At the Emirates Stadium

Hospitality is nice, but I prefer to be with the real fans

At the Emirates Stadium this past Saturday I witnessed a man stand at a urinal and piss on the floor. He had barged into the small toilet, stood about two inches back from the urinal, pulled out his phone and didn’t even notice he was covering his loafers in urine. Well, I thought, in all my years of watching sporting events and concerts and after every single Wetherspoons I’d ever been to, I had never seen a man do that.

Somehow it struck me as ironic that this had taken place in the hospitality section of the Emirates, where the wealthy and connected go to watch a football game. It was in fact a great omen — that despite the extravagance of watching a game from a hospitality box, nothing really compares to being in the stands, and that I’d never seen a “normal” football fan piss on his own shoes (at least not at the stadium before the game had even begun).

When you arrive at the clock entrance of the Emirates someone will take you up the stairs to where the boxes are. I won’t say who invited me, but suffice it to say I was happy to attend Arsenal v Aston Villa and watch from some of the best seats in the stadium. The boxes are fairly small, and inside there are tables and chairs and a counter from where a buffet-style three course meal and beers and wine are served. The boxes open around 1.5-2 hours beforehand and the discerning guest will get in as soon as they can and drink all they can before the game begins.

And then, when the game does begin, the blinds come down on the glass box, and you venture out to your seat from which you can watch the game. There is no chanting here, although you can hear it roaring from the stands below. Few people talk to each other except with those they’ve come with. When something happens in the game — and the view is incredibly good — nobody knows how to react because they aren’t really football fans, for the most part, they’re just corporate invitees. No one sang “North London Forever”.

When Arsenal score their first there is a great cheer even in the hospitality seats, although we are soon sitting down again and quiet. When Aston Villa eventually score, the security ask the fans in the box seats next to us to stop cheering and to sit down — what is this, a football match or something?

Afterwards, on my way home in the depression of a 2-2 draw that should have been a 3-2 win, I found myself wondering whether or not I would buy hospitality seats if I were rich (oh to have such a choice). As we left the stadium we stopped at a stand and got a large hotdog with onions and mustard and that was all I really wanted to eat instead of the “fine dining” up in the box and then I realised what I really wanted was to be down in the stands by the guy with the massive drum.

Last year I attended the F1 British Grand Prix. My brother was invited to the Paddock Club and I went along with him. We were treated to excellent views of Silverstone, incredible food and drink and when we left I had a feeling that I would very happily get used to that lifestyle — it was another level of hospitality. But still I felt very few people in there knew who Oscar Piastri was and were wondering where Jenson Button was.

But fast forward a few weeks and I was at the Belgian Grand Prix and this time with general admission, meaning I had no seats but just had to find a spot around the track. They are the cheapest tickets you can get and often the most numerous. We climbed down the muddy grass banking overlooking Pouhon and sat on the floor on plastic bags to stop the mud seeping into our shorts. We pulled out bread and salami and cheese and ripped the bread with our thumbs to make sandwiches. We were surrounded by other fans, mostly rival fans of Max Verstappen, and we watched the cars go racing. And I couldn’t have been happier.

Being a part of an audience is what makes live sport special. When you’re at a snooker game, it is true you can feel tension unlike when you watch it on TV. You ebb and flow with the crowd, you all sigh at the same time, you all cheer and clap. When a frame has been running for almost an hour, just before the interval and you’re all desperate for the toilet, you’re so much more invested in each and every pot made. At the F1 you cheer as others groan, in football you hug each other and commiserate, you chant and cheer and sing, and everyone knows what’s going on and they all want to be there and have nowhere they’d rather be.

Up in the box watching Arsenal draw, a man shouted his instructions at the Arsenal team. He shouted alone, and had no effect. Only among the crowds would he have been heard, part of one great voice, only then can the home crowd become the 12th player on the pitch. Because when Leandro Trossard and David Raya tried to stoke the supporters up in the final minutes, it was to the stands they pleaded, not to the boxes.

Hospitality is an experience, but it’s an experience I wouldn’t trade for being amongst the real crowds, because that’s where sport comes alive.