Ooh de Cologne

Knowing nothing about the "German Invasion of Oxford Street" in the afternoon I meet Jack at the usual place at Finsbury Park at 7pm. To be honest the photos of Oxford Street looked like the usual rush hour crowd although admittedly they don't carry flares. I guess it's the nearest they've got to taking over London in the last century. There do seem to be a lot of Cologne fans on the tube but that's to be expected. And they had put their Ultras stickers all over the place. We wander down Blackstock Road looking for a cafe for a chip based meal. Whilst there we're checking out the team news and read about the afternoon's congestion (hardly a riot) in town and then that there are 20,000 Germans trying to get into Ashburton Grove so the match has been put back an hour. At least it gives us a leisurely supper to chat about me going to the Saturday Bournemouth win and looking forward to the Doncaster Rovers match next week with the girls. And we can pop into the Bank of Friendship for a quick one and watch the Everton lowlights. Walking to the ground it's eerily quiet with hardly any fans walking alongside. A guy offers us tickets in German to which I laugh with Jack that any Germans buying home tickets will be stopped at the entrance. We can hear singing from a while away and I'm worried we'll have to fight our way through 17,100 Germans without tickets waiting outside the ground but when we get there we're amongst a few stragglers and the security guards don't even bother to frisk us or indeed ask which team we support so there's less security here than the pub. We walk straight to the entrance to the seats and I notice a large contingent of fans in red and white singing next to the food bars. I assume Gooners but don't recognise the song. When we pass the steward at the entrance she asks if we're in area 24 and when we reply, obviously with English accents, she laughs and says Welcome to Germany. I laugh too. She says, I'm not joking. At first everything seems normal as we weave our way to our seats but then we realise that the red and white shirts are advertising Rewe instead of Emirates Airlines (jesus that's a sign of the times recognising shirts by their sponsors) and have a stupid goat on them where our cannon should be. We quickly clock that the Clock End lower stand is full of Cologne fans and that we are absolutely surrounded by Germans. They are in full voice and overly excited - well they ain't been travelling outside Germany for 25 years - I think the wall's come down in that time! There are a few more than the 2,900 ticket allocation for sure. About 10 to 15 thousand more I'd say. We hear a few lonely Arsenal chants but soon enough we realise that there are at least 40 of us within earshot and in between the Cologne songs we rattle out a few of our own. The Germans seem surprised to hear English voices. You tell by looking too - most of the Cologne fans look, well very traditional German, whereas the multicultural north London fans stand out in the crowd.

I thought I'd add a little rant I had to my German mate Lutz who had the audacity to send me an article making out that Gooners have no passion...

Lutz. Just cos we don't have flares and some twat with a loudhailer orchestrating singing doesn't mean we're not passionate. Our singing is spontaneous and starts from all over the stadium. The Koln fans only sang when one of the "ultras" with a loudhailer started a song. It was the Koln fans who were "orderly". When we equalised they all went quiet until the loudhailer guy started again. And that was only cos the Arsenal fans were singing "You only sing when you're winning". When we went 2-1 up and the loudhailer guy started we then started singing "You only sing when you're losing" - as they lose so often. Most of the fans around us then shut up. But yeah - they made a good atmosphere!  There were about 40 of us Gooners surrounded by Germans in the Clock End. We still made our voices heard! Most of the 20,000 travellers must have been in the stadium.

By the way - I'm fed up with middle aged middle class football journalists who sit in the executive boxes giving their view on the real fans. And the TV only turns up the fan noise they want to so they have a story. I've been at The Arsenal when all you can hear are Gooners and then on the highlights show they've only used the microphones at the away end as say that no Arsenal fans were singing. FAKE NEWS !  No one in the media has ever liked The Arsenal (or Millwall) but we don't care - they can all fuck off.

Rant over. To be fair to the Koln fans they were very well behaved. I didn't party afterwards and only just got the last tube back to south London! Cheers, Jim

Now to be fair I do love how German football is a lot like going back to the 1980s at least the club I know which is St Pauli. They can drink in the terracing, yes terracing, and smoke which I know a lot won't like but hey, I'm old school. There again you can still smoke in German pubs - and there were a lot of Germans smoking tonight. Despite the pleas over the PA that smoking is not permitted anywhere in the stadium. That was the least of the worries of the line of riot police standing between the Cologne fans and the pitch and ineffectively between the away and home areas - as the home area was already full of Germans so the dumb coppers were separating Germans from Germans. I guess it looked like they were trying for the cameras.

Anyway, the game. They go one up due to a bit of craziness by Ospina - hit it into row Z or onto the Holloway Road you dickhead - don't pass it to the half way line - but fair dues it was a confident lob into the net reminiscent of Nayim against Seaman in Europe the night before Jack was born (or at least went into labour) but that was a slightly more important match that we didn't recover from (and he was ex Spuds to rub salt into the wound). Why are all our goalies touched in the head? See rant above for songs sung when 1 nil down.

So half time it all goes a bit quiet as the Germans get their breath back and to be honest I think most in the stadium expect The Arsenal to score at some point. Sure enough just after the break we seem to have picked up our game and our new boy and super sub Kolasinac scores a lusty one from inside the box. Germans stop singing. High pitched loud hailer bloke starts up after 10 minutes. Gooners in good voice. Game on. Wally Walcott is caught off side every damn time he moves and I think he's lost his pace. Possibly Bellerin too as he didn't quite get to a lot of balls. We have a break on the half way line and Sanchez who has been frustrated all evening has a very poor ball sent well wide onto the left wing instead of through the centre. Alexis picks it up and deciding that if you want a job done properly then... yeah takes it through the returned defence from the wing and curls it into the corner. Cue 40 odd Gooners jumping in the Clock End and moody looking Germans. Did you ever think you'd beat us? You've lost your first 3 games in the league mates. Wilshire comes on to much applause as don't we love him and welcome back stranger. Still a little nervous cos although our very own BFG (Big Fucking German) Mertesacker is rock solid as always he's never been quick and is getting on a bit and the rest of the defence try to be centre forwards and Ospina, well, great shot stopper but...   Anyways the boy Bellerin comes good with a lovely goal with 10 minutes to go and we Gooners can sigh a sigh of relief whilst the Germans realise that their time in Europe is limited and they may as well make the most of it and finish off with a few lusty songs. One seems to be goodbye in German (I know that from the telly program. pet) which seems a bit strange before the match has finished. At final whistle we wait to applaud the BFG as he traditionally claps each corner of the ground and then easily make our way out as the Germans as staying behind to get a feel for what it's like to be in a winning stadium I guess and me and Jack part. Me to try out Highbury and Islington as I think Finsbury Park will still be full of Cologne fans who couldn't get in but the tube queue is a nightmare and I bus into town to jump on the Northern Line. Back just after midnight. Tired but happy. Looking forward to welcoming Doncaster's 20,000 travelling fans next week. The acid test of whether we've learned the lesson that Liverpool taught us is our match on Sunday against the Blue Scum (no, not riot police, but Chelsea).

Up the Arsenal !!

A couple of pics of those pesky Germans in our Clock End and waving flares at the riot police which I guess was worthwhile inviting them in for...

The hot dogs sold out pretty damn quickly at half time 

German football is still back in the 1970s - flares - Ha Ha Ha!!