European football experienced for the first time

I am not a football die-hard fan,  I am what you would call a “band-wagonist”  because the only time I pay any attention to football is one of two times – when World Cup rolls around or when T&T makes some kind of significant stride in the football arena (which unfortunately isn’t very often).   My all-time favorite player is Diego Maradona and of course my team would be Argentina, this has been the case since the 1986 World Cup and has never changed to date!

Now,  even though I am not a football fanatic...I don’t live under a rock,  so,  I am familiar with current happenings in the football arena like the names of the big teams and a few of the big name players and maybe the team one or two of them belong to!  Yup…that’s about it!  So that when I got to London going to a football game was nowhere on my radar at all, but when opportunities presents itself to experience something new you have to embrace it!

Not being an avid follower of football, my first time at an international game was mind blowing!  I totally understood what people meant when they say “football is like a religion to Europeans” OMG! I was invited to see Arsenal play one of their “club” game…which club I don’t know but hey I knew Arsenal was a big team and so I was open to it! 

At the game!

The weather was ridiculously cold, I was buried in clothing – layers of them and still freezing my tosh off – maybe it’s because I live in a tropical island, but dammit it was cold!  I recall walking through the train station to get to another platform to take the last train to the Emirates Stadium when I saw this dude with an injured leg, hopping on a crutch in the cold and with one stupid question found out that he was heading to the very same Stadium as us!!!!!  This is something I would rarely see where I come from so I was like...no way!

When we got to the stadium, the amount of people that was there was amazing but what blew me away was the discipline they demonstrated upon entering and exiting the stadium!  It was like watching soldiers, with the exception of maybe one or two! That kind of turn out would only happen for a very significant game not a club match in Trinidad....no way!

If ever you want to experience true fanaticism, I would recommend going to a European football game.  The fans, the traditions, the excitement, the passion you experience is second to nothing you will ever experience anywhere else. These fans, turned out in the thousands to watch their teams play, the stadium was divided by team colors apparently (yes, I didn’t know this happens), each team had their respective “anthem” which turned into a sing off.  They were so engrossed in the game – from the warm up to the final whistle. It was all about the football!

Having experienced this, I get why footballers are paid so handsomely – they have to be consistently good because the fans are unforgiving at best!