LEE PAYNE

Tag: finsbury

  • Walking the line

    Three things I love are London, walking and disused railway lines. That makes this book seem like it was almost written with me in mind.

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    The morning after the Arsenal v Norwich match I decided to do one of the walks in the book, starting at Finsbury Park.

    The park itself often hosts big name musicians. In 2014, my favourite band Arctic Monkeys played two gigs there and this week Liam Gallagher announced he would be playing Finsbury Park in June 2018.

    My walk followed the route of a planned extension to the Northern Line of the London Underground which was never completed.

    What I enjoy about disused railway lines is imagining what they once looked like, seeing how they have changed with the ghost of its past still evident. The first example of this was when I came across the building below.

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    This used to be the station building of Stroud Green station

    Stroud Green station closed to passengers in 1954, but 63 years later its building is still intact. There’s no evidence of how the building links to the railway bridge above, so countless people must pass it every day without ever realising its former purpose.

    Further along where the track once was, there is a work of art inside one of the arches. When you’re walking alone, it’s quite creepy to be honest – even though I knew it was going to be there!

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    Spriggan sculpture

    The most intact platforms on the walk are at Crouch End. As you can see from my photo, it’s obvious that trains used to stop here.

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    Crouch End

    The thing I was most excited about seeing were the Highgate Tunnels. The imposing portals are now a sanctuary for bats. The ground in front of them was too muddy for me to walk across, so I had to zoom in from a distance, but you can still see them.

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    The abandoned Highgate Tunnels

    To rejoin the walk, I had to go up to street level. I was now in Highgate, famous for its middle class mums (as seen in the @Highgatemums Twitter account and book). The next thing to glimpse was the abandoned Highgate High Level station.

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    Overlooking the abandoned Highgate High Level station

    It was near impossible to get a good view of it, but the tunnels I saw earlier emerge here. In a BBC documentary made in 2013 to commemorate the Underground’s 150th anniversary, a Tube driver can be seen on the platforms.

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    Still from BBC documentary The Tube: An Underground History (2013) showing Highgate High Level station

    The walk ends at Alexandra Palace, where the World Darts Championships are held at Christmas every year. However, with a train home to catch I decided to stop after taking in this incredible view over London.

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    Looking over London

    I plan on going back to finish off the walk in the future, but I had a great time doing the bits of it that I did.

  • The pain at the Arsenal

    I have just returned from a brilliant trip to London, where I went to my first Norwich City away match at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium.

    The plan was to make an event of it, so instead of going straight there and straight back on the coach with other fans I went on the train on Tuesday morning, stayed in a hotel in Finsbury Park and came back on Wednesday lunchtime.

    I was aware that my hotel was within walking distance of the ground, but I didn’t expect to be able to see it from my window!

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    The Emirates Stadium was visible from my hotel room
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    Zoomed in

    I walked to the stadium well before kick off, to properly take in the atmosphere. I had been outside the Emirates once before, but that was during the day when there was no one around. It was a different sight all lit up with thousands of people there.

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    Outside the Emirates
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    Near where the away fans go in

    I made my way to the end where my fellow Norwich fans were going to be sitting, and immediately felt a warmth come over me seeing yellow shirts and hearing familiar songs – I was amongst my own people! With an hour to go before kick off, I went inside and found my seat, giving me my first sight of the pitch.

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    The view from my seat

    Before long the Norwich players came out to warm up at our end, to great applause. There is a real feeling of togetherness about the club at the moment. The fans are right behind the players, the players are putting the effort in for the fans and they are buying into what the manager is trying to do. It’s lovely to see. There were particularly loud cheers for James Maddison, who scored the winner in the derby on Sunday.

     

    Norwich's goalkeepers Angus Gunn and Michael McGovern warm up
    Norwich’s goalkeepers Angus Gunn and Michael McGovern warm up
    The Norwich players preparing for the game
    The Norwich players preparing for the game

    Arsenal have a sort of TV show on the big screens inside the stadium for pre-match, half time and post-match. I don’t really think it works. I’ve seen it done at cricket grounds, and often it’s hard to hear the presenter and a lot of the time you don’t want to because they are really annoying. Arsenal’s presenter didn’t win any friends amongst the Norwich fans by introducing us as Ipswich! That’s pretty much the worst thing you can say about us.

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    This bloke introduced us as Ipswich!

    Then it was the match itself. You probably know that the game went all the way to extra time, with the eventual score being Arsenal 2-1 Norwich. The Norwich players put in a very good performance, going in front in the first half when Josh Murphy finished nicely after running onto a great Maddison pass and defending excellently until the 86th minute when a young guy I’d never heard of called Eddie Nketiah tapped in from a corner 15 seconds after coming on as a substitute for Arsenal. He then scored the winner in the first half of extra time. Norwich had come agonisingly close to pulling off an upset – one they would have deserved – but it wasn’t to be.

    I was proud of the team, though, and very proud to be in the crowd. The nearly 9,000 Norwich fans that were there put the Arsenal fans to shame. Boxer and City fan Anthony Ogogo says he was racially abused by one of our number last night, which is totally unacceptable and that person is merely a sad individual who has nothing to do with this wonderful football club. I certainly didn’t hear anything untoward, and I think we represented the city brilliantly.

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    The Norwich players in a huddle after the game
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    The Canaries thank the fans for their great support

    My first experience of seeing Norwich play on another team’s turf was one I’ll never forget, and one I hope to repeat in the future. We may not have won, we may be out of the cup, but I got a real sense that the club is in good shape at the moment and that if we can carry on performing like we did on Tuesday night then we can achieve something in the league this season.