Tag: Arsenal ballot

Adrenaline junkie makes a decision

Amy OLeave a comment

Not long before I retired, I was working with my tech counterpart on a thorny problem in our financial planning software that we needed to solve quickly. I had been working from home since the pandemic, and while we were working through the problem, happened to run into my husband on a trip to the kitchen to get more coffee. “Why did I get into this profession?” I asked rhetorically. My husband scoffed, “Because you’re an adrenaline junkie.”

My life post-retirement involves very little adrenaline. I work occasionally in a food pantry, menial tasks like making sure shopping carts are returned from the parking lot to the pantry or breaking up boxes or packaging diapers. I take fitness classes. I work in my garden, where I am currently establishing the hardscape for what I am calling my “secret” garden. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I read.

Frankly, only my life around Arsenal involves regular adrenaline. Watching games, I’m almost always in a state of anxiety. Maybe more this season than in other seasons, because the stakes are so high and the games have been so tight. So many games decided by only a goal. A few games lost because we let a late goal in.

In a year in which we are so close to winning the Premier League and the Champions League, imagining the good things that could happen–or the bad things–have actually made me lose sleep. It’s an admittedly stupid reason to lose sleep, but explain that to my wide-awake self in the middle of the night. It will fall on ears that can’t begin to care what you have to say about it.

My available time has caused me to build more of my habits around matches. Podcasts come out before the match, to anticipate what may happen, and come out after the match, to revisit what happened and why. So in a normal week this season, there has been a match over the weekend and a match during the week. That is a minimum of two matches and four podcasts. Plus I almost always watch more than just our match in a given week. Usually, much much more. Sometimes with high stakes for Arsenal and some not. And every day I take in news–from the club, from news sources covering football, and from blogs. Way too much from social media. I’ve learned that there are some sources that are actively bad for me and I’ve tried to cut them out or at least minimize their presence in my life, especially at a sensitive time. After a bad loss, for example, I will lean on sources that are more thoughtful and steer clear of click-bait and hot takes. But then I’m left to my own brain, which is its own fun house of histrionics.

One of the reasons I love watching matches live at the Emirates is there is counterpoint action to my anxiety. Something about shouting or singing together with others can be a bit of a change of subject as the action is unfolding before you. If I’m singing that Gabriel is the king of Brazil because of something awesome he just did, I might feel less inclined to have a fit over someone’s subsequent misplaced pass. Or I might have a defensive or protective reaction if the crowd starts to show its frustration over something that happened on field. I love this team so much; how can anyone be mean to them?

And so many things happen in a group that big that bring a smile to your face or are especially touching, like when the Arsenal fans sang to Smith-Rowe when he was injured in the Fulham match or when everyone sings North London Forever at the beginning of the match. And when things have gone well, there is nothing better than sharing that moment with a giant crowd. We overcame something together and now we’re on an adrenaline high together.

I enjoy watching football on my couch in the Chicago suburbs, or I wouldn’t do so much of it, but it’s not the same as being in the stadium.

Ever since I was able to first attend a number of matches during the 2015-2016 season, it’s been my goal to try to be at the last home match of each season. That’s because I’m always sure this is the year we’ll get the Premier League trophy and it will be bestowed upon us on that day. Because my original access to tickets involved a share of season tickets, I would make a request at the beginning of the season to have that last match. Usually, no one competed with me for that date. That was in the days where I guess no one except me thought winning the Premier League was going to happen. That got harder after I successfully got the tickets for the last home match in 2023 and Arsenal really did come close to winning it for the first time in a long time. They just kind of ran out of gas at the end and Man City won.

After that year, the demand for tickets increased a lot and for whatever reason there wasn’t room for me in the group that shared the season tickets anymore.

