SATURDAY -Walking round the Emirates at 2.30pm, my friend and I bumped into Kelvin and his daughter Amanda.
We chatted to them for a while about the team and possible transfers. Kelvin is an old Gooner pal who expects me to ring him and tell him stuff I don’t dare put on ANR.
Then we strolled on towards our turnstile and I said, “I’ve known Amanda since she was a teenager. She’s married with a kid now.”
Big Mitch’s friend Phil appeared out of nowhere and shook my hand and told me to keep up the good work and said he enjoyed that lunch we’d had with Mitch and their friend Dennis. They are lifelong Arsenal fans who go back to the Sixties and Fifties.
We saw David Dein in a brown suit and open-necked white shirt, going in with two pals, stopping to talk to three supporters. My friend had never met Dein but he held back, not wanting to barge into a group of six people. Seeing his polite hesitation, Dein stepped forward and shook my friend’s hand and said Hi. He didn’t have to do that but that’s what Dein is like. Accessible. For 25 years he was very accessible, a listener. He’d chat to staff and fans and ask them what they thought of today’s game. And be genuinely interested in what’s said to him.
We walk on in the sunshine, laughing, really up for the first game of the season.Then we went in and upstairs to our seats and saw Arsenal stroll it 4-1.
It was very strange. Not a contest, not a game, not a satisfying experience. Almunia is a big 32-year old man with an 18-years old’s peroxide hairstyle. He allowed Kaboul to head in a left wing cross from two yards to make it 2-1. Kaboul made a colossal leap, as high as Les Ferdinand, and Almunia tried to catch the ball when he should have punched it. He didn’t get there and had no help form his defenders. With the ball in the back of the net, Almunia made a gesture that was silly, embarassing and ridiculous.It was a gesture that no other goalkeeper makes. He swiped his right hand as if to say, “Damn it! Why did that happen?”
Fabregas went off at half-time with a hamstring. I warned AW not to risk him. He either played him because Fabregas insisted on being out there,or because Wenger doesn’t trust the team without him. It has to be one or the other. Arshavin was average, wasted on the right wing, playing at 55%, wondering where he will be next season.
Van Persie looked demoralised throughout. Once an erratic bang!bang!player who did some exciting things, he’s now a damp squib who never gets in the box. It’s years since I saw any striker play as badly as this for Arsenal.
Very late in the game, sympathetic fans, seeing what a tragic state Van Persie was in, started a supportive chant : Ro-bin Van Per- sie. But nobody joined the chant, so it was a momentary whimper that died in seconds.
But on Match of the Day, RVP had a shot on target and got an assist when he played Ramsey in for the fourth goal. Armchair punters might think he had a good game !
Soon after I got home, the phone rang and a friend told me he was in the directors box.
“I thought Arsenal would have some class. Lunch at 1.30 was a buffet! Surely, you’d expect silver service? I had to get a tray and queue up! I wouldn’t say it was a free-for-all but there were almost 100 people in the room.
“Surely, your chairman has lunch with their chairman? Your MD has lunch with their MD, talks about football, players, business, and says, Look forward to seeing you again, down at your place. It was pathetic, it was like a wedding – two sides. One lot on one side, one on the other.”
“That’s where they miss David Dein, king of the schmoozers,” I said. “You need him to keep it sporting, keep it sociable, to mingle and gossip and keep in touch with people and what’s happening in the game. Where was Danny Fiszman? I didn’t see him there. Stan Kroenke’s in St Louis, Usmanov’s not invited, Lady Nina’s in exile. We’ve got Lord Harris of Peckham – what does he do for Arsenal? Was he there?”
“Diaby’s just an athlete. You might as well have Usain Bolt in the team. The big positive was Vermaelen, he looked good. But having seen Arsenal once, Van Persie and Arshavin don’t get on. It sticks out a mile. Your third goal was against the run of play, Portsmouth were on top at the time.”
“There was no atmosphere,” I said. “No vibe during the game.”
“The DJ tries to control the crowd by announcing….CESC …Fabregas!…..ABOU…..Diaby!”
“I know, I hate that. It’s so artificial.”
“To me, it’s sterile,” he said.” That’s the only word I can use to describe it. Sterile. It’s like Disneyland. ‘Have a nice day, sir !’“
“That’s what I thought the first time I went to the Emirates. It was so sanitised. When punters drop junk food packaging outside the ground, it’s picked up almost before it’s landed by teams of cleaners. It’s Health & Safety gone mad. The stadium manager is a safety fanatic and that’s a good thing. But they take it too far. They don’t let you breathe.”
“So many stewards! Outside there was one steward for every three fans,” he said.
“The stewards are good. They’re very well trained. But the club that existed at Highbury has totally disappeared. They’ve just hired three execs – one used to work for NBA Asia and another was with MTV. Arsenal is now an American corporation.
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Admin comment: Come on Myles – this is overly negative.
A more balanced piece would include:
* Eduardo’s set up for the first
* Diaby’s two cool finishes
* Fabregas’s ball for Eboue to set up the second
* Van Persie’s through ball for Ramsey
* Ramsey’s finish
* The fact that Portsmouth were demoralised opposition, creating the soggy feeling of a training ground practice match for the first home game of the season
* Combined with the fact that a lot of people are feeling the pinch and making scarifices to see The Arsenal, expecting a more competitive match.