Witnessing the Wrong Kind of History

Ahhhh...match day for the Arsenal. The day I've been waiting for all trip.

Bret and I headed up to North London early to ensure we weren't late in meeting the ticket guy. That left us with some time to burn once we got there so we took a stroll by the stadium, went into a pub for a bit and then headed back to meet up with Rick to get our tickets. He walked us down to the Arsenal Tavern just past the old ground and killed a bit more time before heading to the stadium to find our seats.

Entering our section and seeing the stands packed and the pre-match atmosphere actually gave me goosebumps. Sure I was a bit disappointed that I wouldn't get to see Henry or van Persie. Also that the match wasn't quite as meaningful since the best Arsenal can do at this point is finish third which still requires a play-in matchup for the Champions League. But regardless, it was a great setting and a beautiful day to watch the lads kick it around and thrash a West Ham club who is almost certain to go down at season's end.

All I needed now was to sit back, sing along and watch the goals come. Though I was totally aware that this would be no easy victory. That Arsenal's unfortunate quest for the perfect goal every match leaves the result in doubt at all times. But surely they'd be more deliberate today facing a weakened side with a backup goalkeeper. Surely...

After watching the Gunners spend virtually the entire half in the West Ham end of the field and waste countless opportunities, disaster struck in the 45th minute when a long, hopeful ball forward caught the Arsenal defense out of position. Lehman came forward, then got caught in no-man's land and Bobby Zamora perfectly lifted the ball over his head and into the open net. AHHH!!!!

The second half was more of the same with West Ham putting 10 men behind the ball and trying to weather the storm. Their goalkeeper had an absolute blinder, parrying a few sure goals from Adebayor and co. In the end, our proximity to the away supporters turned out to be especially grating as their voices boomed with "We've only got one shot, we've only got one shot"...

It didn't hit me till I was walking away from the stadium that I just watched the first-ever loss at the new stadium. Great timing...

Luckily we were to meet up with George and his mates afterward to drink our (okay, my) sorrows away. I was pleasantly surprised to see Big Tony (a George & Dragon legend) standing next to George as I walked in to the Tavern. And my introduction to Gavin began with him coming up and grabbing me from behind and saying, "hey, you're bad luck, aren't ya?" I'm convinced that I'm not a jinx, but I deserved the ribbing.

After spending a couple hours at the tavern, Tony decided to stick around and hang out with Bret and me for the rest of the night and head back to Brighton in the morning. So we headed back to our flat, changed and went to a local pub where I proceeded to get to that alarming state of drunkeness where you don't know how bad of shape you are in until you try to walk to the bathroom and it feels like you walked into a fun house with uneven floors and the walls are moving.

The next morning, Tony treated me to breakfast and since we didn't have anything on the schedule for our last day (it being Easter and all), we spent the afternoon in another pub with Tony until he left for the train.

That night it was the sad task of packing and cleaning the flat so we could head out early in the morning. We had no hiccups on the way home, just a long, long flight (or two, in my case). It was good to finally get home and get that euro detergent stank off me as well as sleep in my own bed.

All in all, we had an incredible trip...one that we're already talking about duplicating sometime in the distant future. We had luck (bret/bag making the flight in New York, United tickets coming through and saving us 200 quid, etc.) and we experienced every level of football (United/Arsenal matches, QPR match and a smaller ground, and United/Arse youth club match).

It's strange watching my club or Bret's and seeing footage of the stadium and being able to picture exactly what that looks like and what surrounds the stadium, etc. Puts everything into a greater perspective.

Thanks for following along and sorry I wasn't as consistent as I'd hoped on updating this while we were in the midst of our travels.

Cheers,
Matt (and Bret)

Charlie George is a Genius

When I looked up info about booking the stadium tour at Arsenal, I found some options for the standard tour in the date range we were looking for...but when I went back to book it, all standard tours were filled and only the "Legend" tours were available.

The Legend tours are led by a former Arsenal great and cost about three times more than the standard tour so you can imagine how disappointed I was. Little did I realize that it was a stroke of luck...

We got out to the Stadium early and on first sight I was very impressed. It's a magnificient looking place, though it's still smack dab in the middle of a neighborhood like Highbury. And it's a stone's throw from the old ground, so all the same pubs, tube stops, etc. are in play. We hit the Armoury store first so I could get a match day scarf and a, eh-hmm, car freshener (don't ask).

