Go Gunners!

Last week I took Friday off of work to see a professional soccer team play in Austria, and it was soooo much fun. I went with 2 other interns, John and Jon, Jon is a HUGE fan of the team we saw, Arsenal. So he knew all the players and just about peed his pants being so close to the players. I couldnt believe that most of the players on the team are under 20. One guy was born in 1989! What have I done with my life? I think my chances of becoming a professional athlete are long gone... It was just a training game and it didnt count for anything, so not all the best players were playing, but it was still so much fun to watch. Arsenal was playing a Turkish team, I cant remember their name in Turkish, but the translation is 'Union of Jueveniles.'






After the game, we waited for the players by the team bus and Jon got autographs and pictures with them. It was us and screaming 12 year-olds.


We werent really sure what to do since our plan had been to just go out to a bar for the rest of the night and catch the first train back at 6am, but this town was dead. It was a tiny little village anyways, and even though the third biggest football team in the world was playing there, nothing was open. We finally found a bar and pizza place just on the way out of town. We went and were able to find all the Arsenal fans so that was a step in the right direction. We realized that it was already 11 pm and there were no lights on in any B&B or hotel in the town, so we were preparing ourselves for finding a bed in the cornfields which filled the town.


We went in for one more beer and as we were at the bar, Jon recognized a guy that had just walked in. This guy, Frank Stubbs, apparently writes the team blog on the Arsenal website and he's never missed a home game in 20 years, so he's quite well known among the die hard fans. Jon starts talking to him, telling him how much he loves his articles, and this guy was obviously a little weirded out, but really nice about the whole thing. Then other people start coming over to talk to us and before we know it he's buying us a round of drinks. Frank turns out to be incredibly fun and since everyone knows him and he was talking to us, suddenly everyone in the bar is our best friend.
We ended up having an amazing night with all these folks, felt like I was a true and true Arsenal fan. At one point Frank asked Jon where we were staying, and when he replied a cornfield, Frank insisted we stay the night in his hotel room, and the floor of a 4 star hotel room is far better than any cornfield.
We got up the next morning, showered, put our clothes that smelled of beer and smoke back on, and got on the train back to Maribor. And since we had to change trains in Graz anyways, we decided to just spend the afternoon there.