My last two visits to the Emirates have been through the good fortune of winning competitions. Most recently on Saturday 15th September 2012, thanks to the wonderful ArseBlog (which I still ready daily and listen to both ArseCast and ArseCast Extra on a weekly basis while in the gym). I decided to take my Dad to his first trip to Arsenal and probably only the second live football match of his life. The time before this was, Christmas four years earlier for (at the time I would like to add) the top four clash against Liverpool. I have not been able to attend in recent years and although did try to get tickets for the Newcastle match in early December, the allocation reserved for Red Members sold out within minutes. I have made it my personal mission to get to the ground (for a match day) before the season is out. My last trip to Islington was the day after we won the FA Cup in May. A gloriously sunny Sunday we watched the open bus parade through the streets of North London on the outskirts of the ground. We arrived a little too late to get to the prime spot in-front of the Armoury but caught glimpses of the team on the bus as it drove from the Town Hall back to the Emirates. While I taken my fully charged camera, inadvertedly it has been left in my sister’s Golf at Wycombe train station, so had to make do with a few images from my Samsung Galaxy SIII. While my photos on my work phone automatically back up via wireless internet connection to my Google+ account, it is only this evening I have found the time to upload them to a FlickR set.

To be honest, I did not have high expectations of a self guided audio tour. I went to the cash desk, handed over my voucher and was told to just head over to the entrance. Before doing so I entered my name into the touchscreen to ensure I had my personalised certificate as evidence of my attendance of the tour. I was then asked which language I would like. As you can expect, Hindi was not available, so I selected English. I was given some brand new earphones. They were to be my ‘proof’ of purchase for the tour and I would need them later. However as you can expect they were hardly of the highest quality and I perhaps would have been better off using my own Sony earphones. Following the few other people also on the tour, I was in the car park and heading towards a lift but opted to actually take the stars and start taking the first of almost two hundred photos. For the first time, in what feels like an age, I have uploaded all 184 photos into the cloud, sorted, organised and relabelled as a full set on FlickR which I have now made public for the world to see.

For full disclosure I should also mention that I won a Savile Rogue scarf from a competition on ArseBlog back in late November 2013. I enter a range of competitions set by the Irish blogger, not just exclusively to win tickets to matches, but merchandise, books, posters, you name it! I have to say I have been lucky to win two in quick succession. Perhaps I need to stop entering and let other people taste a little victory!