Split Allegiance
WORDS: Sam Easterbrook (Sprout Editorial Group)
10 a.m. I'm split. Cardiff born and bred yet an Arsenal fan, I should support my hometown club and the underdogs to boot, but that's my head talking.
Football is emotions, football is heart and my heart says Arsenal. Thing is I'm in the away end, surrounded by City fans? tell my mum I love her.
No red, that's the first thing, but I'm going to skip wearing blue too.
Part of me wants to be nonchalant about this but even after 17 seasons of the Sky-funded evolution of family-friendly football in this country, traits from the dark past are still simmering underneath.
See how Millwall stamped their unique mark on the KC Stadium in Hull last month? I'll stick to the lime and sodas.
Coach leaves Ninian Park just before one, should get there around half four, kick off at 7.45pm.
We're assuming we gonna be bubbled (a police cordon restricting away fans movements). That’s a lot of lime and soda.
10.30 a.m. I opt for purple, since it's a mixture of red and blue. The other option was polka dot, which is guaranteed to attract some unwanted attention. Purple it is.
1 p.m. We spend 20 minutes looking for coach 28. We were booked on coach 27.
3.15 p.m. All forty-odd coaches stop at Reading Services. The place is crammed with blue shirts and bad hair. If we were idiots with iPods it would be a flash mob.
Instead of smugly dancing to bloghouse, Burger King takes a battering while Marks & Spencer Simply Food remains serene, the toilets almost over flow while WH Smith's supply of M&M's are shamelessly pilfered with no sleight of hand. Mob rule.
5.15 p.m. We reach London.
6:15 p.m. We reach more of London. Finsbury Park feels like the biggest park to circumnavigate, reason enough for beer.
7 p.m. Finally espy The Emirates Stadium, glowing red and white and that's just the chandeliers in the corporate area. More pressingly we spot the pub, The Drayton Park, dedicated an away fans pub, it's easy to see why with a d?cor and smell straight out of the 70s, pretty sure the home fans aren't too upset not to be allowed in.
Get my bag searched for beer cans on the way in, fair enough you say, except it wasn't security but a wasted prat in a Wales shirt.
7.30 p.m. Take seat in the upper tier behind Cardiff's goal. The stadium is stunning, no Millennium though.
The Game. City fans sing their hearts out; attempting to rile the shockingly quiet Arsenal fans (it wasn't called Highbury the library for nothing).
It's a shame Cardiff City couldn't show the same passion on the pitch; midfield just didn't turn up. From the first minute Arsenal demonstrated the traits of touch and vision that form the gulf between Premiership and Championship.
Arsenal practically passed Cardiff City off the pitch. And as the goals went in, and as I sat on my hands, City fans sang and sang. Eduardo, on his first game back after a year out injured was superb and rightly earned his two goals.
Carlos Vela, deployed down the left, caught the eye too and not just for his lime green boots or his looks which earned him a chant of "rent boy". I can't imagine what the prawn sandwich brigade in the middle tier thought of it all.
The 4-0 score line was harsh on Tom Heaton, the young goalkeeper on loan from Manchester United, but not on Cardiff. If it wasn’t for Heaton thankfully having his best game of the season, the game could have quickly turned into a proper rout.
The biggest cheer of the night for the City was when the Arsenal substitute and ex-Cardiff player Ramsey did the briefest of Ayatollah's on request. And that pretty much sums up how bad Cardiff were.
Yet as we made our way back to the coaches, you'd have never have guessed City had had there backsides handed to them on a plate, for the streets were filled with song.
10.55 p.m. We finally leave Finsbury Park (I feel I'm going to develop a similar neurosis for this park as I do with Birmingham New Street Station) after a pointless debate about whether KFC is allowed on board. It is God's food and shall travel freely within these shores.
I soon drift off to one of the myriad of radio stations available in London, seemingly every beat and tongue represented.
11.25 p.m. We're back at Finsbury Park. Is this purgatory?
2 a.m. We're at a service station somewhere, I do not know where as I had succumb to sleep. Apparently we got totally lost again before we made it out of London. I blame Finsbury Park.
3.25 a.m. Get home.
3.26 a.m. In bed. Intact.
