Getting up in the early hours of Saturday morning is never easy for anyone and it gets a good deal harder as daylight hours recede through Autumn toward Winter. Add a prospective 5 hours bus journey purely for the escapist trivia of a game of football in our unloved ripoff capital and it is no surprise you question the mysteries of human motivation. If you have indulged in a Friday night search for the ever-elusive “good time” you can bet a dark morning will appear more than a little blurry and sluggish. Small wonder behavioural psychologists have a professional field day with footy fans.

So why DO we do it? Well, of course, the vast majority of us do it because we love the spectacle of footy, warts and all, though there will always be a tiny minority who use it for barrow boy spivvery or bizarre, dimwitted purposes. The game is nothing without its genuine fans; alienate them and the game is finished. The others don’t matter except as a target for our knockabout amusement or more serious interest from Inspector Knacker.

En route to the Arsenal match I wasn’t in the least looking forward to the toxic twilight of London. From a distance it is permanently oppressed under a low lying grey-yellow cloud of carbon monoxide wastage that has you wondering how people breathe the stuff in and still survive. It concentrates the mind wonderfully when you realise you are about to plunge into it yourself without scuba gear. Once there, the notion it might be compared aesthetically to Paris, Madrid, Rome or even Berlin is so laughable the very idea must have been conceived by reactionary journos at the Sun or the Daily Mail during a break from their daily round of lying propaganda.

The junket compensation was twofold, a chance to assess the Gooner’s new stadium and to see if we could reasonably contest Arsene Wenger’s brilliantly reconstructed team. Whatever the building’s merits or demerits you had to say in advance it could only improve north London. Or south or west or east London for that matter. The metropolis really is a characterless sprawl of same/same anonymity – odd area and iconic buildings excepted – with a growing central cluster of glass curtain wall towers with little to commend them except the dubious asset of height. It is altogether the absolute urban pits. It is a sort of self-deceptive run-down metropolitan soap opera subsidised by finances drained from the rest of the nation. And it is disliked accordingly, especially when so many from the majority rest feel the only way they can earn a living is by working there. Thus adding to ludicrous over-development. No wonder the place is on the brink of choking itself.

Funnily enough, one look at Arsenal’s current fraught overall finances will tell you they’ve almost choked on themselves, that they’ve GOT to stay at the top and in European competitions. Hence the new stadium. If they falter badly for two or three seasons it could have really serious consequences, a tumbling row of financial dominoes – for which see the example of Newcastle’s latest balance sheet and the shrieks of pain coming from St. James Park. I hope for Arsenal’s sake and the sake of the game it won’t come to that. The advent of Arsene Wenger has brought nothing but credit to the English game and who ever thought we would say that about Arsenal after the George Graham era on and off the pitch? And with the memory of Graham and co. still fresh I wish Arsene and co. would forgo some of the self-righteous bullshit they and the London based media come out with when they get outsmarted. Take it like a man instead of bleating in self-pity.

Like any other football club they were faced with a difficult and not-so-emotional rhetorical choice when the question of a new stadium arose: Do you ditch history for the sake of the future? It’s never that black and white of course; fans’ memories stick and they get handed down just as much as they do when a family moves house. As always, life goes on. It was obvious even to the most benighted fan the old Highbury Stadium was useless – just as Goodison is, sadly – if the club wanted to have a fully competitive long term future. It was a gamble but it was one they were always likely to take. Good on them. Thus the paradox: they incurred debt now to avoid worse debt in the future.

But almost anything is welcome if it helps your average Brit understand architecture. And by that I don’t mean the loud-mouthed, ranting knee-jerk you often get for any new building anywhere in Britain. If the latter mindset prevailed we would still be stuck in caves or in the Victorian/Edwardian neo-classical deadhead world of Charles Windsor and suburbia. We may have a way to go to catch up with more sensible architectural criticism in Europe and the USA but the gap is easily closed if we show our kids how buildings are commissioned/funded and then created, and the civilising value of harmonised form, colour, texture and materials.

That kind of explanation isn’t overly difficult. It requires only the cultural will. Alas, this is Britain, right-wing land of the dumbed-down and terminally selfish. Our current one-dimensional national culture makes it easy to forget some of the world’s most talented architects are English. Too many here mistake crude lower middle class petty snobbery for appreciation of the good things in life, including how our buildings look. The widespread affect of new football stadia can help make inroads against that kind of semi-detached suburban philistinism. I hope it does.

First, though, a walk around Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium designed by the London studio of American firm HOK Architects (almost certainly with input from HOK Sports), built by McAlpine and sponsored by a Middle East airline. HOK were also involved in the Kings Dock scheme at one point and have done some design work for Grosvenor Estates, developers for the very large Chavasse Park retail project on our waterfront. The following impression is based only on a short viewing and no background knowledge of the project and should be taken at that level.

