Operation Footballers Wife, Phase 1

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One of my clients invited me to a Football (a.k.a. soccer) game. Her husband has great corporate seats and since my ultimate goal for my visit here is to become a Footballers Wife...I had to go. Judy (my client) and her husband, David are both American. They have been living here for about 2 years and are originally from the East Coast. As much as I love the international feel of London, it was nice to be with a couple other Americans.

I was running late, as usual, so I had to meet Judy and David at Emirates Stadium. As the train got closer to the station, I found myself surrounded by Arsenal fans. Many of them decked out in red and yellow. Some of them were drinking already. I thought to myself...this is definitely my kind of sport. Once I exited the station, I noticed swarms of police just watching the crowd. Some of them dressed in riot gear. The Brits definitely take their Football seriously.

The Arsenal is currently leading the division. Although I know all the rules of soccer from my childhood days, David explained to me everything else about the league...current standings, the point system and how teams advanced, etc. Unfortunately, he didn't have any juicy bits of info on whether or not anyone was single...haha. We grabbed some food and then settled into our seats. (BTW, the stadium serves DELICIOUS meat pies.) The seats were really great. Just about midfield and away from (ahem!) the riff-raff.

Emirates Stadium seats about 65,000 and there were something like 60,000 people in attendance that day. The Arsenal was playing Sunderland, which is somewhere up North (we think). There was a small section of Sunderland fans that was unbelievably loud. You would never guess that they were only taking up a teeny fraction of the stadium. Being part of the crowd is what made the game so much fun. The hardcore fans (of both teams) sang songs and had various chants. I've never really seen anything like in the States.

Sunderland is ranked pretty low, but played well. After 2 quick goals by Arsenal in the first half, Sunderland started pulling it together and scored 2 of their own. It was probably much closer than it should have been and ended up being a great game.

Final Score: Arsenal 3, Sunderland 2.

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Photos

Arsenal Field
View from the seats before the game starts

Sunderland Fans
Not sure if you can make it out but the people in orange are the cops surrounding the Visitors section

Arsenal v. Sunderland
Such good seats...we could see everything

Goal!
Taken after Arsenal's first goal of the game. Sorry for the random bit of hair in the pic. Couldn't crop it out without cutting out one of my future ex-husbands...