A bit of a prelude to my next piece about football (soccer) in America, this one is a response to a mate of mine who had the audacity to insinuate that football was “just a game.” After I had suitably admonished him for uttering such blasphemy in my presence, I narrated to him my pilgrimage to Highbury, former home of my beloved Arsenal Football Club.

***

Fist clenched above his head in celebration, a lone Frenchman stands imperiously before a gallery of adoring fans. As one, a 30,000-strong wave surges forward to acclaim their hero.

A deafening roar sweeps the ground as scenes of wild celebration ensue in all but one of the four corners of this coliseum of football.  In this one corner sit about 6,000 Juventus fans, disbelief etched on their faces. For you see, things haven’t exactly gone as planned. This was supposed to be their night, they were the ones supposed to be lording it over their jubilant hosts. Fortunately for the majority gathered, fate  had other plans.

***

View of the Highbury Pitch

Such is the power of sport; while one set of people sits about looking and feeling utterly dejected and the other experiences wild euphoria. On this occasion I had the joy of being part of the victorious 30,000 packed into Highbury (home to Arsenal football club from 1913 to 2006) and bore witness to the compelling spectacle of Arsenal’s triumph over Juventus in the UEFA Champions League.

That morning I had awoken with a sense of excitement hitherto reserved for the mornings of my birthday. The day I had long awaited was finally here, for you see, today was a day like no other. My mate Garry had, after months and months of trawling questionable websites on the Internet, secured us two tickets to watch Arsenal play Juventus.

We took a flight down to London from Aberdeen in Scotland where upon our arrival we hoped on the tube and commenced our pilgrimage through London and on to the home of football.

As the train neared its destination, it slowly started to fill with other like-minded souls. My nervous excitement cranked up a couple of notches, like a foreign anthropologist in the heart of the Amazon, witnessing a sacred tribal ritual, I wondered whether they would notice a stranger in their midst or would my presence go unremarked upon.

Suddenly, from the back of the tube car, a lone voice broke out into a rendition of the terrace classic “Arsene Wenger’s Red and White Army.”

Others around me joined in and the noise slowly built to a nice dull roar. My ears picked up a familiar baritone voice. You can imagine my surprise as it dawned on me that I was singing along, with all the gusto of an Olympian at the podium as his nations flag is being raised. All feelings of nervousness now effectively banished, I proceeded to engage my compatriots in lively conversation about the upcoming game.

Soon, though, the train came to a stop at the aptly named Arsenal station, at which point me and my newly found comrades went our separate ways. For Garry and myself were on a mission; Highbury was an old style stadium, and as such did not have the hidden player entrances of its more modern counterparts. This meant that the buses carrying the players were obliged to empty their precious cargo onto the street adjacent to the majestic marble hall on the North side of the stadium.

It was here that we were slowly making our way and were soon enough engaged in a good-natured jockeying for position with other fans in a bid to get a good vantage point from which to glimpse our heroes. A few well-aimed elbows later we were front and centre, poised anxiously for the players’ arrival.

The first bus to arrive was that of the visiting Italian champions. Their arrival prompted the Juventus fans in our midst to break into song as their players made their way into the ground. Each player was greeted with applause from the Juventus fans and a muted silence from us Arsenal fans.

One player though, disembarked from the bus to great fan fare from both sets of fans. The footballer was Patrick Vieira, former club captain who after nine years of dedicated service at the heart of our midfield had been sold on to the Turin based club the previous summer. This was his first game back in London since his transfer and the fans made sure he knew he was still loved in this part of London.

A wave of excited whispers suddenly swept through the crowd. The Arsenal team bus had arrived! First off was our manager Arsene Wenger and erstwhile master of ceremonies, and whose name I had earlier been chanting on the train down. Calmly accepting the fans applause with his customary grace he continued on into the stadium followed by his team.

It is fair to say that by this point I was totally overawed by the whole event. Here were my heroes, gladiators on whose broad shoulders rested my hopes and dreams of European triumph. Lacking any other way to express my happiness, I burst into a fit of unmanly giggles more at home in a gaggle of prepubescent girls than in the midst of hardened football fans. A look of utter horror on Garry’s face sorted me out sharpish though!

Tickets in hand, we finally made our way through the turnstiles and into the belly of this magnificent old stadium. The steward directed us to a set of stairs that would lead us up to our seats.

I paused at the bottom of the stairs, the weight of what I was about to experience giving me reason to hesitate. Years and years of dreaming of this moment… Would it live up to my expectations? Could it? Or would I be doomed to disappointment?

Garry broke my rapidly debilitating train of thought with a simple bit of logic: “If you never climb these stairs you will never know what lies on the other side.”

