Thoughts on a Premier League match

Last month I was invited by a friend to go and see Arsenal – West Ham at the Emirates Stadium. It wasn’t my first time there, but it was my first Premier League match, as last time we went to see Italy being hammered by Brazil in a friendly. Now, let me give you a bit of background so that you can put my consideration in perspective.

I am a big football fan. Big. I support AC Milan, and have a feeling for West Ham over here. I used to be season ticket holder for now-Serie B team Triestina (my home town team) where I used to stand on the main supporters terraces. I used to go on away games, too, for a period of time. It was a good time, and surely an exciting one for a teen.

But I have been at “neutral” matches, big and small, and I am generally aware of what’s going on around the stadium. So, I was curious about finding out the atmosphere at a Premier League game.

The occasion was Arsenal – West Ham, last month, and I was invited to watch it at one of the private boxes thanks to a friend of mine. Let’s start with the result. Arsenal won 2-0. West Ham was never in the game, missed a penalty in the added time of the first half (they would have gone 1-1), played the whole of the second half with a one-man advantage and still were shite. Enough with that.

The way I felt at the stadium was a bit weird. There was a team that I liked which was being rubbish. Been there many times. But I felt like a spectator rather than being supportive. Of course, I was in a non-standard environment (the boxes seats are very different from the other seats), and I was supporting the away team, so no much room for anything except applauding was “self-allowed”, but still, it felt strange.

The chants from the terraces also are a very different thing than what you usually experience in Italy: they come from all over the stadium, no matter where you are, whereas in Italy they come 99% of the time from the home team stand behind the goal. We noticed this also at Craven Cottage (where we watched Fulham beat Shaktar Donetsk courtesy of LondonGeekFussball and our friend @cyberdees), so it must be the case in pretty much every occasion.

I was also surprised by how many people get to their seats around kick-off time, 5 minutes before to 5 minutes past it. Again, to me this feels like watching the game on telly, where you switch to the channel just before the kick off, and switch to something else at half-time and immediately after the game is over. I remember going to the stadium about one hour before the games, and having good fun and kicking off the singing well in advance.

All in all, as you would have guessed so far, I wasn’t really impressed. I think I will need to give English football some more chances, trying different stadiums and, why not, lower leagues maybe.

What’s your take on the game in England? Fancy leaving us your comments?