We then headed over to the tour and right off the bat, you got the feeling that Charlie George (legendary Arsenal striker from the 60s/70s) was gonna be a good host.

Charlie showed us the Director's box (which had quite possibly the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in), the locker rooms and the home/visitor player and manager seats on the field.

When I talked to Bret before we left for England, he kept mocking me by telling me he was going to "fart in Arsene Wenger's chair" to which I just rolled my eyes.

Well, he wasn't kidding and he did just that right before we were instructed to move the tour along (see picture). Congrats Bret...

Charlie finished the tour with a visit to the Arsenal press room where he sat down, told us about 15 minutes worth of stories, then opened it up to questions which he answered for a good 30 minutes.

Bret was laughing at some of the tough questions the audience asked. Serious questions about what has gone wrong this season, what the future is of certain players and what future signings are on the horizon. And to his credit, Charlie honestly addressed every single one of them. I got the feeling that if he would have been asked another 20 questions, he would have stayed another two hours answering them.

All in all, a great tour and well worth it to have Charlie leading the way. Afterward, we checked out the Arsenal Museum which was a little bit smaller than I imagined, but that was good cause it's more concentrated with things to watch, listen to, read, etc without being overwhelmed.

The museum even included a large sculpture of Charlie's likeness when he celebrated his game-winning goal in the 1971 FA Cup Final at Wembley.

It's hard to cram that much history into one place, but they did a good balance of using technology (you can even record and email a video message to people), video, historical gear, etc.

After the museum, we took a stroll by Highbury (where we visited three years prior when it was an active stadium) and I fought the tears back as I looked at the gaping holes of demolition and the scaffolding covering all the turnstile facades. It was a good final look before they finish construction in turning them into flats.

We then headed down to Leicester Square and walked around a bit, stopping off at Lillywhites to check on some cheap kits. I finally got the maroon highbury tribute Arsenal kit for pretty cheap, so I bought it. But we minded our wallets pretty well and didn't go berzerk. That place is huge though, I can see how people get carried away.

Our day finished with a trip to the Texas Embassy which when I explained where we were going, Bret mistakingly took me literally and thought it was somehow tied to the American Embassy. Ha ha...he's such a sweet kid. It is a Tex-Mex restaurant right next to Trafalgar Square and although it was good to get some Mexican food, it was pretty ordinary and overpriced. (boy, I give crap reviews for everything, don't I?)

Tomorrow is the match and I can't wait to get the full match day experience. I'm meeting up with George (the brother of one of my Arsenal mates in Seattle) and some other lads after the match, so that should be good. It's gonna be a long day, I'm sure...

The Urine Dungeon

After hitting the message boards quickly, Bret was able to track down a United-friendly pub in South London for us to watch the 1st leg of the Roma-United quarterfinal of the Champions League. We headed down to Clapham and although the pub was mainly United, the supporters there were a bit disappointing...not very rowdy at all, which is not what we're used to at this point.

Equally disappointing for Bret was the result with Scholes being sent off and United losing 2-1, but the game was really marred by the act of the Italian police who literally beat the shite out of the United supporters who were jawing back and forth with the Roma faithful.

All the coverage I saw was pretty bad for the police, so I can only imagine what the 2nd leg will be like back at Old Trafford.

Thursday was a big walk-around day as we first visited the Tate Modern museum which was overwhelmingly massive. We didn't do the pay exhibit, but we were still there a good 3-4 hours, there is so much to see.

A lot of cool stuff from Dali, Pollock, Picasso, Warhol, etc. We both made the mistake of taking our time early instead of spending more time with the works we really liked so by the end of it we were a bit tuckered out.

(I begged Bret to go, but he refused.)

We weren't too tired to give the London Dungeon a go though. We'd walked by it a good half dozen times already and every time the queue was as long as the Nile River, but we happened upon it just before it was closing so we got right in. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but what a waste of money. It was 17 quid each and the first thing you're hit with when you walk into the first area while you wait for the next group to make their way through is the intense whiff of urine. The most you could do was breathe through your mouth, but then you could nearly taste it. I felt like I had passed out in the trough back at the Old Trafford toilets.

We powered on, but both of us were expecting "actors" to jump out at us or sneak up on us from behind some of the sets, but the most they could do is put a bunch of dummies scattered about. The actors that did have a pulse were not much better than their inanimate colleagues however. It was as if they set out to put the "show" together and couldn't decide to make it educational, a haunted house, a kid's playroom or a bad horror show spoof on cable access television. It was very sad...one minute they'd talk about Jack the Ripper and list the entire population of the civilized world one by one as if they were all suspects, then they'd turn around and talk about how "horrifying" (AHHHH!!!!) the London Fire was. I'm sure it was, but was it haunted house scary or just a tragedy?

