Arsenal vs Reading - Highbury, London - Tuesday 29th November 2005

This is always a highlight of the season - a Carling Cup home tie, with reduced ticket prices, the youth team out on the pitch, and usually a fantastic atmosphere in the ground because of all the occasional visitors.

Opponents this time round were Reading, who took over 7,500 tickets. Added to the low prices in the home sections, the ground was almost totally sold out. I had the pleasure of sitting right next to the REDsection, the designated singing section in the middle of the North Bank (although its only there for Carling Cup games), so the songs barely stopped all night where I was.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the Reading fans, who despite their number, hardly made a noise all evening. In fact, the sight of the Clock End fully seated was something I don't think I've ever seen before, and must be a mark of some rather quiet supporters!

The game ended in a good win for Arsenal's kids, against a strong Championsip side in excellent form. On we go to the next round,

Arsenal vs Blackburn Rovers - Highbury, London - Saturday 26th November 2005

A game memorable for a few things. Firstly, the fact that it was extremely cold, probably the first game of the season where you're in no doubt at all that winter is well and truly here.

The second memorable thing was that the match was particularly crap - Fabregas opened the scoring after 4 minutes, and after that the result was a fairly foregone conclusion - Blackburn never looked like showing enough desire or skill, or even caring enough, to get anything from the game. So, the final 86 minutes were a case of sitting in the cold, watching the inevitable.

The most memorable thing, however, especially given such a dull game, was the quality of the goals. Fabregas scored a standard shot from the edge of the area, but that was the worst of the bunch. Henry's second, close to half time, was a great finish to a great move, and Van Persie added the pick of the bunch in the 90th minute. He picked the ball up on the wing, darted past a couple of men (and Robbie Savage), and curled a beautiful shot into the far corner. By now very cold, that at least allowed everybody to leave with a smile.

With the second goal, Thierry Henry also became the first player to score 100 Premiership goals on one ground - Pires' record at White Hart Lane sees him just 94 away from becoming the second player to do it.

Wigan Athletic vs Arsenal - JJB Stadium, Wigan - Saturday 19th November 2005

A good trip to Wigan, somewhere I'd never been before. We went to Manchester on Friday afternoon, and enjoyed an entertaining night out in a very cold Manchester.

On Saturday morning, still bleary-eyed, we headed off to lovely Wigan. Like a lot of towns around Manchester, it isn't a lot to look at! The journey from the motorway into town looked like about 5 minutes on the map, but seemed to take forever, through never ending villages spread along the main road. Eventually, we got through Wigan town centre and to the stadium - which is surrounded by more derelict land than I have ever seen so close to a town centre!! There is more empty land around than you can shake a stick at, which means lots of free parking for all.

I was very impressed indeed by the pie and pasty options around the stadium, lots of good lardy food to be had there! The stadium itself is typical of a new stadium, 4 identical stands, bare concourses where you can still see the girders and poles that hold the thing up. The floor in the concourse also bounced up and down when people were jumping about, which was nice! Kind of stupidly, the only food outlet for 5,000 people was positioned directly opposite the only gents toilets for 5,000 people. The crush at half time, as everybody tried to reach the middle of the concourse, was stupidly preventable, could have been dangerous, and underlines the fact that Wigan had never had to deal with a crowd as big as that one before. I completely trust, as well as hope and pray, that Arsenal's new stadium will be streets ahead of this.

25,000 people there, many of whom (given Wigan's recent attendances - 12,000 when top of the Championship!) clearly were new to football, and had quite possibly only come to see the Arsenal. Howling for a free kick (literally) every time a Wigan player went to ground, kind of indicated that many home fans either don't really know the rules of football, or thought they were watching rugby. The game (especially the first half) was full of thrills and spills, and finished as an entertaining 2-3 Arsenal win. It was obvious why Wigan started the game in second place - a well organised team, strong at the back, and dangerous up front too - they should continue to do well. I'd expect a return trip to the JJB next season.

The Guardian's match report is here

Work Trip to Paris, France - 8th to 9th November 2005

Was in Paris on November 8th and 9th, for a couple of work meetings. When telling anybody this, before or afterwards, the universal reaction was "oh my god, aren't there loads of riots there?", or "did you see lots of rioting and burnt out cars?".

This would suggest that there certainly are things going on, but you really wouldn't notice that if you go to the centre of Paris (or probably any other big city in France). All of the slums are outside the big cities, and physically separated from them, so you can walk around Paris and be completely unaware that anything of this magnitude is going on in the country. French TV news is also very quiet on the subject, they are hardly reporting anything at all about it.

I guess that's precisely why these riots are happening, if the whole of Paris can remain completely oblivious to, and unaffected by, anything that happens in the poor suburbs and immigrant communities just outside the city. Most of the country doesn't notice or care about these people normally - that's exactly what's causing these riots. But its also a reason why nothing positive will happen as a result - the majority of France doesn't care.

