The Emirates was meant to help Arsenal compete with the big boys... so what went wrong?

By Ian Winwood

Published 15:15 27/01/12

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In the middle part of the last decade I lived only a well-aimed free kick away from Drayton Park, North London.

It was there, from a piece of scrubland, that the Emirates Stadium inched into view.

While construction of the new Wembley Stadium was beset by the kind of problems that quickly rendered the project a national embarrassment, work on Arsenal’s new home went without a hitch.

Each week, new layers were added to a sight as magnificent and unusual as a giant alien spaceship.

Even for someone who can’t stand Arsenal – I support Barnsley, and have thus developed a severe case of footballing penis envy – there was much pleasure and even pride to be had from watching this thing of beauty take shape in the neighbourhood.

How long ago that now seems.

In 2012, the stadium is as magnificent as it was the day it first opened (in 2006), but the views of the ground have been obscured by newly built flats that look as if they were stolen from Legoland.

But it is not so much the obscured views of the stadium that have seen the sun quickly set on a six year old bright new dawn.

Perhaps the strangest thing about this now rather strange club is just how few people seem to recall the arguments that were proposed for building the Emirates Stadium in the first place.

No one was in any doubt that the Arsenal Stadium – always known as Highbury – was one of the most beautiful grounds in the country.

Nestled anonymously amid rows of terrace houses, and featuring an art-deco frontage that remains to this day, the team’s home spoke of a club rich in both tradition and taste.

The only trouble, it was said, was that the ground was too small.

‘Highbury’ held 38,000 odd thousand people (more than 70,000 during the days of terracing) and was full for every single match. Only in comparison to a few other clubs could the stadium be considered ‘small.’

Unfortunately for Arsenal, one of those clubs was Manchester United.

The argument for the Emirates Stadium was parroted around North London with such seriousness and force that no one really argued against it.

It went that Arsenal needed a bigger stadium in order to compete with Manchester United, and that the money earned from ticket sales to the 22,000 extra people who would be able to see the team play – as well as the hot dogs and beer and programmes those people would no doubt buy – would help level an uneven financial playing field.

It was interesting that no one said, It will be great for the 22,000 people to get to see the team simply for the great football they once played, but rather for the money they will pay to do so.

Even more interesting, though, is how few people seem to remember this argument just a few years down the line.

Arsenal are praised for their (relatively) sensible wage policy, as if their refusal to compete with the lunatic salaries paid by Manchester City are at least part of the reason for the club’s (relative) failure.

This argument has some truth to it, but only some.

Tickets for the Emirates Stadium – and you will notice that, often, good seats are still available – are among the most expensive in Europe. The programmes are expensive. The hot dogs are expensive. The beer is expensive.

Arsenal are praised for the prudence. But with these new revenue streams, the question should be asked: where is all the money going?

Of course such a stadium is not cheap, but for each game between fifty and sixty thousand people are sitting in the plush leather seats and paying a king’s ransom to do so.

At some point during the long, meandering passages of play that these days passes for football in this part of North London, the fanbase might get together and ask as one: if the Emirates Stadium was supposed to make us more competitive against the likes of Manchester United, how come in the five seasons that it’s been open the results have been quite the opposite?

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Ian Winwood writes exclusively for MirrorFootball every Friday

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