Arsenal Under-18s vs Manchester United Under-18s - Emirates Stadium, London - Wednesday 14th March 2007

A very strange thing happened tonight at Emirates Stadium. A youth team game, an FA Youth Cup Semi Final First Leg, no less, being played in the main stadium, instead of hidden away at the training ground. Following the holding of the last round home leg there too, Arsenal decided to repeat the trick, with £3 adult tickets, £1 kids tickets, and a nice early kick off so that all the kids could be home to bed in time for school tomorrow.

As a result, the stadium was packed full of kids, either of the 6-year-old variety - screaming and generally looking around in wonder at the whole experience; or of the 15-year-old variety - the cream of Islington's secondary schools and council estates, with hooded tops, low slung trousers, and bad attitudes. On the way out, there were so many of the latter, I wondered how many times I might get mugged before I reached home.

The experience was completely different to a normal Arsenal game at the stadium. For starters, there were very long and orderly queues outside, as first time visitors tried to work out how to put their tickets into the turnstiles. I remember when it was all new to me too - only 7 months ago, but it seems like ages now - proof that the new stadium is becoming like home at last.

There were not really any Arsenal songs at all, the crowd being so different to the usual matchday crowd, that I honestly don't think they knew any Arsenal songs. All that was offered was "Arsenal, duh-duh-duh", repeated ad infinitum. And, much of the game was punctuated by screaming, cheering and booing alone - no banter, no songs, no constant background noise of people shouting whatever was on their minds, in the direction of the pitch. The Mancs get a free kick - boo!!!! It hits the Arsenal wall - cheer!!! It was that simplistic - a game attended by very infrequent (or passive) watchers of football. I'm sure if Arsenal get their way, the whole stadium will be filled with such "spectators" before too long.

The attendance for the game was reported at over 38,000. Arsenal have been lying about their attendances all season (quoting the number of tickets sold, not the number of people in the stadium), and this was no different. There were still, however, probably between 25,000 and 30,000 people there.

The 38,000 figure was around 5,000 more than were at Spurs tonight for a UEFA Cup tie - a game that was amongst the biggest Spurs have played for years. The attendance was as many as the whole stadium capacity at Highbury, and 3,000 more than Spurs' capacity - all for a Youth Cup game. And, what made all this even more impressive was that the first team were playing at Villa Park at the same time, with a 3,000 sellout of the away end there, plus countless others listening at home on the radio, or watching dodgy web streams. Despite the cheap tickets, we proved tonight what a big club Arsenal are, and how many fans we really have.

The free seating in the stadium meant a great chance to try out some alternative vantage points - I tried out the halfway line view for the first half - opposite and facing right down the tunnel. Then in the second half, I moved up for an Upper Tier corner view. This felt a bit too far away from the action for my liking, especially with the club and box levels between upper and lower tiers. Vertigo also kicked in - I am always scared of falling out of our Upper Tier, it is pretty damned steep.

As well as all the excitement detailed above, there was also a football match going on, which I actually found myself not paying too much attention to, such was the novelty of the whole situation. Manchester United had the better of the attacks in general, and the Arsenal defence allowed them to get in behind them far too often. Lucky then, that Gavin Hoyte's pace allowed him to get away with it every time. Fran Merida had some nice touches but not a great game overall, and Armand Traore, who played in the Carling Cup Final 2 weeks previously, looked extremely ordinary! For a player that is clearly rated as a cut above the youth team, he didn't really look like it.

In the end, Arsenal got themselves a 1-0 advantage to take up to Old Trafford for the second leg. And, the first team also won 1-0 - so there were 2 "1-0 to the Arsenal" results in one day! The whole experience was a good one - good for the youth team to play in front of 30,000 people; good for the local kids to come along for £1, hopefully that will help stop too many of them nagging their parents for Chelsea shirts. We have been letting people in cheaply for Carling Cup games for a while now, and have proved that the demand is there - I suspect we will be seeing more Youth Cup games at the stadium before too long - hopefully starting in this year's final.