|
My family (me, my wife, and our
16-year-old twin daughters) were coming to the UK to visit my wife's
sister and her family, who had moved last summer from Philadelphia to
Surrey. Having recently rekindled a passion for international football,
and the English Leagues in particular, I was
determined -- my wife would say "obsessed" -- to take in a Premiership fixture during our trip. I began scouring
the internet months ago, with hopes of finding
tickets. The schedule listed three games in London
for the weekend in question, but along the way, I'd developed a fondness
for Spurs (a long story for another day), who
happened to be one of the teams playing at home when we'd be in
town. Alas, the best I was able to do was to
find online ticket brokers offering tickets at as
much as 100% over face value -- obviously no
bargain, and made even more painful by terrible exchange rates for
our $US.
In desperation, I asked my brother in law to poke around
at his firm, to see if any of his work colleagues
could help us find a way to a game. As it turned out, one of them
happens to have a close (semi-official) connection
with Spurs... and to our delight, this gentleman said he was indeed able
to get us tickets at face value. So we were on: my family of four, my
brother in law, and my 9-year-old nephew, would be sitting in the upper
East stand at White Hart Lane for the Man City fixture.
Getting to
the game was simple enough... SW Rail to Waterloo, a short hop on the
tube, and a short walk to Liverpool Street, where we took the rail twenty
minutes north to White Hart Lane. The entire trip from Guildford to WHL
took about 90 minutes, at a leisurely pace. At my urging, we arrived with
plenty of time to walk around the grounds, visit the Spurs shops, grab a
snack for the kids, and just drink in the atmosphere (drinking in the
alcohol would have to wait until evening).
We made our way around
the stands to the East Stand entrances, and found the doors to the upper
"G" block. The entries were remarkably tight (thank goodness we're not an
especially portly bunch), but the guards who examined our bags before we
squeezed our way through the aged turnstiles were very good-natured and
courteous. I was immediately struck by how narrow the concourses were
under and behind the stands. But it was a simple climb to the upper
stands, where we quickly found our seats, five rows back and roughly level
with the goal crease at the South end of the pitch. The view was
excellent, even with the pillar that blocked our view of the far corner. I
should add that the weather was magnificent: a warm, sunny afternoon,
perfect conditions. We didn't make much use of the concessions, though we
did enjoy the cheese & onion and egg & mayo baguette sandwiches
sold inside.
The stands were quite empty until about ten minutes
before game time, when the crowd quickly filled every seat and the teams
took their places. Although this was a match
between mid-table teams (Spurs are making some late-season noises about
Europe -- we'll see), there was a good deal of chanting and singing, both
from the home and away sections, which were just
to our left. The home supporters greeted the referee with a display of
yellow cards (not sure if there was a particular
reason, but it was funny anyway), and they kept up a lively, apparently good-humoured banter
with the Man City contingent in the adjacent away
sections. The overall effect was of great good cheer and intensity, with
virtually no ill will on display. (the intensity
reminded me of hockey matches at home, only on a far larger scale.)
I was a bit surprised that the crowd was relatively quiet during the
middle 30 or 40 minutes of the game: the volume and enthusiasm clearly
peaked early and late in the match. We had trouble understanding exactly
what some of the chants were (probably just as well, given that my kids
were on hand), but we had no difficulty understanding (and enjoying) their intent. My girls, who play (soccer) for
their school team at home, particularly enjoyed the action.
At
halftime, we remained in our seats to avoid the crush of humanity along
the crowded hallways, but we were quite content to take in the scene. A
particular highlight came when we thumbed through
the game programme that I wisely thought to buy on the way in -- my
brother in law's chum had taken the trouble to welcome my girls and my
nephew on their first visit to White Hart Lane.
Seeing their names in print was quite a thrill, and a lovely touch that absolutely made the day for the
kids!
The game itself was something of a dull affair -- a timely
late goal by Robbie Keane salvaged the three points for Spurs -- but the
overall experience was a thrill. I've been to my share of matches over the
years, both with and without my children... I saw
Pele, Beckenbauer and Chinaglia, among others,
play out their past-their-prime days with the long-lost NY Cosmos in the
1970s... attended a closed-circuit theatrical broadcast of the '78 World
Cup Final... got out of bed at 4am to see the Spurs on television in the
FA Cup Final in 1981... watched Bundesliga highlights on public television
in the 70s and 80s...attended the Womens' World Cup in 2003... and took in
countless games with my girls over the past ten or so years. But sitting
at a real, live EPL fixture beat them all... the
history, the energy, the skills, and all the
rest... it just doesn't get much better for long-distance fans like me
(with apologies to my girls' teams, of
course).
Getting out of
the stands was slow but orderly, and with the grounds heavily patrolled
(by US standards) by mounted police, the fans -- many of whom had clearly
enjoyed more than their share of lagers - were well-behaved and
surprisingly calm (owing, I assume, to the outcome and to the weather). As
we approached the train station, we were guided through a very organized
queue - again, well-managed by police - that kept
the platforms from overcrowding. As a result, we easily found seats once
we boarded the train. We were back in central London, meeting up with the
rest of our group for a few pre-dinner pints, within an hour of the final
whistle.
We Americans have long been accustomed to ridiculously
high ticket prices and the intrusion of television networks on the fan
experience, and we can relate to what many fans in England and Europe are
going through with football. Attending sporting events in the US has been
transformed from an affordable, frequent habit into a costly, special
event. From the moment we enter the gates of our (mostly-modern and thus wildly expensive) sporting palaces, we're
bombarded with deafening music, non stop video,
commercial advertising and the rest. The games
have become almost incidental to the "entertainment experience"
for which we pay so dearly. Even baseball, which
offers 81 home games each season, has lost a huge chunk of its core of
devoted "everyday" fans, who today can afford only
a few visits per season. The true fans, the
hardcore believers for whom the games are the thing, are being left
outside this new, expensive, exclusive club, and the game will be the worse for it.
And yet, despite all-seater
stadiums, financially-dominant franchises, exorbitant tickets, transfer
windows that play havoc with rosters, and all the other things that have
changed your experience of football, the EPL game itself - a tidy 90
minutes plus halftime, with no television-mandated timeouts and few
ancillary distractions - remains
the focus of the day out at the park. And a wonderful day out it
can be, as we learned from our visit to White Hart Lane. I cannot
wait until my next visit to your shores, and to my
next visit to an English football match. Maybe
next time, I'll take in a lower division tilt...
any suggestions? |
|
