Arsenal vs Aston Villa - Emirates Stadium, London - Saturday 19th August 2006

The first trip for me to the new Arsenal stadium, after much waiting, and an agonising 3 weeks after my holiday, where I had walked past it about a dozen times. but been unable to go in. One of the stranger parts of the day was when I first stepped outside the door - all of the usual matchday stalls are still there, but in a different place. My favourite burger van is still at the bottom of Highbury Hill, but all of the Gillespie Road stalls seem to have relocated to Drayton Park. Very surreal, seeing the same things in different places.

Around the stadium it was pretty busy, even at about 12:30 - lots of people walking around, taking photos. I went to try out the Rocket for a pre match pint, and enjoyed the atmosphere in there, not to mention the £2 pints. Trying not to do too much different from a normal matchday, I waited until about 2:45 before finally entering the stadium.

The view from the seats is better than the virtual reality images had led me to believe - you are closer to the action than I had thought you would be, and the sight-lines seem to be excellent. The seats themselves take some getting used to, they are like huge sandwich boards, absolutely massive contraptions! From the seats, the stadium is quite clearly very impressive - underneath in the concourses however, it is a bit more sparse, and like many other new grounds - in particular the City of Manchester Stadium. Clearly, that doesn't have a shimmering Club Level, but then neither will most Arsenal fans get to experience that.

I took the plunge at half time, and bought a £4 chicken balti pie, which despite the extreme expense, was actually worth every penny - bloody gorgeous, and quite like a meal it was so filling. At half time, the atmosphere seemed strange - like an away ground really, and certainly not feeling like home just yet. A nice stadium, but it just doesn't feel like ours at the moment.

And what about the game? Well, those that say it is great to have Martin O'Neill back in the Premiership may wish to reconsider. Ten men in defence at most times, I believe they call it "well organised", but it is incredibly frustrating to watch a superior team struggle to break down a dogged defence. And, seeing as there are a number of superior teams to Villa in the Premiership, we can expect quite a few 0-0 draws this season I think.

Obviously, anything can happen on the first day of the season, but it was a frustrating debut in the new stadium. The one great thing was the debut of Theo Walcott, in which he looked very, very, very promising. Hopefully more of that to come this season - meanwhile, we need to get over the novelty of our new stadium, and start to make it more of a fortress.