Been cycling to different football grounds to keep myself busy. First, the so-called "London Stadium" with ArcelorMittal Orbit. If anything like this entire Olympic area existed in a socialist country it would be used as evidence of it being a vainglorious totalitarian state.
The imaginatively named "Tottenham Hotspur Stadium". Awful, like an overfunded municipal swimming pool (though much less useful), half expected there to be a brightly coloured slide protruding from it.
The Emirates. Saw Arsenal play Bournemouth here once in the home end and it was such an alienated, completely abstracted experience it took me several hours to cheer up afterwards. The Highbury clock tacked on to roof surely one of the saddest things in English football.
Craven Cottage. It's just lovely, isn't it. Once sat behind a man in the Hammersmith end who was reading the FT during the break. Can have a fag by the river at half time. Possibly the nicest and least intimidating walk from the station to a ground in the country.
The Den. A big heap of clichés but I have a soft spot for it, hemmed in by scrapyards and railway arches full of garages and fishmongers it practically luxuriates in "character" which is clearly lacking elsewhere in London. Can see trains passing through the gaps in the stands.
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