sport.

A question of loyalties.

Living in the United Kingdom, it's somewhat frowned upon not to take some sort of an interest in football. Living in London and not supporting one of the city teams is seen as slightly aberrant, and is akin to being nestled in the library every night with a cup of tea and a stack of articles about post-colonial feminist theory and its effect on African pygmy tribes while everyone else is the member of a cool sorority or fraternity having toga parties and luaus. In short, it's shooting a bullet directly into the big toe of your social foot.

Not having grown up in the U.K. or having a family allegiance to base my decision on, I decided I would have to pick a local team to support. I quickly declared my loyalty for Chelsea, given that the borough of Chelsea is the most excusive part of the city and the real estate values are through the roof, even by extortionate London standards. Essentially, it's the exact geographical location of most of my aspirations. My Chelsea support was further cemented by some research in the gossip and society columns which revealed numerous mentions of the Chelsea players swilling champagne and having glamorous parties on yachts in the Mediterranean.

Shortly after making my decision, as I was proudly ready to wave the blue and white Chelsea flag, I began dating a local. The Boy made me a deal. He told me that if I could name one single player, past or present, on the Chelsea team he would accept my decision and, while we would become rivals during football season, I would have his respect and my real-estate-based support would be legitimized.

And that is how I became an Arsenal fan.

* * *

The early days.

Watching football (or “footie” as I've taken to calling it assuming that adopting colloquialisms will make me seem more credible) quickly won me over as a Saturday afternoon activity. It wasn't so much the actual watching of game, per se, but the acceptability of drinking during the day and spending more that 2 hours picking away at a single plate of food. At long last, I had discovered somewhere for me to eat at an excruciatingly slow pace without being hurried along by dining companions. Not only that, but the gin and tonics kept on flowing while I nibbled through my veggie burger. Eat like a bird and drink like a fish? You should seriously consider spending weekend afternoons watching footie at your local watering hole.

I actually quite enjoyed the games as well. I can't claim to have known exactly what was going on all the time, but the Boy patiently explained things like the Offside rule to me using an array of condiment jars and pepper pots he gathered from surrounding tables. I think I've got the gist of it now: basically, the mayo jar can't try to score a goal on the pepper pot when the ketchup is standing in front of him trying to intercept the lime slice.

If I don't fully understand the Offside rule, it's only because I was distracted mid-explanation when the Arsenal goalie hoofed the ball from the net well past the halfway point on the pitch. “You know what's really impressive?” I pondered, “how far they can kick the ball”. With wide eyes and his jaw slightly ajar, the Boy looked up from repositioning the lime slice to send a text to every male contact in his mobile phone directory.

During the hours spent in the pub watching various matches I've decided that there are some fundamental flaws within the game rules. Namely, that the only way to score any points is to actually get the ball fully into the net. It seems to require an awful lot of skill just to get the ball close to the net, and to get so close and leave with no points just seems disheartening. I've decided to award players half points whenever they hit one of the goal posts. They've still come damn close even if the ball didn't specifically go into the net. Not to mention the posts are quite narrow and hitting them with the ball must require a lot of skill, too. This has led to some pesky questions from those of the male persuasion, but seems to have largely taken off and is gaining popular acceptance. Periodically I'll get emails from the Boy's office with questions his colleagues have about technicalities such as what happens if the ball hits the post before going into the net. I roll my eyes and reply. Point and a half, obviously. One day I got an excited text from the Boy who was watching a match at home. “The ball just bounced off the top post, then the side post and then went in - 2 points!”

Of course the ball doesn't always make it into the net or hit a post: sometimes the pepper pot or the goalie gets in the way. During a more exciting moment in one game, the Arsenal goalie slid down and grabbed the ball a split second before it got any points (half or otherwise) for the rival team. My brain knew it was excited, but my mouth had some difficulty with the specifics. “Oh what a good…goal-stop!” I exclaimed. Even before I was corrected, I knew I had said something wrong. I was being gently patted on the head and the Boy was reaching for his mobile phone. That's never a good sign.

* * *

Stranger in a strange land.

This week I attended my first live game at Emirates Stadium in North London. I had seen the stadium once before while viewing a flat in the area. In fact, the flat was so close that you could see the stadium from the garden. I thought back to that day and the look on the Boy's face when I told him about the flat. He had the wide-eyed look of wonderment of a child who had just stumbled into Santa's workshop and found that all the elves had stepped out for a smoke break and that Santa had left the keys in the sleigh. I didn't get the flat, and I'm guessing a little part of the Boy's soul died that day. For someone who mocked me for supporting Chelsea based on the real estate, he certainly was excited about the Arsenal flat.

Emirates Stadium looks suspiciously similar to the site of the world Quidditch match in Harry Potter and the hoards of fans in their red and white striped Arsenal scarves only serve to exasperate the comparison. On the walk to the stadium, I found myself wishing I had a striped scarf to fit in. Having come straight from work in a tailored pencil dress, velvet blazer and four-inch heels, something didn't feel right. Fortunately, I had the foresight to bring a pair of ballet flats and in an act that involved reworking several minor laws of physics, I managed to stuff my heels into my small purse.

I had been quite confident about coming to the match. I had now watched a number of matches on television and could name some key players and knew which side to cheer for. Although, after hearing some of the borderline offensive cheers directed at opponents, I had settled upon my own non-denominational cheer consisting simply of the words “Yay Footie!”