That’s when my husband and I joined Arsenal as “Red” members so we could participate in the ballot and, failing that, in the Arsenal ticket exchange. It’s worked out pretty well for us. We normally ballot for every match unless we know for sure the timing won’t work. When we’ve really wanted to attend but didn’t succeed in the ballot, we’ve almost always been able to get tickets on the exchange, but it requires a lot of work and repetitive clicking. And you can’t ballot until very close to the match, usually less than a month out with results being shared several weeks out. Then you have to be able to set up flights on short notice, which sometimes means big expense. We’ve mostly gotten lucky on that, too.

Always if we’ve failed to get tickets, we’ve failed to get tickets for both of us. Usually, that failure has come for the most important matches. Matches in the quarter- or semi-finals of the Champions League, for example. Last matches of the season when the title is on the line. For example, the last match of the season in 2024, when Arsenal might have won the league if only Man City lost that day. (We could not get the tickets, but Man City also did not lose in the end.)

Arsenal’s last home game this season was to be against Burnley, a team that appeared to be headed toward relegation at the time the ballot was made available for application. But Arsenal were doing well and the ballot was especially popular. We learned we were not successful in the ballot on March 31. For about a month I tried to get tickets on the exchange with no success and really very little selling activity visible. Then Sky Sports, the broadcasting company that gets to control the world, decided to move the Burnley match from a Sunday afternoon to a Monday night. Terrible for the fans who had tickets and made travel plans, etc. And not a great time for a match.

But for us, that created opportunity since it meant the new game time might not work out for everyone who had a ticket and maybe there would be some action on the exchange.

Now that I’ve explained this, I think you might see that dealing with the exchange is a different, sick source of adrenaline in my life. I was listening to an episode about gambling on the podcast This American Life a few weeks ago and one of the things they mentioned is that a gambler who is not addicted to gambling will process a near-miss while gambling, correctly, as a loss. But a person who is addicted will process that near-miss as a win and double down. That’s how I am on the exchange. If I see a ticket for sale and I’m not successful in buying it, that will count for me as a near-miss and I will become dogged about continuing to try. Fortunately, counter to gambling as an addiction, there is not much money I can lose due to my addiction to the exchange. I usually can’t even get to the stage where I can give them my money.

Because Sky Sports is a jerk, a few tickets did come up as I anticipated and I was able to snag one within two days of the date change. On the exchange, you can designate people in your friend group and it’s possible for me to buy a ticket and assign it to anyone in my group who is eligible, in this case, myself, my husband, or my son. My son usually can’t attend because he’s a tax accountant and the Spring is so busy, but he wanted to attend this one.

I always assign the first ticket I get to myself, then work on a ticket for my husband. I always jokingly say it’s because of the airline’s admonishment to “put your own mask on first before helping others.” In reality, it’s because getting to most matches is probably more important to me than it is to him. And getting to this match, the last home game of the season? That’s my value, not his. Still, he is happy to attend, likes to attend. So, as usual, I assigned that Burnley ticket to me.

And that was it. I was never able to get another ticket despite hours of trying across 2-3 weeks. And I saw so few, I had very little confidence one would turn up late. Neither my husband nor my son were able to find a ticket either.

My husband and son only wanted to come to London if they had a ticket for the match and only I had a ticket. At some point a decision had to be made. Do none of us go? Do I go alone?

I had a fair amount of guilt about being the only one with a ticket. I second-guessed my decision to always assign first to myself. And it didn’t feel quite right going without them. I’m the biggest Arsenal fan in my household but love of Arsenal is shared with my family. It’s a pleasure partly because it’s shared.

At the same time, it’s the last game of the season. In a season in which Arsenal really might win it all and really might be awarded that trophy that night. And even if that didn’t happen, would still be an important game.

My husband was pressing me to organize my flight before fares rose prohibitively. I sat with him on the same couch I normally stress out watching Arsenal and described why I was struggling to make a decision. My husband is a good listener and as we discussed my reasons for going or not going it became clear even to me I was not being logical. At all. I didn’t have good reasons to go or not go.

