Pulses race on Matchday 5

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I must say I always enjoy it when a German club comes to town. They invariably bring loads of fans, make lots of noise and have a cracking time. Marseille and Arsenal might still be in the driving seats in this group, but Dortmund’s win on Matchday 4* means they are very much back in it, and if that fact hasn’t been drummed into the team throughout this week in training then I’m a goalscoring Dutchman.

So while these things can occasionally be grindingly dull (the 0-0 against Marseille…) I can’t imagine for a second that tonight will tootle along serenely. To coin a tired old cliche, it’s a massive game and it’s no surprise that Wenger is retaining all the big guns. Not that Fulham on Saturday isn’t important – just that this one could be pivotal.

Great news too that Diaby returns from his latest injury hell. There’s no doubt he’s playing for his Arsenal career – maybe his whole career if things carry on like this – and fingers crossed that this latest comeback is the icing on the comeback cake [need better idiom – Ed].

It has all the ingredients of a cracker. Let’s hope it is a cracker.

*If there is an unlovelier and more sterile way to define a match, I need to know it. But then again, this is the Champions League containing mostly non-Champions, which only gets truly buzzing when it’s not a league anymore, so who am I kidding?

Fixtures from the golden olden days

Olden days

Intermittently, as some of you will know, I stumble across an Arsenal memory and stick it up on here. Last up was the Gunners shop price list from 1986, and today it’s the Fixture list from 1988-9 (note: the pdf is about 600k). I’m guessing I kept it for a reason. Can’t for the love of god think what that reason was…

It’s not enormously fascinating, though it did remind me of two words I’d not heard for over 20 years – ‘Mercantile Credit’ – and ticket prices on the back made me weep into my £10 Emirates meal deal. £5.50p to sit in the lower tier. I’m guessing north bank terracing was even cheaper – probably £4-£5.

Don’t get me started, it’ll set me off…

Jim

Arsenal since about 1979. Thick, thin and all that.

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. Matt Nicholson

    I think it was 4 quid to get in that season and in the season 86/87 or perhaps it was 87/88 you could for a time get in for £2 with a student card!!!

  2. East Lower

    I remember it being £4, but £2! Imagine… And you could just turn up. No real surprise that young lads and their mates don’t spontaneously go to matches like they used to. Too complicated, too expensive.

  3. Michael Pacholek

    If you remember the film version of “Fever Pitch,” Colin Firth said you could buy unreserved seats for 7 quid.

    “My ex can pay.”

    “He’s a Spurs fan, isn’t he? I’d go for 12-quid seats then.  Sting the bastard for all you can get!”

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