Make up your mind, Urine Dungeon! They even sneak in a boat ride where you're waiting to have the crap scared out of you cause it's pitch black, but all you get is a little dip down a ramp and a strobe light goes off which turns out to be a picture of you that they want you to purchase later. Booo...

But enough about that...Thursday night we were low key cause we were so exhausted. Not to mention, we were amped (at least I was) for the Arsenal Stadium tour. We're headed there today, so more on that later...

Best.Accommodation.Ever.

Nothing too exciting to report from our trip down from Manc other than the fact that the hotel staff must've felt guilty about their late wake-up call for us, so they decided to go ahead and shoot off the fire alarm and have us clear the building to ensure we were up and at 'em.

We lugged our massive bags over to the South Tower Bridge area (Burmondsey) to our new flat which was beyond our wildest dreams. The place is absolutely mint with a good size living room, full kitchen, television, washer/dryer, etc. Only drawback is its proximity to sites, markets, tube stations, etc. But that's a-okay with us.

Upon dropping off our stuff and getting some food/drink, we took the long journey to West London for the Queens Park Rangers match with Preston North End (yes, that's three matches in four days for those counting at home). It was the perfect setting for what we wanted to see...a lower division match in a smaller park with passionate supporters. The ground only holds about 18,000 of which there maybe a couple thousand empty seats (all in the visitors section). Our seats were in the first row, so we could literally reach out and grab the linesman or players. It was incredible. And for having about 1/5 of the fans as Old Trafford, the stadium was wildly loud.

From "can you hear Preston sing? I can't hear a f**king thing" to the chilling, booming chants of, "come on you R's!" the whole experience was outstanding. Not to mention, QPR is battling to stay up in the Championship, so it was a must-win and they pulled it out with a second half strike for the one-nil victory. I tried to capture some of the audio with my camera (was a bit nervous to try to film video of it as the security isn't fond of that) but you can't quite get the full tingly experience.

Today we just walked around a bit. Went up to London Dungeon for the tour, but there was a queue about 10 miles long so we skipped it. Now we're on a desperation search for a pub that will show the United-Roma Champions League match and surprisingly we're having some trouble. More to come...

P.S. My sandwich assault continues, a good 4-5 more in the past few days.

The Old Trafford Treble

After my last post, Bret and I were low key the first night in Manchester. We were so elated about getting our tickets sorted that we got summat to eat and went back and slept for about four hours in our room before meandering downstairs to our hotel's lobby bar. At first it didn't look like much, but it soon picked up and the next thing we knew we were getting our ears talked off by a couple of really nice blokes from Northern Ireland.

Rick and Steve, both farmers from a remote village, first tried to get us to sing American songs karaoke style sans music, but we refused. They spent the next two hours telling us about their families, their farms, etc. They were in town, basing out of Manc to head to the Leeds match, of which they were both big supporters. Imagine their surprise when Bret revealed that his surname was the same as the star striker for Northern Ireland...David Healy. More on that later...

Saturday we woke up early and headed to Old Trafford. Brom (our ticket savior) met us and we ended up with great seats. Mind, they were a bit high up, but a good view of the pitch and despite a lackluster first half which saw Vidic carted off with a broken collarbone, United rallied to bag four in the second half and the place was humming. Quite a good first match experience to see the home club pound the opposition and sing throughout. Oh and we picked a popular match cause it was a record premiership attendance of more than 76,000!

That night we took it easy again, but ventured down to the lobby bar for a few and found not only Rick and Steve but about 12-15 Leeds supporters singing, "Heal-eyyy, Heal-eyyy, Heal-eyyy" as we entered.

The next day we we did the tour of Old Trafford which included the museum and some pretty cool historical stuff about the club. We got plenty of snaps and decided that at the end of the night, it was time to hit a good pub. We went up the street to a place called Dry Bar, mostly due to its significance as part of the movie, "24-hour party people" as this is where Shaun Ryder from the Happy Mondays walked in and fired his gun into the mirror, leaving him with a lifetime ban. We're not 100% sure, but one of the mirrors still has a bullet hole in it, so we're guessing they left it up.

