The Wonder of You (Part 2) London’s Calling
Are you a Gooner or someone who got way too into Ted Lasoo visiting North London hoping to see a match? Check out tips from my rececent-ish trip.
I went to Emirates (Arsenal’s home, built by Arsène Wenger himself) in May, but am writing this in August about a week before the 2023-24 Premier League season kicks (LOL) off.
If you’re a Gooner or a bandwagon fan (get in before it’s too late), here are some suggestions about where to go:
WATCH:
Fever Pitch. The 1997 one with Colin Firth.
Rye Lane. A new favorite rom com that came out in 2023. It takes place in Peckham (my favorite part of London!) and is just lovely.
BONUS: After you watch Rye Lane, see the mandem at Prince of Peckham for some of the best vibes, drinks, and food you’ll have while in London. I first visited in 2019 with a colleague and felt like I was a party in college or in Oakland-so it definitely passed the vibe check. I still dream about the jerk chicken sandwich I had from White Men Can’t Jerk after…more than a few Dark and Stormzys from our last visit and will always make it a point to swing through when I’m in London.
STAY
The Standard Hotel. You can’t beat the vibes (immaculate and mod…immodculate?) or the location (Saint Pancras/King’s Cross). If you happen to be travelling in from Paris, the Eurostar stops right there. It’s a really convenient tube stop for getting to Emirates-2 stops and you get off at Holloway Road*
*Per Google Maps: HOLLOWAY ROAD STATION: During Emirates Stadium events, Holloway Road will be closed for two hours before the start of the event and will open 15 minutes after the start of the event. During return traffic the station will be closed 15 minutes before the end of the event and will be kept closed for 90 minutes after the event. These adjustments may be subject to alteration/." - tfl.gov.uk, Effective from 5/9/2023, 3:30 AM to 7/5/2024, 12:29 AM
EAT/DRINK:
Taking in the atmosphere before you even arrive at Emirates is a must. The people watching is chef’s kiss.
It’s the epitome of what you think of as a real sports bar. It was filled to the door and patio with proper Gooners. We stayed for exactly for one pint before our informal crawl continued.
This wine bar is so cool. I decided we had to go after seeing a guy in a beautiful teal Highbury Library cap at the Tollington and was greeted by a wine bar you’d want to be your local spot. If you’re more of a natural wine girl than beer, you’ll love this spot. I would love to spend more time there the next time I’m in London.
I’m not going to hold you. I felt seen in the worst way at the Compton Arms. A bunch of twenty and thirtysomething hipsters sipping wine or spritzers-this restaurant would not be out of place in San Francisco. This setting would work for a lovely brunch on a non-match day or for a heartier, more epicurean meal before heading to the match.
DO: Catch a match at The Emirates. Obviously.
Do not play yourself. Tickets to Arsenal matches can only be bought through the club or from a registered Arsenal member. I was fortunate to get my ticket through a connection Mark, the Bay Area Gooners organizer made to a Gooner in London who couldn’t use his tickets. I had to register for an Arsenal membership (digital) to be able to access the tickets. For the 23-24 season, the team has switched to Digital only tickets. Definitely refer to the website to learn more about ticketing policies and how to protect yourself against scammers.
Arrive early to walk around the stadium before the religious masses ascend. As of August 2, you can witness Arsene Wenger’s statue. The game day atmosphere was positively buzzing. The first time I visited Emirates in 2019, I did the tour with a few other people and it was a quiet, composed, almost solemn. It kind of felt like the culimation of a religious experience, on May 28th the vibes were like Mardi Gras and it was absolutely lit.
BONUS:
If you are one of the many Americans went got into the beautiful game because of Ted Lasso, welcome. I enjoyed season 1 and it came at a time when I, and many others, needed light and good fun. If you are a Ted Lasso fan, you might as well take a trip to visit Richmond and experience the quaint cuteness of the area.
The Wonder of You: A love story (Part 1)
A short reflection on Arsenal’s 2022-23 season and the importance of community.
When I talk about my love for Arsenal Football Club, a Premier League soccer team based in and ruling North London, I feel silly, but I don’t know of a better word.
I was introduced to this team in college circa 2006 by a boy and it stuck because of the composition of the team-a lot of French players led by a composed, professorial manager named Arsène Wenger (I have a painting of him in my bedroom). The once and eternal star of our team, Thierry Henry, sealed the deal for me and then it was a done deal. I missed the Invincible season (where the lads were undefeated for 38 matches straight-a feat that has yet to be surpassed 💅) However, like with all relationships, there’s been ebbs and flows. I moved from the East Coast where “early” matches still started at a respectable time to the West Coast where I’ve seen 4 am too many times for a rational person who isn’t waking up early to start a job to feed their loved ones or save a life. It was all worth it.
