Goodbye Avenell Road

LIKE many long standing Gooners, I’ve had mixed feelings ever since the plans for our new stadium were announced. For those of us who’ve been attending Highbury for so many years, it’s hard to imagine that we will ever share quite the same emotional attachment with our new home of football.

No doubt after a glorious season, or two, and as I begin to build a bank of entirely new memories at the grandiose gaffe at the bottom of Aubert Park, I will soon get over it. Yet, as the clock ticks down towards tomorrow’s impending demise of a place that has played such an influential role for much of my 44 years, I may have come to accept the financial realities, though not without suffering some sentimental trauma.

As we approach that emotional last match, every time I exit the West Upper and share a comment, or merely a smile with the stewards, I am ever more acutely aware of this homely feeling that I have at Highbury. I can’t help but wonder whether it’ll ever be quite the same, as I fear that faceless anonymity amidst 60,000 fans, as just another punter with none of the habitual familiarity.