I put my headphones on, started listening to the Arseblog podcast, and went out to work in the garden. The podcast was about the West Ham match we had just won, barely, and with some late drama that almost saw us conceding a goal until it was ruled out (rightly, say all Arsenal fans) by VAR. A tie would have put a serious dent in our quest for the title.

At some point, even though I still didn’t have a logical explanation, I knew what I should do. I came back in the house and booked a flight.

I would have to be there

Amy OLeave a comment

As we were circling the Emirates in advance of the Fulham match, I overheard a conversation between several Arsenal fans walking behind us. They were discussing how they plan to view the last match of the season, which will be played away at Crystal Palace. The conversation took on tones of people imagining winning Power Ball: How would they spend all that money?

The impact of our losing against Bournemouth and Man City two weeks prior had put a giant dent in our title hopes which had been looking great for most of the season. Technically, if Man City were to win all their matches and Arsenal were to win all our matches, we would be tied on points earned. The league winner would then be decided by tie breakers, first being goal difference, second being goals scored. As of the time of the Fulham match, Man City and Arsenal were tied on goal difference but Man City had a higher number of goals scored. And in Arsenal’s match the prior weekend, at home no less and against in-a-world-of-hurt Newcastle, we had barely eked out a winning goal. It was pure torture to watch. And, needless to say, was not a harbinger of needed goals galore. Meanwhile, Man City looked to be turning into a magnificent machine as they so often do in the Spring. Depressing stuff.

So this conversation on which I was eavesdropping outside the stadium seemed particularly fanciful. The most hopeful fan was telling his friends he imagined he would watch the last match of the season between Arsenal and Crystal Palace at a pub in North London so he could experience it with Arsenal fans. And if Arsenal were winning by many goals, he would hop on the Tube and head over to Crystal Palace’s stadium, Selhurst Park. Because, as he explained it, “I know I can’t be in the grounds, but I would have to be there.”

My husband and I hadn’t been successful in the ballot for tickets to the Fulham match but then were eligible to look for tickets on Arsenal’s ticket exchange. I had felt confident we would be able to get tickets for this match and we had done the unthinkable, booking nonrefundable air tickets and hotel before we had any match tickets. With a million clicks I was able to find tickets the day before we travelled to London. Interesting that there had been so much angst online about Arsenal’s prospects for the Premier League among presumed fans (Bottled again!) while at the same time, fewer ticket holders than usual were selling tickets and a greater number of people were wanting to buy them. The market for tickets speaks more softly then the internet but methinks it tells more truth.

I could understand the feelings of my overheard compatriot in wanting to be ready in case the good thing we’ve all be dreaming of looked like it might imminently happen. While I was not quite ready to imagine planning that final day of the season, I was certainly charmed by the sentiment. I could see him outside Selhurst Park in the cool of the early evening, maybe his pint glass still in hand, looking up at the stadium lights, and smiling at the sound of cheers inside the stadium. Dreams fulfilled.

Using the exchange means my husband and I were not sitting together because you really can only get one ticket at a time. Both of our seats were in the club section in the North Bank, but mine were in the West corner and my husband’s were in the East corner. I was in my seat in time to see Arsenal’s pre-match sendoff for Per Mertesacker, our intrepid former defender who’s been in charge of Arsenal’s youth academy since he retired from playing. Always loved that guy. He, Laurent Koscielny, Nacho Monreal, and Hector Bellerin formed the last really excellent defensive line I can recall until recent years.

I wondered if the stadium would erupt with the chant we’d used for him. He did reference it in his short remarks, calling himself a “Big friendly German” instead of the word starting with “F” we actually used, very lovingly. Although there usually is no hesitation on our part about flinging out some pretty rude chants, for some reason the one we used for Per only 10 years ago felt a bit culturally inappropriate now. Anyway, if the chant was only sporadically sung during the presentation before the match, he got a big round of applause for the good work he’s done with the Academy.

