your possessions.

Too many stairs though. My knees don’t like stairs. Our section is in the corner behind high perspex type shielding. Rather glad of it last year when this rather mad 8ft tall Ajax fan was trying to get over it to us for some strange reason last year. Ok, maybe not 8ft, but I’m 6ft4 and he looked very tall to me! Our tickets were supposed to be in the bottom corner but we found some empty seats higher up and further round with a much better view.

Before our game with Ajax there was a big ‘goodbye’ to van der Vaart which lasted an absolute age, the player doing the slowest lap of the pitch I’ve ever seen. It was all a little strange really, and one bit was unfortunate. Before it all started they made an announcement in English that there would be fireworks. In view of what’s been happening in London it was good of them to warn us, but even so the half dozen or so flash-bangs that started it came as quite a shock, and a few people looked very uncomfortable.

Then came the oom-pah! If you haven’t seen it it’s an amazing sight. They play oom-pah music before the game - the whole crowd waving their flags (little ones they’re given on the way in) in a choppy 1-2 and bouncing up and down to the music. The fervour is amazing, and ironically reminiscent of the Nazi mass meetings of the 30’s. It’s not a one off either as I’ve seen it every time I’ve been there.

Hleb impressed me again. The guy is going to be a revelation this season. Personally I think his best place is going to be in the number 10 type role because he looks the type that revels in the freedom and has the skill to punish teams from there whilst appearing genuinely two footed. The ball he threaded through to Lupoli was a delight – although I must admit that as he shaped up to play the ball I was screaming at him to play it to the player steaming down the left. Good job he couldn’t hear me – although I doubt he’d have understood my ‘forchrissakeswingitmaaan’ type noise!

Ajax 0 Arsenal 1. I think that’s the fifth time I’ve seen Arsenal play there, but it’s the first time I’ve seen us score there! I thought we played well enough to deserve the win, and Gina was quite happy to put it down to wearing her lucky away shirt. Now Gina (like many teenage girls) rather likes Thierry, and she pointed out that Thierry was wearing shorter, tighter shorts than the other players. Oh the things a captain has to do for the fans.

Back again Sunday, and Gina leant more weight to her ‘lucky shirt’ theory. 1-0 at half down she realised that her lucky shirt was in her bag and she put it on. Wham bam, 2-1, and Thierry waved at her after the game to thank her for dressing right – at last. Or that’s what she said… Anyway, main point – Thierry lifted his first trophy. Let’s all hope it’s the first of many!

Now for the season…

Come on you red(currant)s!