The View From the “Cheap” Seats

By: Sean | April 6th, 2009

Last summer my brother and I were traveling in England and high on the “must see” list was attending some professional football matches. Watching the Beautiful Game on television is one thing, but even the biggest flat screen in high-definition with digital surround sound doesn’t come close to capturing the passion and excitement of a real match. I had been fortunate enough to watch Charlton Athletic play Manchester City to a 2-2 draw in April of 2005 and this middle of the table battle completely blew me away. The singing. The mounted police in riot gear. The happy swearing, at both players red and blue, in accents just different enough to make we wonder if “Chaw’un” was really “Charlton”. I’m sure for any European or South American readers of this blog, this is just a typical part of the match day experience, but for a West Coast Yankee overseas for the first time, this was a revelation. I had seen NBA basketball and NFL football, so I wasn’t completely ignorant to the stadium environment. But this was something else. It was so loud, so raucous, and so alive that I knew if I ever returned to England I would have to go see another match…maybe even one with another team from Manchester of which I’m kind of fond.

So fast forward three and half years. My brother and I are on a mission to see matches, maybe even big matches, at least by pre-season standards. Scheduled to be in London in mid-August, we notice that the Community Shield is being played that weekend and, irony of ironies, United is playing Portsmouth at Wembley Stadium. This seemed like a good idea, so for weeks I found myself online trying to find seats, not sure if trying to find tickets to the Community Shield is like trying to get Super Bowl tickets. With time running short before our departure, I reluctantly found myself browsing an authorized online ticket reseller. Sure, they had tickets. Sure, they were in the nose-bleed section. Sure, they were more expensive than my wife’s first car and I would likely need to sell a non-vital organ to finance this…so how badly did I want to go?

Apparently, bad enough. Click. Who needs two kidneys anyway?

Suffice to say, we had a memorable time and this Oregonian learned some good lessons from the experience. Among the highlights:

1. If you are wearing red, never, EVER get on to a Tube car that is populated with eighty people wearing blue and singing “Up Pompey! Up Pompey!” We figured that out about 0.81 seconds before getting on at Victoria Station. Three of our fellow supporters did not learn this lesson at Baker Street Station and were viciously harangued for the rest of the trip…a trip which pride prevented them from leaving that car and getting into the safe haven of our car.

2. It is OK to swear in front of your children in the stadium, but you probably knew this already.

3. Seven years of mountaineering did appropriately acclimatize me for our seats, which were literally two rows shy of being the very freakin’ back of Wembley Stadium.

4. There was an episode of “The Simpsons” where Homer and Barney went to the Super Bowl or something and got beers. Upon being charged an outrageous sum for the drinks, Barney exclaims something like, “$20 for beer? This better be the best beer in the world!” He takes a sip and then proclaims, “Ah, you got lucky!” I can honestly say that I have now had that exact same experience.

5. I know a penalty shoot-out is kind of a crappy way to end a match, but in all honesty, it is pretty exciting to watch…even when the players are kind of tiny and you have to watch the huge video screens to discern who they are.

6. As we left the stadium, we joined the crush of other United fans moving toward Wembley Park Station. Beside us were two huge, pug-faced giants in red jerseys. Ahead of us, maybe twenty feet away, was another United fan in a jersey number 58 with the words “Munich” on the back. The two large gentlemen beside us noticed this and swore, “That [bleep] is glorifying the Munich tragedy. Let’s [bleep] him up.” As they struggled to get closer, bottles in hand, they noticed a friend and said, “Hey, there’s Mick!” Distracted from their impending assault, they moved away and to this day, “Munich 58″ probably has no idea how close he was to getting his [bleep] [bleeped] up.

7. Having lived 38 years in the vast frontier that is the Pacific Northwest, I’m not very good or very comfortable at queuing.

How about you, Weekend Warriors? What was the biggest match you have ever been lucky enough to watch in person? I’d love to hear your anecdotes and personal stories.