Football Tourism

We had been to a few matches in London at the Emirates Stadium (Arsenal) and Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) - so to expand our appreciation of 'the beautiful game' (as they call it) and its ugly fans... we jumped at the opportunity to go to Anfield when friends suggested that they could get away supporter tickets to see Chelsea take on Liverpool.

It was great - I'm not sure I've ever been in a similarly 'charged' atmosphere. People hated us, (and we hated them for the 90 minutes plus halftime) - The job of the away supporter section is to be the antagonists - singing songs (the lyrics of which are not fit to print here), pointing fingers, and generally trying to be louder than the over 40,000 Liverpool fans.

under the Chelsea banner

the guys in front of us

the security guys between our small section and the Liverpool supporters

It was a really good weekend - from the train ride up (getting back was a different story because of the snow that shut down the country), to getting to explore a new city in the UK (Beatles songs have been stuck in my head since as it was almost omnipresent), the atmosphere on the streets around the stadium as we searched for a place to get food (the Liverpool street dogs were just not that tasty...), and then the great people that wanted to talk to 'the Americans' in a great little local pub we found after the match.

post match security deployed

So we're creatively dubbing it football tourism, and we're already excited for Newcastle in April.

Here is a link to the top stadiums in the Premier League as rated by away supporters
and
the BBC's Premier League section