Overall the new stadium is much, much better than tired old Highbury ever was or could be. It is excellent even though the overall development and building envelope is incomplete, definitely more than a few steps up from the kind of seedy “property developer” who buys old terrace houses, does a bit of work in them, adds a few coats of paint and then swindles maximum profit from a desperate first time buyer. However, the stadium is still in Highbury at Ashburton Grove, part of a lower middle class litter-strewn inner dormitory area consisting mostly of scruffy yellow brick terrace houses, some shops and pubs and too many areas of broken pavements. Though the site is elevated by several metres the stadium was hidden during our approach by a combination of narrow traffic-choked streets and four or five storeys-high buildings. We turned a corner and suddenly there it was, or at least one small area of the elevation. The bus did a circuit and parked up next to the stadium in a tiny coach park surrounded by green plywood hoardings.

The first cast of the architectural dice is the choice of site, the second the location of the building thereon, and a very close third the relationship between architect and client. After that it stands or falls on the talent of the architect. In this case it all seems to have fallen into place, though of course Joe Public rarely gets to know the full day-to-day melodrama played out behind the scenes.

The site is V shaped and restricted, its sides formed by two converging Underground rail lines and its base by a typically undistinguished local road. The oval-bowl shaped stadium is neatly positioned next to the base, straddled by the rail lines. A couple of pedestrian bridges cross the rail lines when you approach on foot and then walk around the ground on a limited width level concourse. Both bridges are a perfect illustration of why design aesthetics can rarely be left to a Brit structural engineer. Honourable exceptions apart, their professional training produces easily the soundest engineering but virtual ignorance of how to create a work of beauty. In this case the bridges are merely outright ugly, large diameter tubular trusses that may also have been dictated by cost control. But the result is an approach of no particular distinction and there is no focal point on the stadium either. Which means your first impression may be one of disappointment. The only attempt to provide a focal point is the word ARSENAL formed in two metres high fair-faced individual concrete letters at ground level on the approach, and large scale Arsenal club logos fixed to the external envelope. Doubtless all of this will improve when the overall development is complete. Some adjacent dilapidated buildings have already been acquired for that purpose but await clearance.

Those expecting a large plaza or concourse will be disappointed too. There is enough space around the building but it isn’t extensive and at a couple of points it feels “pinched.” Under normal circumstances this might be a visual irritant but in this case it isn’t, not when you understand the problems of designing and building in the environmental suffocation of London. It works well, and so does the stadium.

The first thing you see is the external envelope – and all buildings’ external envelopes cost money, the more envelope the more dosh required, and that is why you find many new stadia simply expose their structure and the underside of concrete terracing. However, the Emirates Stadium is able to solve this problem because it has provided continuous corporate boxes and “status lounges” (I’ll come to these later) right around the stadium. If you are going to pay top dollar for those facilities you are going to want some reasonable comfort and accommodation in return. Hence enclosed bars and restaurants which fill spaces below terracing. If you don’t think you can fill the facilities you aren’t going to provide them. Arsenal CAN fill them, hence relatively little of the structure is exposed. Smaller clubs CANNOT fill them so, ipso facto, new stadia such as the Riverside, Stadium of Light, Reebok and Pride Park look bare-bones by comparison. (But you still need to make the point that the accommodation in each of those four grounds is infinitely preferable to the truly awful, shoe-horned primitive places they left behind. Location is a separate matter of course.)

The oval shape of the stadium presented a few standard design problems too. If the architect was to preserve the visual sweep he had to make vertical surfaces appear continuous and curved with the plan shape. Of course true curves would be an impossible construction cost to bear on this scale because anything out of a straight line line means even more money. So the designer has resorted to some rather neat design deception. The fact is the envelope is a careful construction of straight lines, or facetted, best described as an old threepenny-bit effect. Except the length of all the straight lines has been carefully calculated to deceive the eye and fool you into assuming the surfaces are curved. It works rather well.

The cumulative affect of this is to conceal almost all the structural elements viewed from the outside. The roof is supported by eight massive main tubular tripod steel column sets hidden behind the external envelope; only the top nodes can be seen immediately under the roof. The external envelope consists of two repetitive elements at equidistant centres: glazed curtain walling and precast concrete panel walls, the latter coinciding with tripod column locations. The glazing is a couple of degrees from vertical and projects beyond the walls, thus articulating vertical surfaces and avoiding mundane continuity. The glazing system exposes its horizontal framing but hides its vertical framing; continuous framing bands of glazing help the illusion of height reduction. The concrete panel walls are surely (?) unfinished above ground level, where they are covered with steel render mesh for no immediately apparent reason and have a very large Arsenal logo in the centre.