Kaiser Chiefs, Maximo Park, Futureheads, Hard-Fi - L'Aeronef, Lille - Saturday 5th November 2005

Last night's Arctic Monkeys gig was a mere warmup for the main event tonight, getting the chance to see 4 of the UK's hottest bands in a small (approx 1000 capacity) venue. The Kaiser Chiefs sold out 13,000 tickets for 3 gigs in London inside 20 minutes last month, yet under 2 hours away on the Eurostar, tickets are available on the day for 19 Euro. Having Maximo Park, Futureheads and Hard Fi on the bill as well was a lovely bonus.

There were significantly more English people at the gig than the previous night, and the venue was much less full - the French are bigger fans of Devendra Banhart and Antony than I thought! In fact, the crowd was probably close to 40% English.

So, Hard Fi came on stage at 8:30, and ran through a quick half hour of highlights from their album. Despite the venue being half empty, security seemed to be much more agitated than the previous night, at one point a security guard dived into the crowd to steal the camera of somebody he spotted taking a photo - very over-the-top. Hard Fi sounded good, but it is a bit annoying of them to use a backing track when they play live.

The Futureheads ran through a very upbeat and energetic set, probably the band I was looking forward to least of the evening, but they were very solidly entertaining!

Maximo Park on the other hand were much better than that, they were absolutely incredible! They arrived to the most riotous reception that any band on either night had been given, and fully justified it. They tore through most of their album, and the crowd ensured that there was plenty of noise between the songs as well. Very strange to see a band that aren't that big in the UK being received like heroes in France.

Kaiser Chiefs were predictably fantastic, their set was like a complete riot, and seemed to pass by in about 10 minutes, I was enjoying it so much. A French guy I spoke to said that he'd never seen the venue go so mad for any band - but if there's any band to make that happen right now, then surely the Kaiser Chiefs are the best around. Ricky did nothing to calm security down, they desperately tried to stop him diving off stage into the crowd - one running dive later, and they'd pretty much given up hope. I managed to evade security for long enough to take this photo.

After the band finished, we went to the bar, and had a beer and a chat with Richard from Hard Fi, a thoroughly nice guy who seemed genuinely surprised at how big his band are getting. Still, his new fame didn't stop the security guards trying to throw him out of the venue at his own gig!

A cracking evening, and a fantastic weekend all round - this festival featured Kings of Leon and Bloc Party last year - I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for next year's line up.

Devendra Banhart, Antony & The Johnsons, The Go! Team, Arctic Monkeys - L'Aeronef, Lille - Friday 4th November 2005

A strange gig this one. The French magazine Les Inrockuptibles, the French version of NME, is running a series of gigs showcasing new bands, all over France. Because most of the bands are unheard of in France, tickets are easy to come by, and quite cheap. So, what better than a weekend in Lille to see 8 good new bands. Our Eurostar took less than 2 hours, and, along with 2 nights in a hotel, all came to less than £100 each. Add in 30 Euros for a 2-day gig ticket, and you have plenty of beer money left over.

Arrived in Lille at lunchtime, and proceeded to drink small glasses of French beer for most of the afternoon. Very good. We went into the gig venue (L'Aeronef), at about 7:30, eager to see Arctic Monkeys, who were on first. Far from the norm for their gigs in England, they were bottom of the bill, and nobody in the venue knew who they were. As a result, we were able to get right to the very front, without difficulty, and with loads of space all around us. So close, in fact, that I got these pictures of the Monkeys in action.


An excellent set from Arctic Monkeys, which went down very well with the 200 or so mostly French people that were there.

The Go! Team came on next, and I thought they were amazing - full of energy, and very loud. Any band that had 2 drummers thrashing away on stage is OK by me! Again, few of the French people in the audience has heard of them, but they went down a storm, and there was good dancing by the end of their set.

Whoever put tonights bill together has a strange sense of humour! Bands like Arctic Monkeys and the Go! Team, followed by Antony and the Johnsons, and Devendra Banhart. Most of the audience were here to see these 2 bands, and, although good, they were not who I was there to see - I'd never pay to see either again. Antony & the Johnsons sounded great, but too downbeat for my liking for a live act. Devendra Banhart was (good) strange, but I can see how both him and Antony will be very popular in France.

Arsenal vs Sparta Prague - Highbury, London - Wednesday 2nd November 2005

Sat in the West Lower at Highbury for this one, and I had forgotten just how bad the view can be from there, especially if you're near the back of the stand. I was sitting in what is normally the away section of the West Lower - because Sparta Prague only brought around 100 fans to London, they were just occupying 5 or 6 rows at the front. At half time, in the queue for the Gents, the Sparta fans were completely mixed in with Arsenal fans - very strange to see, especially at a European game, when the police are usually more paranoid than normal about crowds mixing.

This photo shows how bad my view was - and this from Row 21 of a stand that goes back to Row 34. Mental note - don't buy or take tickets at the back of the West Stand.



The game itself was something of a procession - Sparta have to be the worst Champions' League team I've seen in a while. Having said that, in recent years, Arsenal would really have struggled to see a team like that off in Europe. True, we're not beating the giants of Europe yet, but at least we are no longer struggling against second rate European opposition.