Commitment

Ahead of one of the most important games/finals we've played in a long time, I think it's quite appropriate to dig up this draft of a post because of a silly little pledge or mission I had made at the time, probably late 2019 or early 2020.

I didn't quite succeed in my little quest in the end (did not catch any FA Cup game - thanks to Covid) but here we are, in the FA Cup final. Winning it would ease the pain of a traumatic season, and maybe even deny Spurs a European spot!  What a delicious result that would be.

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Bizarre as it may sound, I was here in London for the entire 94/95 season while doing a post-graduate program but did not go to a single Arsenal game at Highbury.

How could I call myself an Arsenal fan then? I still followed the fortunes of the team that season (and they weren't great if memory serves me correctly.) but I cannot quite pin down why I had no desire to go to a game. Had my pilgrimage to Highbury in 91 when I watched that team that lost only one game all season (and thus almost became THE Invincibles instead of that lot a few years later) somehow satisfied my long-cherished dream of watching a game in person and I felt my life was complete?

It does seem ironic that when TV coverage of that pre-EPL era was not as pervasive as today, that I would somehow not be as fervent in wanting to support the team at the stadium when the opportunity was there for the seizing. Now,when football is in our faces all the time (on TV and in the media) I feel an overwhelming desire to watch them in person every game. And it appears I am not alone. Demand for tickets is higher than ever despite the levels of commitment needed.

Commitment. I do not use the word lightly. You think marriage vows are serious? Consider the plight of the football fan in England.

You go early to soak up the atmosphere (and avoid the crowds on the train) and reach home maybe 4 hours later.  If the weather is nice and your team wins that's a great day out but that's still 4 or 5 hours of a perfectly good weekend.  Otherwise you often have to battle the elements on the way to the stadium - ok there are nice days but there are few  of these, seeing as most of the season takes place outside of summer.  Getting to the stadium may already be an ordeal.  The Piccadilly line is one of the busiest, passing through many major London stations popular with tourists and locals before reaching Arsenal station (I should do another post on how it got named).

The crowd can be anything up to 60,000 and if you find yourself on a train to Arsenal with less than an hour to kickoff, you will have to join the fans shuffling along, like zombies that haven't caught a whiff of human scent yet, trying to exit the station.  And for good measure, you get to enjoy the entire experience all over again in reverse at the end of the game.

In comparison, for the price of a monthly cable subscription, you can watch almost every game in the cosy comfort of home.  You can drink all the beer you want from start to end, eat better and cheaper snacks or hey, even a nice dinner while watching.  Catching a game at the stadium almost seems masochistic.  And it's far more expensive.

But I digress.  As usual.

As the 94/95 season drew to a close, I suddenly realised my enormous 'crime' - but Arsenal gave me a chance to make amends.  They reach the Cup Winner's Cup Final for the second year running.  The previous year they had beaten a Parma team that were overwhelming favourites.  This time round they were playing Real Zaragoza in the final.  I had not even heard of them before.  As an act of atonement, I decided that I would go with a friend from class to a pub to watch Arsenal win the cup again.  Bad call.  But not about my disrespect of the opposing team.

I had failed to reckon with how seriously the footballing gods had looked at my failure to support the cause.  How else to explain that  Nayim (ugh, ex-Spurs player) lob from almost the halfway line that caught out David Seaman?   Dark times.  But if I thought losing one final was sufficient punishment, boy did I get it wrong...

2000 UEFA Cup final against Galatasaray of Turkey.  Lost.

2006 Champions League final against Barcelona.  Lost.

2019 Europa Cup Final against Chelsea.  Lost.

This was serious.  Even Wenger couldn't manage to break this curse when he took over a few years later.  Nor Emery who was a Europa Cup specialist, winning a couple in a row with an unheralded Sevilla side.  

So this year, I am going to make up for my personal failures of that 94/95 season with a vengeance.  The day before we play Nottingham Forest in a Carabao Cup game, I make it my personal mission that I will catch at least one game of each competition that the Gunners are going to play in.  It might get tricky though if they are drawn to play away in a knock-out competition in say, Newcastle... I could of course bank my hopes on us beating whoever we face and hope that they get drawn at home in the next round.  I am not making a trek to Newcastle.  It all sounds a bit silly but anything to change our fortunes eh?

I am almost there. I saw the kids beat Forest 5-0, and Standard Liege of Belgium 4-0 in the Europa League and now I only have the FA Cup left.  Quite apart from the fact that I am doing everything I can within my power to break the curse, it was quite a refreshing change to see the kids play with a spirit and liveliness that is in stark contrast to the dirge that the first team dishes out each weekend.

Watch this space.