Arsenal’s first trip to the Far East for many years that has just ended was also attended by 20-odd fans from the UK. We travelled by various routes (either from Singapore, Bangkok or direct to KL) meeting up in KL for the first game.
What struck me was although the club appeared to go all out to win over the local fans (there were events where they could meet the players etc) they did little for those that travelled from the UK. The first issue was match tickets. The club did not provide them nor even give us any information on how to buy them. Thanks to those who arranged them for all of us.
The second issue was the travel involved. It is a 5 hour flight from KL to Shanghai but the training session was held in Hangzhou (around 100 miles from Shanghai) and the match took place in Yiwu (which is a further 100 miles from Hangzhou). Fortunately there is a fast train service from Shanghai to Hangzhou and then onto Yiwu (2 hours Shanghai to Yiwu and a ‘business’ class ticket costs just £12 each way). Unfortunately, unlike in the UK, you cannot buy a ticket if there is no room on the train, which meant that some waited upto 3.5 hours for a train and some had to take an expensive taxi ride.
No explanation was given as to why the training session and match took place in separate cities. Rumours included the Hangzhou stadium being renovated and Yiwu was chosen because the kit is manufactured there. Whatever, the ground was nowhere near full despite us being told it had sold out. Perhaps because Yiwu is not that easy to get to or because charging £52 for a ticket is not easily affordable by the locals. They did announce the crowd as just over 20,000 rather than the 35,000 capacity/tickets sold which was a welcome change.
The club claim the tour was a great success. The KL part certainly was but I can’t see how playing in front of 20,000 in China can be classed as a success. The passion of the fans in KL showed that the club ought to be doing these tours every year. It is difficult to understand Arsene’s reluctance and his tiredness excuse. It doesn’t seem to have affected Manchester United or Chelsea too much over the last few seasons.
From a personal point of view, I really enjoyed it. Good to meet up with mates and drink far too many beers visiting some countries I have never been to before. But, perhaps naively, I would expect the club to help us out when we travel such a long distance. They could easily have provided us with match tickets – maybe even complimentary?. There were not that many of us and they know who we all are. But then we are used to being taken for granted. The 6.5% season ticket rise is the prime example. Our chairman recently called us stupid. Perhaps in me expecting something from the club proves that, in my case, he may have been correct.
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