Koby had been really into the Spurs lately, so I asked Matt to ask around at work and see how we can get tickets. They're sold out - like for years. I kept looking on stubhub, and tickets (when available, which isn't often) were like £400 each. Yeah. No. But...one of the guys who went skiing with Matt knew someone in the office who has season tickets in Tottenham and sometimes he sells them (at cost). Matt was able to snag two pairs for two different games. I can't make it to the next one, so it was today or never. I was a bit nervous, but I heard they have been limiting hooligan shenanigans, and I also heard daytime games are less scary, so off we went.
Koby and I left the house TWO HOURS before the match. We took the tube to Seven Sisters, in Tottenham, and we followed the crowd out of the station and into the 35 (!!!) minute walk to the new - GORGEOUS - stadium. There is an overground train that goes there, and there were buses, but they were all full. No choice.
It was like walking to a Michigan football game. You just follow the crowd. But here they were ALL (ok 98%) in dark coats. Nearly all male. And mostly between 20 and 80 - very few kids - but all ages of men. It wasn't rowdy. Just lots of people walking. A few of the bars on the way had signs in the window that said "home team fans only." Which was kinda funny.
We got to the stadium and there were literally thousands of people (men in dark coats) POUNDING beers. I just thought it was all fun and social until I read that you can't bring alcohol into the seated part of the stadium. They each had between 2-4 beers (and sometimes more) and just drank them. One by one. Koby got fish and chips. I used the toilet and got water. I felt a little unfun.
We found our seats, and the stadium was truly beautiful. Comfortable. Clean. Easy to navigate. No line for the ladies toilets, obviously. EVERY. SINGLE. SEAT was taken (mostly by a man in a dark coat). And there were no bad seats. We didn't have great seats, and we could see super well. When they started introducing the players and the game started, everyone sang along to everything. There were cheers. There were songs. Everyone knew the words. It was so interesting. The only thing I could understand was "oh when the saints" - otherwise, I have no idea what they were saying.
Koby and I guessed how many people were in the stadium. I compared it to Michigan Stadium, which seats 111,000, and I guessed 60,000. It was 61,000 - I was impressed with myself. Koby guessed 57,000 after my anchor guess.
There were three goals in this game, and only 1 of them belonged to Tottenham, so the crowd was a bit disappointed. In fact, they BOOED THEIR OWN PLAYERS!!! They yelled at people who were hurt to "JUST GET UP!!!" and when they did get up, instead of clapping, as they do for injured players in the US, everyone BOOOOOED!!! They were angry - all of them - all of the men in the dark coats - with nearly every call that the refs made. Hands thrown up in unison.
The people around us in the seats did not talk to us at all (would have been nice to have a translator, but no one seemed interested). It was mostly men there alone - they didn't really talk to anyone, but they sang all of the cheers and complained about the calls out loud. But on the train on the way there and on the overground on the way home, nice men talked to us about going to the game, and their first Premier League game. It was nice - what a culture of football here. It's such a thing, and today we got to experience it for ourselves. SUPER fun.
Outside the stadium
All of the men drinking their beers before the game started
We were in the south stand
I can't get my videos to load here. will try another time.
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