At high level the outer cantilevered edge of the roof is emphasised by the geometric wave-like curves of the top of the stands. These areas are opened out to allow air circulation to the pitch and help fight against the sort of turf disaster that was the enclosed San Siro and the Millenium Stadium. Roof trusses cannot be seen from ground level, a big plus.

Inside, seats are accommodated in four tiers in successive, steepening angles. The two centre tiers contain the corporate boxes and the lounges and are smallest, but are still visually dominant because they are stacked. The top three tiers are fronted by precast concrete walls sweeping right around the stadium. Together with the roof they provide a nicely symmetric horizontal emphasis. But internal viewing shows the best design trick of all and how the architect has avoided the structural ugliness of, for instance, Old Trafford. The roof itself is tilted downwards by a few degrees toward the pitch and its massive main trusses and beams column-to-column are thus hidden from most major external sight lines, thus reducing the visible height, thus helping to avoid an overpowering building in a residential area. The affect of lightness is added to by a glazed strip along the length of the centre of the roof to allow natural light to the pitch.

The shallowness of pitch of the ground level tier can fool you into thinking these areas are much smaller than they are. Viewed from a right angle they look relatively small. However, viewed from the side you can see they are fairly extensive. I was seated in the lower tier and was pleasantly surprised by the increased knee space and seat size too.

My overall view is that the stadium is an excellent piece of architecture that fits well, elegantly even, into its surroundings and which (considered even as summarily as this opinion) has conquered most of the formidable design problems of this kind of scheme. Once the entire development is finished I feel sure it will mature into a much loved addition. In that respect it is a credit to Arsenal Football Club and its architect and a valuable addition, hopefully catalytic, to a terribly rundown area. Architecturally it is far better than Old Trafford. Conversely, it has committed the cardinal sin in the eyes of most footy fans: It has allowed the internal appearance to be over-compromised by corporate facilities and so-called upmarket lounges. Which is a pity, and one that could have been avoided. Not that it has affected the general atmosphere surrounding a match, at least not this one. Considered latterly, it is no better or worse than the old Highbury stadium. What it needs is time and some great games and some great memories.

But there’s an awful lot of tripe talked about “atmosphere” and “passion” at football grounds, most of it whipped up by a stupid and irresponsible media. In recent times this has come to mean nothing more than creating an artificial event, the kind of thing you hear when a player gets subbed at Goodison and the pitchside Paul O’Grady bleats, “Put your hands together for……….” Your natural reaction of course is to say, “Fuck off, softlad. I’ll put my hands together when I choose. I don’t need YOU telling me how to appreciate footy.” The same applies to crowd noise and the comedy ephemera of flags and banners, or an electronic scoreboard showing a pair of clapping hands. The fact is great atmospheres are created by great games, not the other way round. In turn, great games are usually created by great players. Crowds add to this, but they don’t CREATE it. And of course the arrival of all seater stadia thankfully changed the dynamics for ever. Nobody sane wants a return to a standing crush in terrace cattle pens and the inevitable horrors it brought.

Every now and then there’s a spontaneous interaction and you get a memorable occasion. By definition, great games are rare, ergo proctor sum…………….you cannot manufacture “atmosphere.” If you try, all you get is a cheap imitation. At the present rate it won’t be long before there’s an attempt to copy the Americanised phoniness of a TV studio with illuminated signs flashing up “applaud” and “laugh” to an audience giving out mindless high-octave whoops. Anyway, I have always detested the notion of a football match masquerading as a Nuremburg Rally or a reductio ad absurdum where two small groups of drunk crackpot fans spend most of their time jeering at each other instead of watching the game. Players will always tell you that while they appreciate crowd support very much it is a poor pro who needs the crowd to get him playing well, even though they can sometimes make a difference when play is finely balanced. Human nature being what it is, sometimes people feel like making noise, sometimes they don’t. So what? Spontaneous mood goes with the species. If you want a whipped-up display of mere loony fanaticism go join the BNP or read the Sun or watch Lenni Riefenstahl’s “Triumph of the Will.” Just stay away from football.

Generally speaking there wasn’t much hope of getting anything from the match itself, not with our Leaning Tower of Pisa-like midfield compared to theirs, not even after a great start to the season and a classy demolition job on Luton. If you were superstitious you kept your fingers crossed and wished on a star. But superstition belongs in religion, not in real life. In my most pessimistic mood I could foresee a five man midfield and many a long ball up to a lonely if willing Andrew Johnson, and maybe we’d get a long overdue away point off the Gooners and that was realistically the most we could hope for. But this is football and, as all true footy fans know, anything can happen. In our prepub group we had three votes for a loss (one of which was yours truly), two votes for a draw and two votes for a win.