I reconnected with the team after watching the documentary Arsenal: All or Nothing (streaming on Amazon Prime). It follows the team throughout the 2021-22 season which had highs of hope and lows of reality and they got me again.
I decided to watch matches live with Bay Area Gooners and was rewarded with so much joy and connection. I was reminded of the importance of intention in building community and what can grow when you commit. For me, that looked like a community that came together to donate money to the nonprofit I work at on the strength of our connection and shared love. I immersed myself in the foolishness of modern fandom, listening to infinite hours of podcasts dedicated to recapping the matches (that I had just watched), learning about tactics and strategies, and generally falling deeper and deeper.
I love this goofy team and community so much that I even wrote a poem:
The Wonder of You
I love you, like a new world created through chants
and revelations that can only happen in a new language.
Love your harmony, discipline, and doing things our way.
I love you in years of no trophies, but with glimpses of beauty.
Love you through decent start times on one coast
And through hella early mornings on the other.
I love you with the roar of millions.
But also, the love of a fan tuned into one tv at the end of the bar.
Love you delusionally. Tribally.
Love you for reminding me what it’s like to love mortals who sometimes transcend, but also fail and fight.
I love you for irrational joy and illogical tears.
Love you like a pilgrimage and conversations throughout the years.
That’s the wonder of you.
At the end of the 2021-22 season, all we wanted to do was qualify for the Champions League (4th place out of the 20 Premier League teams). However, through the brilliance of our coach and young players, and sometimes luck, we spent 248 days at the top of the league. By late December, the improbable seemed possible and I booked tickets to London for the last match of the season wanting to be in town for the glorious end of a magical season.
“When you start supporting a football club, you don’t support it because of the trophies, or a player, or history, you support it because you found yourself.”
Reading about The Beautiful Game Pt. 1
To watch, or not to watch The 2022 World Cup. THAT is that is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler to ignore the monthlong competition born of corrupt, inhumane circumstances that brought about this unnatural (a World Cup in November?!) event or watch and feel icky…
Am I doing too much? Probably, but football or soccer tends to bring that out in me. My first taste of soccer was when I “played” on a team as a kid. I was bad, as most kids are at sports that require strategy and skill, more concerned with picking grass and daydreaming.
It wasn’t until I got to college at the University of Oklahoma of all places and became friends with the international students and students from different backgrounds that I began learning about the rich history of this sport.
J/k, I fell in love with this handsome man and his beautiful game, and the team, Arsenal FC, “by far, the greatest team, the world has ever seen.” When he decamped for Barcelona (2007 :( ) I decided I had two teams and never looked back. COYG and Visca Barça!
I can mark pivotal moments in my life based on big things that happened during World Cup years:
2006. Germany. This World Cup marked the first time I ever cursed in front of my religious, Southern parents. In my defense, I had never seen anything as wild as a grown man HEADBUTTING another grown man. What would compel a grown man to react in that way?
“As they left the penalty area, Materazzi claims Zidane said: “If you want my shirt, you can have it after the game.” But Materazzi already had a Zidane jersey...“[He] replied that [he’d] rather have [Zizou’s] sister,” Materazzi revealed. He thought nothing of it. To him it was the kind of trash-talk you heard in the schoolyard or, in an Italian context, at the oratory. A throwaway line. But it hit a nerve with Zidane. ”
You had to be there.
2010. South Africa. The universe descended on South Africa and had a chance to revel in the new “Rainbow Nation”. The world, nay, the galaxy was introduced to vuvuzelas and the game was never the same. This 99% Invisible episode talks about the vuvuzela and it place in South Africa’s football culture.
2014. Brazil. This was the summer I bonded with my now spouse by watching all of the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) matches in Washington, D.C. one of the best U.S. cities to participate in soccer culture. I also had the best colleagues who let me scam my way into co-writing an essay about higher education attainment globally. The semi-final was hilarious (to me) because Germany beat the brakes off Brazil (long recognized as a football powerhouse) 7-1. Hate to see it.
This World Cup faced a lot of deserved criticism for the way that it harmed Brazilians and didn’t garner the economic successes that municipalities always promise cities, states, and nations that host huge sporting matches. This article from the World Economic Forum disputes the wisdom of ever ever ever hosting an Olympics or World Cup. The tl;dr: “Don’t do it. Reconsider, read some literature on the subject.
2018. Russia. Senegal, my African équipe of chose stole hearts because of how dapper their coach Aliou Cissé was and is and the excellent quality of play from the best African team.
France, my adopted team, won its second star. The young king Kylian Mbappe dazzled the world and proclaimed he had next and now. Black Twitter called Les Bleus an African team and the French scoffed. Look, Black Panther had come out earlier that year Annnnnnd France’s team was hella Black. would have thought that I had personally won with how I celebrated.
