A trip to the cauldron of football pictured above, with its white hot, intimidating atmosphere!! The fact that Arsenal fans were given around 2,000 terrace places tempted lots of people into making the otherwise unappetising trip. Its not often that we get to watch football from terraces these days, so this was unmissable for many.
And, with good reason. My first time on a football terrace for a few years, and immediately it reminded me how much I miss them week in, week out. Standing at the back, right behind the goal with around 10 mates, the terrace filled up quickly in the half hour before kick off.
The most enjoyable aspect of a good 3 hours (including extra time and penalties) was the sheer number and frequency of songs - being packed in together much closer than you ever can be with seats certainly helps with this; as does the obvious ability for groups of friends and people that want to sing to park themselves together. Anybody from the football authorities who says that seats can have the same atmosphere as terraces is either blind or stupid, most probably both. This trip reminded me how much I miss terraces, and I will probably now go looking for some lower division or non-league football when I'm at a loose end in future.
What about the game? Arsenal were shocking, completely beaten for workrate and enthusiasm, not to mention willingness to have a shot at goal, by Doncaster. Too keen to pass the ball around the edge of the area instead of shoot, and not keen enough to get stuck in and win the ball back when needed. It seems the problem doesn't just affect our first teamers! So, Doncaster deserved their 2-1 win after extra time. Oh, sorry, they didn't get it. We scored in the last minute of extra time, then Almunia pulled off his penalty party trick in the shoot out. To be honest, we robbed them, and the faces of Doncaster fans coming out of the ground said as much. Never mind, we needed to go through today to get the train back on the rails, so I'll take it however lucky it may be.
Match Report here
No comments:
Post a Comment