As we joined the mob walking to the stadium, my confidence retreated into its shell like a socially anxious turtle with a stutter at a public speaking contest. It felt like we were marching to a battle or were part of an angry lynch mob. I clutched onto the Boy, terrified to be left to fend for myself. While I was glad I had switched into flat shoes and could thus keep pace with the crowd, I regretted not packing a flare gun in case I became isolated in the screaming crowd and needed the Boy to come locate me.

While my confidence may have virtually disappeared upon arrival at the stadium, my “Yay Footie!” cheer became all the more appropriate when we reached our seats and found most of the stadium on its feet cheering something about hating rivals, the Tottenham Hotspurs. Now, I'm all for a choreographed cheering and such at sporting events, but you would think if you're going to be referencing another team it would be the other team that is playing on that day. Call me crazy, but it didn't seem like changing the words from “Stand up if you hate Tottenham” to “Stand up if you hate Wigan” would require too much thought and organization amongst the spectators. Granted there is a minor syllabic discrepancy between “Tottenham” and ”Wigan” but seeing as it's generally pronounced “Tot'nam” I really think it would have worked fine. On the upside, I'm sure the Wigan players felt more welcomed. They may be getting ready to mercilessly beat the pants off us, they'd say in the change rooms and while warming up, but listen to the tongue-lashing they're giving to those Tottenham sods.

The first half of the game was exciting, although after all my lessons in pubs I half-expected to see team mayonnaise fighting off team ketchup and trying to kick the lime slice
past the pepper pot guarding the fork. At one point a player's shoe came off after getting tangled up during a dramatic play of some sort. I had to resist the urge to pull one of my heels out of my purse and wave it in the air as an offering to him. “I have an extra, in case of emergency!” I would have called out enthusiastically. I restrained myself, but nonetheless the game went on and it flew by in a flash and I found myself ready for more footie action when play ceased at halftime.

I will say that halftime was a bit anticlimactic, or one might also say “more tasteful” by North American standards. I would likely have been taken aback but the Boy and I had discussed it previously. I had been surprised to learn that there are no cheerleaders (I tentatively suggested that The Arsenettes would be a good name if they ever decide to get a cheerleading squad) although, girls in miniskirts don't really seem to be needed since men will already pay obscene amounts of cash to see the games.

While they don't have cheerleaders, I was relieved to hear there was at least a team mascot and the Boy informed me that he was, somewhat un-cleverly, called “Gunnersaurus”. The conversation that followed this took place in absolute seriousness without a hint of sarcasm and has given me cause to wonder just exactly how dimwitted people think I am. “You might see the Gunnersaurus at half time,” the Boy advised me, “He'll be wearing oversized black shoes, an Arsenal shirt,” he looked thoughtful, “and maybe a hat, yeah, I think he has a little hat --” At this point I had to intervene. “Won't he be wearing a giant dinosaur mascot costume? In fact, won't he be the only one on the field, or the stadium even, dressed as a dinosaur?” Honestly, why would you start with his shoes when describing him? In fact, why mention the shoes at all? Surely using the word “dinosaur” or the suffix “saurus” would have been sufficient information for me to identify him.

I did in fact see the Gunnersaurus during half time, and the Boy was kind enough to point him out to me. Not that it was necessary, of course. I would have spotted the oversized shoes and little hat on my own eventually.

Following halftime, there was a period of about ten minutes during which I cheered excitedly thinking we were almost getting another goal, before I realised that the teams switched sides during the break. Once I got myself reoriented, I settled back into enjoying the game, although my attention waned a bit and I found myself missing a few exciting moments when I was absent-mindedly gazing off into space letting my mind wander. I wondered if the players talked to each at all while on the pitch. Not full-fledged conversations about their feelings, but perhaps the odd uncomplimentary remark to a member of a rival team, or words of support to their teammates. The Boy suggested during lulls they may have been chatting about which pub to go to following the game, or checking out girls in the front rows of the audience. I sense he was mocking me, but still the ensuing dialogues I imagined between players made the slow moments in the game more interesting.

I found my confidence in my football knowledge and ability to follow the game further shaken midway through the second half of the game. The Boy caught onto the fact that I was behaving somewhat like an underachieving performing seal in that I would automatically start to clap when everyone around me began cheering and clapping. It had become so unconscious that I didn't realise I was doing it until he started to raise his hands in mock applause and I immediately followed suit, only to find myself the only person clapping. This made me feel like a bit of a fool, but the Boy attempted to make me feel better by excitedly screaming out “Oh, well done! Good goal-stop!” following a dramatic, what I now know is called a “save”.

In the end, we won the game three to nil. It was a nice clean game with no half points, and some really impressively far kicks of the ball. By “we”, I of course mean, Arsenal. By using “we” in that sentence one could well ascertain that after attending my first live game I have been initiated into the legions of fans. Perhaps, although the journey back to the underground may have been a more formative part of my transformation. Walking back to the rousing and hypnotic cheers of “Red Army!” had a definite impact on me. By the time I was back home I was certainly an Arsenal fan, a true Gunner. That or I was ready to run off to march for the Motherland in Communist Russia. But, it was certainly one of those two.