| A Tottenham Fan Among The Reds |
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| Monday, 21 May 2007 | |||||
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By Jack Biantan
`Then try coming back next year', quipped another Red Devil. `Then I will be first in the queue when that happens', I replied while looking for my wife, her sister Charmie and brother-in-law Jorge among the red ocean of Man U supporters.
So, we got off on the Red Devils' side of the stadium. As we approached the stadium the chanting was getting louder and louder. It was only 1230 noon yet thousands of the `red shirts' were already wasting their voices chanting anything. Two guys who were wearing Argentina jerseys with were met with load ARGENTINA, ARGENTINA chants from the crowd. It was just madness. It took us few minutes before we could cross the road to go nearer the stadium as we were taking our photos with the stadium at the background. Suddenly two open top double deckers from the London Tours slowly passed by. The buses were filled with Chelsea fans. The chanting grew louder. As one of the buses passed by us, two large bodied Chelsea supporters screamed at my brother-in-law Dr. Jorge de Leon. `Hey get a life. Get a life you as___.' Jorge of course ignored them. But the poor lad was surprised why he was targeted. Was it because he was Asian? No, it was only then that we realized that he was wearing a `red' shirt. This bloody red is the colour of Manchester United. Anyway we moved up and went nearer the stadium and there I could feel its greatness. Wembley is the only building so far that I have gone to, which is bigger than the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I think four St. Peter's can fit inside this magnificent place. The Wembley according to its website has the biggest banqueting facilities in the world with 98 kitchens. It has its own ice factory inside which produces 96 tonnes of ice on match days. It has 1000 beer taps and keeps 2,500 beer kegs. The stadium also has 310 wheelchair seats and 1,985 toilets. I found one of the foundations of its famous arch and posed there for photo. This arch weighs 1,750 tonnes and is 133 meters tall and 315 meters long. The arch supports the weight of the North roof and 60 per cent of the South roof. The Apex of the arch is fitted with a warning beacon for low flying planes. During the match, the Wembley area was a no fly zone. From far away the turf looks like a green carpet. It's current turf was selected from 250 varieties by turf experts from the Sports Turf Research Institute here in England. The grass was selected for it appearance, and strength. The 2.5 acres of turf consists of 2 million blades of grasses. We went on to roam around and headed to the Bobby Moore statue. Every soccer fan knows who Bobby Moore is. His twice life size statue was designed by famous sculptor Philip Jackson. The statue was recently unveiled by Bobby's 1966 team mate Sir Bobby Charlton and outgoing PM Tony Blair and incoming PM Gordon Brown. I wanted to go around the stadium but my sister-in-law Charmie was scared that her husband Jorge might be mugged as we were already approaching the Chelsea side of the stadium. (Unless he took off his shirt.) We did not realize that it was already 1.30 p.m. and I was starting to get hypo. My sugar was getting low and my mouth was craving for the nearest Chinese restaurant. One hour and thirty minutes more to go and we still had time to eat lunch and enjoy the match at home in front of my large Sharp TV. There, at the security of my sofa, with pop corn on my right hand and diet coke at my left I was on time for the kickoff at 3 p.m. GOD BLESS
jay
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| That was an amazing experience even if you werent able to watch the game live inside Wembley. Hopefully next time you can watch a game live, the Charity Shield will feature both teams to open the Premiership Season in August. For me, I can only dream of going there, although I have had the pleasure to watch the Red Devils live in KL, Malaysia a long time ago. Anyway, cheers! It was a good article that gave us a look at the religion of football in UK, where it all began. |