Three of the Academy’s protégés featured for Arsenal in the Fulham match. Mikel Arteta reached into his wildest dreams and determined that Academy alumnus Myles Lewis-Skelly would start in midfield, something that only almost happened in (I think) an FA cup match earlier this year. On that occasion Myles instead ended up replacing Riccardo Calafiori at left back when he was injured in the warm-up. That replacement was not fully unexpected: Myles made his big breakthrough at 18 years old last season at left back when Calafiori had a long-term injury. Myles was very, very good at left back. But this season we’ve not seen him much in any position even though he’s mostly been healthy. Other players have been preferred even though Calafiori has been injured a lot. Somehow Myles has not been giving Arteta what he wants to see. Football qualities aside, Myles seems to be of very different character than Arteta as well. I wonder if he rubs him the wrong way. A bit of a show boat. A trash talker. New Arsenal player Martin Zubimendi has been the preferred choice in midfield for most of the season, but he was a substitute on this day.

Bukayo Saka is also a product of the Academy and we were pleasantly surprised to see him in the starting lineup after a lengthy period out with an achilles strain. He’s been playing a few minutes from the bench for the last few weeks. We’ve seriously missed his influence in attack. And wunderkind Max Dowman, still a part of the Academy at 16, was on the bench as a substitute.

It turns out that Fulham has several Arsenal Academy alumni as well, which is one of the reasons I have a small affinity for Fulham. Alex Iwobi was out injured for this match but Emil Smith-Rowe was named as a starter. These players left Arsenal at different times, both after playing for a few years in the senior team and both under circumstances that have not damaged Arsenal fans’ high opinions of them. In particular, Smith-Rowe has Favored Son status. He was an integral part of Arteta’s early teams that showed sparks of an exciting future to come. Unfortunately, he’s experienced many injuries and is not the player he once was, or promised to be. Even at Fulham, he is often used from the bench and starts mostly when others are injured. Fulham also have goalkeeper Bernd Leno, who formerly played for Arsenal. The other reason I kind of like Fulham: they long had American star Clint Dempsey before he briefly went to the Dark Side, Tottenham, and then to the MLS.

In any case, I put my “small affinity” aside. Today Fulham is my mortal enemy.

In addition to the surprise of Myles Lewis-Skelly at midfield and Bukayo Saka starting at all, Mikel Arteta had put together an unexpectedly swashbuckling lineup. This match was sandwiched between two Champions League fixtures and it seemed today’s lineup was designed to protect and rest players who would be in the next leg of that competition only a few days from now.

If swashbuckling was the intent, Arteta got more than his money’s worth. This was probably the most exciting and inventive Arsenal I’ve seen for a while. Myles Lewis-Skelly was masterful, kept everything ticking. Riccardo Calafiori and Eberechi Eze were chaos merchants. Bukayo Saka and Leo Trossard brought bite to our attack we haven’t had for a long time. Viktor Gyokeres, who has taken so much shit about his technical skills and goal contributions (which actually are pretty darned good), fought all day and delivered good build up play, better than I’ve ever seen from him. Declan Rice, Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel, and David Raya were all excellent.

And the Emirates was rocking. So, so loud. In these times when the team isn’t doing so well and the fans are a bit depressed, you often hear pundits and podcasters asking something to the effect of “is it the players job to excite the crowd or the crowd’s job to excite the players?” I’m glad no one was navel-gazing on this question when I was there. The players were doing the best they could and the crowd was doing the best they could. Whether they believed the other guy was doing his job or not.

I was sitting in front of an extremely loud fan. He was so off-key and so loud, you just wanted to join him. And maybe cover him up a bit. It was not easy. His funniest bit was in chant commonly sung by Arsenal fans over the past 3-4 years. The chant goes like this:

We won the field at Anfield

We won it at the Lane

Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford

No one can say the same

We’re in Arteta’s army

We’re Arsenal through and through

We’ll sing it in the North Bank

And in the Clock End too

Allez allez allez (repeated a bunch of times)

At some point over the last few years, fans altered the second line slightly: “We won it at the Lane – TWICE!!!”

