Attending Arsenal game at Highbury
Written: Jan 10 '00 (Updated Mar 26 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very comfortable stadium--every seat is great. Arsenal is a great soccer team (well, in my book).
Cons: You have to rely on scalpers to get tickets, unless you are so lucky to get them in the box office
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| AlexG's Full Review: London |
I had been looking forward to attending an English Premiership soccer game for a long time. I was born in Europe, so naturally soccer is my favorite sport. Unfortunately, in the States I don’t get an opportunity to watch soccer as often as I would like. Some day I’ll get enough $ to get myself a satellite antenna, so I can watch soccer all day long, but until that day comes I have to rely to Lionel Bienvenue and two-hour FOX Sports weekly show of English Premiership highlights.
Knowing that I would be in London in August of 1998, I knew that I would be right in time for the opening weekend of English soccer season. London has several teams, but only Wimbledon and Arsenal were playing at home that weekend. The choice was clear--Bergkamp, Overmars, Seaman, Adams, etc.--I had to get into Highbury for the Arsenal--Nottingham Forest game.
Highbury stadium’s capacity is only 38,000. And they are always sold out. Nevertheless, I still decided to try my luck and took the tube to Highbury. I met 5 German guys on the train, who were spending several days in England trying to catch as many soccer games as they could. None of them had tickets either. Surprisingly, getting tickets from scalpers was quite easy. Not even before we got out of the tube we were approached by an individual offering tickets for 70 pounds each. 5 minutes later we had tickets in our hands for 30 pounds. You gotta haggle over the price, you know. The face value was 16 pounds, so I thought I didn’t overpay a lot in percentage terms. In New York you easily pay hundreds of percent over the face value. The seats were 6th row from the grass directly across the penalty spot. But most importantly Arsenal won 2-1. Petit and Overmars scored for the Gunners.
Attending a soccer game in London was a great experience. There is a stereotype of British soccer fans behaving badly. That’s not true. Yes, there are fans like that, but mostly people come to the stadium to see a good game and they behave well. I noticed many families with kids. I certainly share with them the love for the beautiful game.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
AlexG
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 - Top 500 |
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Location: New York, NY
Reviews written: 130
Trusted by: 239 members
About Me:
Alex has a voracious appetite for travel. Travel hasn't satisfied an appetite. It's created one.
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