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So, I’ve been an Arsenal fan since I was 6 years old … I never made it to Highbury. My very first Arsenal Home Game and I would be sitting in the away end with a bunch of Newcastle fans. And yes, I am (thanks to hubby!), a NUFC member (have never been a member of Arsenal).
Why Arsenal?? When I was six, my Dad and brother were ardent Man Utd fans but I didn’t want to follow in their shoes. I chose another team that were doing OK at the time and followed them ever since.
Since then, I’ve followed Reading (our local team) and also semi-followed Barrow AFC – my home town. Just love to see both of them do well.
Jon is a life-long Newcastle fan so I’ve kind of adopted them as my home team (he treats me to Newcastle Membership each year so we can try to go to matches!) … and Callum didn’t have any choice in the matter. No complaints though!
We’ve been up to St James Park a couple of times, but are slowly working our way around the southern away match venues. Better value going as an away fan than as a home fan by all accounts. £30 for an adult away ticket vs silly money for a home ticket.
We were lucky enough to get tickets for the Arsenal match – I’d never made it to Highbury so was really looking forward to this visit. Would need to practise my game face if Arsenal scored.
Callum made three predictions:
- there will be some colourful language in the songs sung by the Newcastle fans
- at least one Newcastle fan will take their top off
- we will be stood for the entire match
We were on the 11am train into London and didn’t take long to make our way over to Kings Cross. We decided to grab a bite to eat at Coal Yard Drop – a new shopping and restaurant area out the back off Kings Cross. We were hoping that we would get to eat in Dishoom – an Indian Restaurant that has had great reviews … but also very long queues outside to get in.
It was raining, so we ended up at Casa Pastor, a Mexican Restaurant in Coal Drops Yard, near Granary Square.
Firstly the food was lovely BUT the portions were tiny. When we’ve ordered quesadillas in London Mexican Restaurants previously, it’s been as I would make at home. Two tortilla wraps with a filling sandwiched between the two layers, oozing with cheese.
For a similar price here, you got a quarter of a tortilla wrap, with the topping on top (no top layer!). Decent size bowl of guacamole, but a smaller bowl of nachos (about three each!).
Drinks prices weren’t bad … but we haven’t spent that amount of money in a restuarant before and walked out still feeling hungry!
We then headed across to the Emirates Stadium ready for the match and had a wander around the outside.
There is a statue of Arsenal Club Legend, Tony Adams, outside of the stadium. He only played for one club during his career which lasted 19 years.
Drink under the stands beforehand (very noisy due to the amount of singing) before making our way into the stadium. Pretty impressive.
Time for the match and Callum’s predictions were spot on. Newcastle fans in great voice, meanwhile arsenal fans all silent. No goals in the first half. But Newcastle went to sleep in the second. Final score 4-0 and two of the goals were scored in time added on at the very end.
It was a bit of a trek to get back to the tube station afterwards. We knew to avoid the closest ones to the stadium as these would be rammed, so walked a little further.
