Arsenal America

Man it was cold. That biting English wet cold you read about that gets down under your skin. As I walked around the grounds, I saw the touts shivering, the trinket passing out babes in scantily clad clothes bouncing up and down, and a large crowd gathered around the meat patty truck willing to endure the smells for just a wee bit of warmth.

But that all changed as I entered the stadium….

Highbury the libray my ass. The stadium was rocking through the first half, with a lovely anti-Chelsea cheer still echoing in my brain “Lampard is fat, the rest are queer, ain’t won the league in 49 years” or something like that.

The six ArsenalAmerica roadtrippers that stayed on had seats in the North Bank lower. We had hardly got into our seats when Henry’s shot went to the top corner in about the 3rd minute. 1-nil to the Arsenal rang out, and the Chelsea fans were quiet. Unfortunately, we had a great view of the equalizer taken off a corner right in front of us, and they came back to life. But Henry’s quick kick drove them insane and the Highbury faitherful into a frenzy. It was absolutely a great first half of play.

We had just returned from a cocoa and hot dog run when Chelsea scored. I recall looking at the clock and it said 44:55. I couldn’t believe it. Did they forget to start it–had they scored that quick? Were we still in warmups? Man that sucked.

Henry’s miss was taken 13 minutes from time right in front of us. The goalkeeper was far out trying to cover a short man, but Henry put it up over the bar. However, some of the people around me were swearing he was offside (and the linesman’s flag was up) but I saw none of that.

We headed back to the T-bird to see the entire bar staff decked out in the red sleeved ArsenalAmerica roadtrip t-shirts. I cannot say enough about Kelvin and the T-bird’s support this year. Anyone who didn’t make it last Saturday (myself included) missed one hell of a crazy party. One of our members even ended up on the floor of some Spurs supporters house. I’m still vague on the details but will try to get some stories before the day is through.

As always, keep tuned in to ArsenalAmerica.com for more information about our next roadtrip to Highbury.