Monday we went to the LS Lowry museum down at the Quays and that was very cool. It included exhibits by a couple of photographers as well which were pretty amazing, though very depressing as they documented some Northern English towns hit hard with economic woes during the 60s and 70s and led up to major famine and poor living conditions in Africa as well.

Sticking with the 24-hour party people theme, we went by where the legendary "Hacienda" night club was in the 80s and 90s but it is now just a huge complex of flats so that was a touch disappointing.

As coincidence would have it, Arsenal's under-18s were in town that night for a match with United in the semifinals of the Youth FA Cup. So we hit it for a bonus match. It was cool to see Old Trafford at night. They only had 9,000 people in there, but they were pretty boisterous. Unfortunately, Mr. Charmed Life (Bret) got to watch his lads pull it out in extra time to move on to the finals.

Tomorrow we head back to London. As sad as it is to leave Manchester behind, we feel like we hit quite a bit of stuff here and didn't miss out on much. Manchester is a funny town, really similar in many ways to the feel of a Pacific NW city such as Portland or Seattle. I guess 10 years ago it was not in such good shape, but they've built it up quite nicely with modern buildings and such. It was a great time though and we're glad we experienced more than just London. Now on to the capital...

P.S. My English tour of sandwiches is well underway. I think I've put down a good 7 or 8 already! I love sandwiches...

David is a muppet

We've just made it to Manchester, but before I discuss our next move, let me start with our near miss on the flight out. My flight was slightly delayed meaning by the time I arrived at the gate at JFK, the flight was already boarding. The bigger issue was that Bret had just landed and was still taxiing into his gate and it was in the next terminal.

I pleaded my case to the flight crew and they shook their head with pessimism about Bret's odds of making it. I asked about the next two flights out and they were booked solid so he was likely going to miss out till the next day, leaving me in London with no name on a hotel nor a lad to drink with...

Fortunately, Bret is still a skilled sprinter and made the flight by the hair of his chinny-chin-chin and we were off to London. Uneventful flight really...unless you consider eventful when a large group of about 40 hasidic jews can't stay seated for five minutes at a time, leading to the Captain coming on the PA system to instruct passengers that we have to follow TSA regulations and the flight attendant saying, "If you don't behave, we're going to have to set the plane down and take all of you off." Fun! Oh and somehow Bret's bag made the plane which is pretty remarkable considering he barely did.

Luckily that was all for the drama. Bret and I found our hotel with ease and spent the day waiting for a guy from a ticket service we used to buy tickets to the Manchester United-Blackburn match. After first telling us that he'd deliver them before we got in, he then told us that afternoon, then an hour and a half, then didn't show up at all. So Bret spent the night fretting with a massive stomach ache while I tried to assure him that we'd get the tickets the next morning before we left.

That brings us to today when we got a hold of him and he kept saying he'd get us the tickets later and he had to call us back in 10 minutes...yeah, sure...so we surprised him by making our next call from right outside his office with Bret saying, "we're right outside your door" and the guy probably wetting himself. He let us in and immediately said, "where are you staying in Manchester, I can have the tickets delivered to y..." Bret interrupted, "No, no, we're not doing that...you couldn't even get the tickets across town in London and you've told me a thousand lies already."

Bret then said, and I wish everyone could have watched this, "I want my money back, mate, 280 pound" and gave the 'give it to me gesture' to which David was actually speechless for a good 15 seconds. Luckily he succumbed at that point and we got our money back, but that left us with no tickets and a mission once we arrived here.

Train up here was uneventful and when we got to our 'luxurious' accommodation (pictured), the reality of our task set in...so we found this internet cafe and Bret happened to get an email from this guy he met through the supporters club who has two tickets. MIRACLE!!!

We will probably end up saving about 200 pound on the deal as well, so boy did things work out. (this is assuming he comes good on his promise, but he sounds legit)

So, all is good now and we can finally relax. More to come soon, I'll try to post every other day if I can.

Oh and p.s. David takes it up the ass, doo-dah, doo-dah.

About to Shove Off...

After burning the midnight oil to get all things lined up work-wise and trip-wise, I'm just about to head to bed for a healthy 3.5 hours of sleep before we head off to England tomorrow.

Bret and I meet up in New York and travel together the rest of the way to London where we'll stay the night Thursday before heading up to Manchester for four nights and then coming back to London for the final six nights.

I'll do my best to update this blog with tales of our journeys but I must warn you that if it becomes a hassle and/or I feel like my writing is about as entertaining as raking your back yard, then I'll cease and desist.

So bear with me...