And this guy behind me added one more new thing. After we sung “We’re Arsenal through and through” he shouts “Where do we sing it?” Well, you know the answer. “We’ll sing it in the North Bank and in the Clock End too.” Such a dumb little thing. It made me smile every time.

Arsenal’s first goal came pretty quickly. A pass from Lewis-Skelly to Saka, and Saka left the Fulham defensive marker on his backside on the grass. He sent the ball across the goal to an onrushing Gyokeres, who tapped it into the net.

There were many chances after that that didn’t produce goals that stood (Calafiori had one in the back of the net that was called back because he was offside) but it was all so fluid and beautiful no one seemed too fussed about it. About beer-thirty when fans need to get out to the concourse before halftime to be in line and slam one before the second half starts, Gyokeres ran onto a through pass from Eze and passed to Saka, who was dividing two defenders with his run toward goal. There was no stopping Saka: he fired it near post. 2-0.

I may be imagining this but I felt that goal riveted many a beer-loving person to their seats. They were quickly rewarded. Trossard broke down the left side and made a looping cross to the waiting forehead of Gyokeres. It’s said he’s not a particularly proficient header of the ball but he did ok this time. 3-0 by the time the first half whistle blew. I had been hugged and high fived dozens of times by my peers in the North Bank.

The scoreline gave Arteta freedom to make subs and get rest for players returning from injuries. As a result, the second half was quieter. There were fewer chances for Arsenal and more for Fulham. Unfortunately, Fulham’s Emil Smith-Rowe went down at some point, injured. But he is really our Smith-Rowe. We sang the chant we used when he was an Arsenal player as he limped around the field back to the tunnel. I feel for this talented player who just can’t catch a break physically. My fervent wish is that he ultimately has a path like Eberechi Eze, back to us in good health and with hard times behind him.

We held on and so did Fulham. 3-0 at the end.

We celebrated with a few songs from the DJ and then I ran out to meet my husband by the Arsene Wenger statue outside. It was a very cheerful walk over to Arsenal station, my compatriots singing at top voice.

As we changed trains at St. Pancras Kings Cross a fight nearly broke out between a few Fulham and Arsenal fans as the Fulham fans sang “Bottled again, Bottled again, Bottled again, olé, olé.” Even people who just saw their team destroyed 3-0 felt free to taunt us. Luckily, peace managed to prevail.

I wish them no ill will in–where are Fulham?–11th place. And these men, probably living in their mother’s basements. Cozy.

Man City wasn’t scheduled to play until Monday, two days on. We would hold the lead in the League at least until then.

Armoury represents

Amy O2 Comments

The holidays came up with great urgency and I never finished posted after attending the Everton match. I know you’re dying for my thoughts, both of you.

Rarity of rarities, after being lucky in the Arsenal ballot for the Manchester United match and organizing our travel for that trip, we happened to be watching Arsenal play Nottingham Forest on TV when, just after half time, I decided to click on the Arsenal site to see if I could get a ticket for the Everton match. One came up right away, I clicked it, and it was truly available and not snatched up by someone else.

While I stepped away from the match to find my credit card, Arsenal scored. This is the story of my life. I cannot turn my back on the TV during a match without regretting it. But goals can be watched on replay and tickets do not come so easily, so I was satisfied with the tradeoff made. After I’d completed my purchase, I compelled my husband to click on the Arsenal web site to try to get a ticket. He clicked twice and one came up. He clicked it and it was also truly available. Unprecedented.

So we happily planned to come to London for the weekend.

Both of our tickets were Club level tickets which seems to be secret of getting tickets at the Emirates. Don’t get me wrong–the goal is to be in the stadium and Club tickets are awesome. It’s just that it’s a lot more fun to sit somewhere else. People are more into it. The reason Club tickets are so often the first to come available is probably because they are held by people or entities who just don’t care that much to always be present and when present, maybe a tad jaded.

