Arsenal Women in DC: Tour Diary Day 5

I am still not entirely used to not being at the men’s games. I didn’t miss a domestic away game between January 2002 and September 2018. I didn’t miss a home game between October 1999 and December 2018. Usually when I miss one now it is because I am covering a women’s game so the way I experience those games is different. Usually I am on the move. Sometimes I cannot see the game at all.

Technically I missed Villa away because I was covering the women’s team but their game isn’t until tomorrow. All of this is a long winded way of saying I never watch Arsenal in a bar. In England, watching a game involving your team in a bar is fraught with irritation because you will be surrounded by supporters of other clubs. I cannot tolerate that when I am watching Arsenal.

But in Franklin Hall in DC, it was clearly going to be different. This was very much a space carved out for Arsenal fans. I arrive at 11.30am local time, about an hour before kickoff, and there are Arsenal flags all over the walls. People are gathered outside wearing just about every Arsenal shirt you can imagine from the last 30 years or so. I meet a gentleman from London here on holiday, Brits who’ve relocated permanently but mainly lots of locals who love Arsenal.

It is as close to the stadium experience as you can get as Gooners from DC, many from other parts of the country too who are in town for the women’s game tomorrow, converge. But this is a slice of N5 all pulling in the same direction in downtown DC. It still makes me emotional when I realise a football club from my home city means so much to people so far away- especially in a place like the US where there is such a menu of elite sports available.

The game feels a little fraught, as one would expect. I talk to a Villa fan who has relocated to DC and we agree that this game will be similar to last season’s and will be decided by small details in either direction. When one of those details, David Raya’s incredible goal line heroics, goes in Arsenal’s direction, it is greeted like a goal.

Then Leo Trossard comes on and gets Arsenal on the score board and the place erupts. I haven’t really ever been in an environment like this for an Arsenal game. Usually I am at the match, or else I am either unable to watch, snatching snippets on a laptop in a press box, or else watching / listening on a train. It’s usually all or nothing. In this environment, it is all. I might as well be in the away end as Trossard’s goal is greeted by scores of leaping fans and the chant of ‘Trossard again, ole ole’ rings around the cavernous pub.

Then what I choose to bill as an Emi Martinez own goal makes it 2–0 and everyone, myself included, relaxes and the atmosphere moves from fraught to jubilant. I take a selfie with Gunnersaurus and, again, loads of people approach me to say they love Arseblog and lots of people buy beers which I gratefully accept. Having arrived in Franklin Hall at 11.30am, I don’t leave until 9pm and I have talked so much that the numerous beers I have sunk have basically been sweated out.

Before I get to Franklin Hall, I have breakfast in a spot nearby at Le Diplomate and a man with an Arsenal tattoo on his calf introduces himself. A girl has made Taylor Swift style bracelets with the names and squad numbers of Arsenal Women players and I accept one. But ultimately I am reminded that community is and always will be football’s greatest strength, it matters to you because it matters to others.