Arsenal America

Greetings all. This is Dave Connick reporting from an unusually gray and slightly foggy London. We have a good representaion of arsenalamericans over here from the USA and Canada and we’ve even got one punter named Andrew coming in on Tuesday from Hong Kong!

Many of the road trippers, like myself, arrived on Friday and a number of the gang were treated to the tour of THOF on Friday afternoon followed by a trip round the corner to our adopted liquid refreshment purveyors at the T Bird pub on Blackstock Road. A great way to start the proceedings.

On Saturday morning Bob Hobbs and I represented arsenalamerica at a meeting of supporters clubs inside Highbury. There we met other gooniacs from such diverse places as Malta, Spain, Ireland, Denmark (they’ve got 1,000 members!) and a number of UK clubs. After the meeting I took a wander over to the site of the new ground. It’s beginning to look like a football ground and it will be an impressive place - literally a few hundred yards from where Highbury Stadium now stands. Apparently they say they are ahead of schedule. Can’t wait to visit it. I decided to go into the ground at about 1:30 pm and reflect on the hundreds of games I’ve seen played there since 1958. Kick off at 3:00 pm rolled around in a flash.

I said to the bloke next to me after about 30 minutes that I just wasn’t seeing anything about our play that made me think we were going to break out of this slump. Then, bang, Pires thankfully gets a goal. You could feel the relief around the stadium.

Let me tell you they were not world-beaters on Saturday, but they showed a lot more grit than in recent games and I must say I was very encouraged by the win. I sensed that the chemistry is still very much there and that these guys really like playing together. Freddie was the man of the match for my money and Titi scored one typical marauding goal and another close range HEADER! (He couldn’t really miss). Until we got the second goal we seemed nervous, but additional bright news was Gael Clichy’s solid play after he came on as sub in the second half, and the generally tidy display by debut goalie Manuel Almunias. Have we turned the corner? Too early to say, but Saturday’s result can’t hurt.

After the game many of us went back to TBird where they generously laid on some excellent food and plenty of booze with which to wash it down. I left earlier than I would have under other circumstances to meet my family, but it looked like the party was swinging by then (amazing how 3 points - and pints - can help this to happen).

So it’s off to Barnet for a reserve game on Monday night and then the big one on Tuesday against Rosenburg - followed by another big one on Sunday against some London team whose name escapes me for the moment.

This is a really great trip and I recommend it to anyone who can make it next time. Special thanks are due to Andrew for arranging all the details, to Jill Smith and her crew at Arsenal for all their good work in making this happen, and to Kelvin and the crew at T Bird for being such gracious hosts.

Next update will follow the Rosenburg game.

This is Dave Connick reporting from the guest bedroom in my brother’s house in London.

Cheers.