I had hoped to be able to buy a different ticket and then sell this one, but the first opportunity I had to buy a ticket on the Arsenal web site outside of the Club level was on match day. And it became clear that it was not possible to buy a new ticket and then sell the old ticket. The Arsenal web site requires you to sell first and then buy. Too risky.

We started our match day by visiting the Armoury, the large store on site at the Emirates. A person in my life with whom I exchange Christmas gifts had wanted some merch. And there is no place like the Armoury for Arsenal merch. It has just about everything a person could own or use or look at with an Arsenal logo on it.

I mentioned in my post Report this that Arsenal is constantly keeping its finger on the pulse of its fans by surveying them. They had reached out a few weeks ago with a survey about whether I’d ever heard abuse or bad language at an Arsenal match. After the Manchester United match, they reached out with a typical survey about my experience at the Emirates. Was everyone polite? Was everyone helpful? Was the food good? But that was cursory. Once they got that out of the way, what they really seemed interested in was: had I visited the Armoury on that trip?

I had not.

I have to paraphrase what they asked next because, again, it didn’t occur to me I might write about this and I did not take sufficient note. The question was quite odd, so giving it my best shot.

To the best of my recollection they asked me what do I think the Armoury should represent to fans?

WTF?

But I like to be helpful to the club. First I wrote cheerfully, “Weird question!” Then I believe I wrote, “It should be a palace of crass commercialism.” To which I hope the marketing person who reviewed my answer thought to themselves, “Job done. One happy customer!”

Based on the one change we noted in the Armoury, one of my fellow fans who responded to the survey must have said “It should represent a disco,” because now there is a DJ at the Armoury on match day. He was right at the entrance, obstructing the ever-present mannequins of Arsenal players I believe I complimented in my survey. The music was lively, upbeat, optimistic. Danceable.

After looking at everything, and I mean everything, my husband found just the right thing for my Christmas gift recipient and I was whisked through the line to pay for it. My important job done, we went up to the Club level and enjoyed a Camden Hells lager.

My husband and I were not sitting together during the match. My seat was in the Clock end and I was pleasantly surprised that the fans near me were quite enthusiastic. The first half was fine. There was no score by halftime but it looked like Arsenal could get the job done. Everton had very little interest in scoring but a lot of interest in making sure Arsenal did not, either, and they defended stoutly. Martin Odegaard had a hat trick of missed chances and you just knew Arsenal would break through in the second half.

But once the second half started it looked like the wheels had come off for Arsenal. It was the same dynamic, Everton defending and Arsenal possessing the ball, but not very energetically and not with real purpose. With metronomic and hypnotic passing from side to side in front of 11 defenders. I still felt that anything could happen, but 90 minutes ticked down and nothing did.

Perhaps there were actually so many Club tickets available because everyone predicted the Arsenal v. Everton match was going to end in a scoreless draw. As it did.

I didn’t hear this, but my husband said in his section there was some booing at the end.

There haven’t been many times I’ve had to leave an Arsenal match disappointed, which made me decide to put together my personal statistics. I’ve attended 24 matches live. The record for those matches is 17 wins, 5 draws, and 2 losses, an average of 2.33 points per match. Over the same time period, what has been Arsenal’s home record? An average of 2.16 points per match, or so says Microsoft Copilot. It’s AI so it’s got to be legit, right?

I hereby declare my presence at the Emirates to have statistically significant impact on the club. Pretty sure my record is better when I wear the red jersey to the match than when I wear the black jersey, as I did on Saturday. Lesson learned.

After being queried about what the Armoury should represent to fans, I now eagerly await the survey from Arsenal in which I have the opportunity to explain what I represent to Arsenal. They do take action on their surveys and I think I can get behind the action they might take when this information becomes available.

I might wait until I get my stats back up a bit.