Fandom Goes a Long Way
There is no need to say that fanhood is an unbeatable power. Being a fan is so much more than watching games in a team’s jersey.
It’s community, life style, commitment and something that hasn’t been defined yet, let’s call it magic.
Everyone in & out of sports industry knows how cool is it to have a random conversation. In a sense, that pretty much anyone you meet can relate to what you do, share your passion. Well, excluding those supporting a derby team, but that’s a different story.
Few weeks ago (yes, weeks! this story stuck with us for quite a while before we decided to share it). So, few weeks ago we met a very nice young couple Andy & Monica (names changed) from the US wandering around London & having a good time.
And while they really enjoyed most of the touristic sights in London, tourism was surprisingly not their main purpose.
They made all the way from States, travelling for more than 10 hours solely to watch Arsenal play the last game this Premier League season. Andy is a huge Arsenal fan and the trip was Monica’s birthday present to him.
They took a risk of travelling more than 4 thousand miles in hope they will buy at the ticket box as they were not able to book tickets online. Hardly happens as we all know, but you can’t stop the dreamers.
Amazingly they got the tickets and were at the Emirates to watch victorious-but-not-enough match. «This IS one in a life time experience. Of course I would love to come back, but honestly not sure if this’ll happen in the near future.»
«It was amazing, i can’t find words to describe it! I didn’t have to time to think about anything, was just absorbing the action and had one thought ‘OMG, i am actually here’. And now the only thing i regret a bit is not having a pic from the game itself. Could be so cool to print it out»
«Everyone told we are crazy to take this trip. But i’m really happy we did! Now i can say I’ve been there, at the Emirates, in the heart of my team.»
But that’s not all about Andy. Every Saturday or any other day when Arsenal’s playing, he wakes up before 5 am, drives for about 15 miles to a sports pub where they show the game.
‘I’m an American sports fan as well. But i don’t do anything like that for baseball or football. Only for Arsenal’.
p.s.: there are few things worth mentioning. 1) We in no way are associated with the Arsenal club. We can’t throw a chapter from the book, so had to be truthful about what team is lucky to have such dedicated fans. Sure, other teams & clubs may have similar stories of fans’ commitment and we’re happy to share them later. 2) the story is absolutely true and no facts were changed except for those regarding the identity & privacy, like names, age & home cities.