Which brings us to 2022. Qatar. I’ll get to that mess in Part 2.
In the meantime, these are three of my favorite books on soccer.
1) Soccernomics: Why European Men and American Women Win and Billionaire Owners are Destined to Lose x Stefan Szymanski is such a nerdy, fun book that answers questions that casual observers and new fans might have and that longtime watchers have always pondered. I read the first iteration in 2009 and the 2022 version updates some of their previous predictions and touches on the mess world football finds itself in now. It’s a must-read and also a great gift.
2) Soccer in Sun and Shadow x Eduardo Galeano. The prose in this is so, so lovely. Galeano elevates the sport through his prose and the literary lens he turns on it and the characters. He really shows the depth of the beautiful game and why it entrances billions of people around the globe week in and week out and especially every 4 years during the World Cup. Analysis of this new era of the game and especially this World Cup are diminished because he’s no longer here.
3) Fever Pitch x Nick Hornby. Essential reading for Arsenal fans or Gooners. It’s a book that makes me feel less absurd for waking up at 4:00 am to watch 11 young adults run back and forth for 90 minutes and provides a glimpse of English soccer right before the new era of global football.
Reading about The Beautiful Game Pt. 2
3 of my favorite kits: Clockwise: Senegal, U.S.A., and France.
To watch, or not to watch The 2022 World Cup. THAT is the question.
Whether ‘tis nobler to ignore the monthlong competition born of corrupt, inhumane circumstances that brought about this unnatural (a World Cup in November?!) event or watch and feel icky…
2022. Qatar. What an unmitigated mess. The World Cup in Qatar begins this Sunday and I can’t get into the spirit.
To begin with, FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, is a dirty, corrupt organization that rules world football. Russia (2018) and Qatar (2022) bribed FIFA officials to secure their way into being host countries. Russia faced some criticism about its illegal, immoral interference in Syria, incursions into other sovereign states, anti-LGBTQIA policies, and more. The World Cup in Qatar is garnering even more deserved criticism for 1) bribing FIFA officials to become a host country. 2) lying about its ability to host a safe tournament during the World Cup’s natural season of summer (thus messing up club schedules, and exacerbating players’ injuries), 3) exploiting workers to build the necessary infrastructure to welcome the world resulting in 4) unnecessary, inhumane workers’ deaths oh and on top of that 5) arresting and harassing LGTBQIA people.
It’s hard for me to feel celebratory after all of that. And I wish I did. I truly love soccer and the World Cup, but I’ve had a really hard time figuring out what to do about these negative feelings. I can’t unknow the truth of human beings dying for entertainment, so instead, I’ve been revisiting my favorite football books and reading articles from authors who are shining a light on the context of this World Cup.
Recommended Reading & Listening
“Every football fan will have their own different emotional connection with the World Cup, but the one thing that I believe that it offers all of us is escapism: where, for one whole month, we are able to distract ourselves from many of the planet’s problems by immersing ourselves in its supreme drama. This time around, though, the World Cup offers no escape: the global woe is to be found in Qatar itself.”- Musa Okwonga
Why this World Cup feels so wrong x Musa Okwonga. I’d listen or read Musa talk about any subject and he’s especially good at discussing the toughest subjects. A must-read.
The World Cup’s Forgotten Team x Tariq Panja and Bhadra Sharma. Focuses on Nepalese workers and their communities affected by workers’ deaths.
Qatar World Cup of Shame x Amnesty International
World Corrupt x Tommy Vietor (Obama Administration, Crooked Media) and Roger Bennett (Men in Blazers soccer media) take a look at sportswashing and what happens when soccer and politics mix.
World Cup 2022 Preview x Stadio (Musa Okwonga and Ryan Hunn). They spend about the first 20 minutes talking their feelings about this year’s tournament, the many issues surrounding it, and why this feels like a pivotal moment in global football’s history. A must-listen.
FIFA and the World Cup: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) and FIFA Pt. 2
Want to take Action?
Consider supporting Alwan Foundation, a project of The Center for Immigrant Protection/The LGBT Asylum Project. The Alwan Foundation hopes to advance LGBTQ+ rights in the Middle East with a focus on the Gulf region and was created by Dr. Nas Mohamed is the first Qatari to come out as gay publicly and is seeking asylum.
FIFA is under pressure to set aside $440 million for these workers - the same amount that will be awarded to the competing teams. Lend your voice, through a petition, to try to pressure FIFA to compensate the deceased workers’ families.
Whether you choose to watch or try your best to ignore this spectacle, I think it’s important to understand the context of why this World Cup is different and diminished.