So on I went. Now, from the bottom of the stairs, all I could see was a dark blue square slice of sky. As I stepped up each step, more of the stadium was revealed. First the tops of the stands on the other side of the ground and then the famous massive clock that hung down from the top of the east side of the stadium.

Suddenly and without any warning, Highbury was there spread out in all its magnificence for me to see. From my vantage point high in the stand, I suddenly had a breathtaking panoramic view of the entire ground.

Speechless, I looked down at the immaculately manicured emerald-green turf. I had arrived! With the trepidation of a pilgrim who had unwittingly stumbled into the inner sanctum of his chosen deity, I let my gaze wander across the stadium. I was there!

As we took our seat to await the coming battle, the seats around us in the north bank behind the goal started to fill. The players then came out to do their pre-match routine warm-ups.  Garry and I were fortunate enough to witness the great Denis Bergkamp limber up with his comrade in arms, the aptly named King of Highbury, Thierry Henry.

At this point the stadium was filled to about halfway, and each player was serenaded with applause from those gathered in the stands. In the far corner, the Juventus fans had also started to take their seats. We traded chants back and forth as the players finished their warm-ups and returned to the changing rooms for a final word from their respective managers.

By this point, the ground was packed to its 38,000 capacity and the atmosphere was fantastic. For here, on this hallowed ground, people from all walks of life had gathered and were sitting shoulder-to-shoulder eager to partake in the coming spectacle. Quickly making friends with those sitting around me, I proceeded to talk shop. The general consensus seemed to be that we were most definitely the underdogs here but at the same time there was an air of expectation that an upset was on the cards as well. An enthralling match in prospect all round then!

The next two hours passed with a pace that can be attributed to the fact that I was entirely overawed by the whole event. The roar to which the players’ arrival was greeted sent my heart racing. Pulse thudding insanely in my head I cheered the team on with the ardor of a zealot. A comprehensive summary of the game will have to be read if one searches for an informative guide on the tactical maneuverings, for I was so enraptured at this point that the mere glance in the direction of the ball by an Arsenal player was greeted with a standing ovation and manic clapping by yours truly.

Fabregas Celebrates

A few incidents, though, stand out in my memory and are I believe worthy of special mention. In the build up to the first goal, Robert Pires (our mercurial French maestro) dispossessed our former captain Vieira with a well timed tackle before laying off a pass to our new captain Thierry Henry who then laid off a sublime pass to Cesc Fabregas, the 17-year-old midfield prodigy upon whose young shoulders had fallen the task of replacing our former captain.

Shrugging of the attentions of a Juventus defender (none other than the majestic Lilian Thurman), Cesc Fabregas calmly slotted the ball in the bottom corner of the goal. One nil to the arsenal and pandemonium rained in the stands. Delirious with joy, we danced wildly in celebration.

In the second half, a break in play allowed Thierry Henry to come racing to the North Bank where Garry, about 16,000 other arsenal fans, and I were sitting. Beseeching us to turn up the noise by lifting his hands repeatedly in the air, his efforts were greeted with a crescendo of noise as we redoubled our efforts to blow the roof off the stadium.

Ten minutes later our efforts were rewarded when the self same player latched onto a pass from the magnificent Cesc Fabregas, pirouetted with the grace of a Russian ballet dancer, and rifled the ball past a diving Buffon. Two nil to the Arsenal and I was literally in dreamland.

The rest of the match passed all too quickly as we serenaded out all conquering hero’s to many a song filled with a litany of their exploits over the last few years. The final whistle came too soon and as the whole stadium rose as one, in an ovation that lasted a full five minutes as we applauded our conquering heroes, I reflected back on a passage from Nick Hornsby’s  Fever Pitch:

“I had discovered after the Swindon game that loyalty, at least in football terms, was not a moral choice like bravery or kindness; it was more like a wart or a hump, something you are stuck with. Marraiges are nowhere as rigid – you won’t catch any Arsenal fans slipping off to Tottenham for a bit of extra-marital slap and tickle, and though divorce is a possibility (you can just stop going if things get too bad), getting hitched again is out of the question. There have been many times over the last twenty-three years when I have poured over the small print of my contract looking for a way out, but there isn’t one. Each humiliating defeat (Swindon, Tranmere, York, Walsall, Rotherham, Wrexham) must be bourne with patience, fortitude and forbearance; there is simply nothing that can be done, and that is a realization that can make you simply squirm with frustration.”

Or for those who still have the temerity to believe that our religion is just a game, I leave you with the words of one of the most iconic managers in football:

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it’s much more serious than that.”

-Bill Shankly

Zachary Ssebuliba Ssebatindira is a 22-year-old Ugandan. He is currently in his third year of five at Drexel University, majoring in Biomedical Engineering.

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