Flu and injuries decimated Moyesy’s selection options. Crucially, Stubbsy partnered Joey at centre back. As we all know, if it isn’t going to be Joey-Joleon (I’m trying hard to resist “JoJo”) our next best option until Mark Hughes is ready is Joey-Stubbsy. Then that gets tempered by the fact that Stubbsy usually gets an awful trashing in this fixture. Everybody else, as you were, flu or no flu. I thought we were going to get murdered. It didn’t work out that way.

We scored first, had a good first half, almost got swamped in the second half, only leaked an equaliser because of that useless twerp Riley, could have snatched a couple of late chances ourselves to bury the game, and generally played a first-rate containing match within the limits of our playing resources. Arsenal traced a lot of pretty geometric patterns, some of it dazzling, but had nobody like the great Paddy Vieira to force a result. Unless they get a similar player or players or some of the current crop suddenly mature they can forget the league title. This match might just turn out to be an important turning point in the fortunes of our beloved club. It goes without saying nobody can rest on their laurels as we head into Autumn.

Before the match started the Arsenal players hugged each other individually and in groups, the kind of sight that pisses off your average Brit fan to the point of hysteria. The nation still hasn’t recovered from eight hundred years of mistrusting the Latin temperament. Quite right too.

Straight from the kick off Arsenal attacked immediately, threaded some decent passes around and then lost it to a couple of solid tackles and we sprang a counter attack. That was the pattern for the most of the first half. It was immediately apparent we were ready to abandon the wing spaces, “show them the corner flag” and take the ball off them there, mop up if the centres came in, and then do them in a quick dash if we could. It worked superbly. Arsenal got more and more nervy and our passing got more and more confident. By the end of the first half we were even optimistic in spite of the edgey, inevitable moments when they got to our bye line and got a cross over. Thankfully, their crosses were shite all afternoon and Stubbsy and Joey headed everything away, and anything they missed was gubbed by Joleon or Phil. Once again Lee Carsley was sterling in cleaning up central loose balls. Henry dropped deeper but didn’t decoy anybody.

Our goal came in about the tenth minute when Mikky swung over one of his special whizzbang corners from the right. As usual it completely flummoxed the heart of the Arsenal defence when everyone dived in for it, Tim got a boot on it, it came back to him and he stuck it into the roof of the net from the edge of the goal area. If Mikky gets any better at these the opposition might as well give us a goal when he shapes to take them. It doesn’t matter if the opposition think they know what’s coming, it’s the final dip of the ball that unmans them. You think you’ve got the incoming arc right……….and then suddenly the bastard dips again, imperceptibly but just enough to dump all the instincts. Unplayable, and not anything you can coach. One look at the faces of the Arsenal defence told you all you needed to know as the ball got fished out of the net. They’d been done good and proper.

Increasingly Arsenal shot from long range and further and further out. None of it looked likely to succeed. The nearest they got was a penalty appeal I fully expected Riley to give, but he didn't. Meanwhile we almost broke through on a couple of occasions but the final pass let us down. Looking back, I think a second then would have finished the game.

The second half, as usual, was different in tempo and flow. We could hardly mount an attack for thirty minutes. Arsenal poured forward, breaking quickly and shooting when they could. Tim Howard made a string of superb saves including one from their best effort, a header by Henry. Everything else whistled wide. You began to feel that if we could just weather the storm we’d get back into it and do them again. With Riley on the field we should have known better.

Twenty five minutes into the half Arsenal got a goal the only way they looked likely to score, through a free kick. Rosicky was off on one of his runs when Lee Carsley chased him back and got in a magnificent tackle from slightly rear, the right side and got the ball. Rosicky fell over his leg. Naturally, Riley gave a free kick, slightly right, about twenty three metres out. Van Persie took it and curved the ball over the wall, Tim Howard got a hand on it but it went in high left. I hope this doesn’t sound ungrateful but I think he should have kept it out. Still, given his performances this season we can forgive him anything.

Late on we got a couple of breakaways via Simon Davies and then Andrew Johnson. In the first, Davies went left and got boxed in when all he had to do was knock it sideways right to an unmarked AJ and it might have been game shot. Then AJ had a more difficult attempt to wriggle past their last man and almost managed it only for their defender to get a despairing last minute touch to save the day. By then Arsenal were tired and the tempo of the game changed in our favour. Arsenal were played out and tactically outsmarted. They seemed to know it too. As usual, the knobhead Riley couldn’t even get his added time right and managed to incense everybody including Moyesy. At times like this you feel he’d rather play on till the opposition (OUR opposition) score. This is a fantasy of course but that’s how bad a referee he is. The sooner he’s gone the better.