UNTOLD ARSENAL: The stories no one else covers » Blog Archive » Record crowd at reserve game confirms Arsenal & Manchester dominance of football
Over 70,000 people turned up at the Rowdies Superbowl to watch Manchester Reserves play Arsenal Reserves on Saturday.
Both teams responded to the popular interest by including a few first team regulars, but most of the big names were missing.
The large crowd can be explained in part by the fact that the Manchester club, now in significant financial trouble (a story that will be covered in more detail in our next posting) told season ticket holders that should they fail to buy a ticket their season ticket would be cancelled.
The game was something of a PR disaster for the BBC who, despite clear warnings from both clubs, had chosen to broadcast the kick-around live, and had promoted it as a first team game. Prior to the match there were pictures from other Arsenal Manchester games in which the top players were playing, and pictures from other first team fixtures featuring many players not on display.
By half time when it was clear to even the dumbest of the BBC “presenters” that this was not being treated that seriouslythe studio guests pulled a final stunt by suggesting that the Arsenal manager would now get angry with his team’s performance. Nothing could be further from the truth.
M Wenger had used the game to re-introduce to football two players who had been in Africa for a while, and it was clear that both were very much off the pace and lacking in the skill and understanding that is a pre-requisite for EPL games. It is hoped that with training they can quickly get back to their old abilities – although it will be hard for Eboue who was stupidly sent off for a silly tackle.
Quite what these games add to the football year is hard to tell, and the suggestion that in future they might all be played in the USA while the EPL continues in England is probably the best solution.