Untold play at the Emirates. I am quite overcome « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

Yesterday, 30 May 2011, Walter and I played on the Emirates pitch in the annual Arsenal five a side competition for supporters clubs’ teams.  It is held on the actual real-live pitch itself, and is a competition that involves 28 different sides.

I am not going to bore you with the details – as a footballer I am just about the lowest of the low that you can get, and you don’t care how we got on in a competition you probably didn’t even know took place – but there is a big part of me that simply wants to record the moment. And the obvious place for me to record it is here.

During the course of those few hours I…

• Changed an showered in the away team dressing room (OK the Arsenal dressing room would have been better, but still, actually using the facilities is something).

• Played on the pitch, kicked the ball on the pitch, even managed a couple of moderately accurate passes on the pitch, collided with the ref (Dogface did you see that – I want him banned and I want him banned now – although I must admit the ref did apologise), and took a real tumble after a not very successful tackle, so I rolled about on the pitch a lot (something I found I was still quite good at).  I even kicked the ball into the goal in front of the north bank, although we weren’t actually playing at the time.  But you know…

• Sat in Mr Wenger’s chair while a match was in process, and saw the game from his eye view.

• Sat on the sub’s bench, got up and then jogged down to the clock end just like the subs do.

• Stood in the Arsenal tech area and waved my hands about a bit.

• Got the certificate to show that I was there, and of course kept the shirt I played in.

OK, it is nothing of importance to the rest of the world – but I have been watching Arsenal since I was about 8 and now much much later in my life I have actually played on the pitch that they play on, and I find I don’t have any words to describe just what it feels like to have done it.

And I just wanted to share it with you.

My eternal thanks to Walter and the guys in the Benelux Supporters Club who invited me to be a guest player, it was the kindest thing imaginable, and it was an afternoon I will never forget.

Thank you guys, I owe you one.

———————-

The overall performance of each individual ref this season – and is the Untold ref analysis biased?

The 10% bias – how refs fix the odds against Arsenal, and who is to blame.

Half the penalties in Arsenal games were wrongly given this season!