Our member Charles Koh shares his visit to The Arsenal to watch the team take on Tottenham Hotspurs in September 2023

Hello fellow Gooners!

AFC Singapore announced in July that they will be organising a VIP trip to watch the North London Derby and it seems to be too good of an opportunity to pass given how hard it is to get tickets to watch Arsenal play.

The booking process through AFC Singapore was smooth (Thanks Lance, Shai, Dhanesh and team) and a WhatsApp group was set up to share information (special shout out to Roland See) such as available flights, hotels etc.

The VIP experience offered us the chance to greet the players when they alighted from the team bus, and Arsenal also personalised the match daybook which had your name printed on it.

Since this was the North London Derby, all the fans were hyped up and in great voice before the game. From what I remembered, the atmosphere seemed to be louder than my previous three visits to watch the Gunners play.

It got quite emotional when we all sang The Angel (North London Forever) and will probably be one of the best feelings you can get when attending the game in person.

On with the game and we struck first through a lucky deflation through Saka! A few minutes later, Jesus wasted a big opportunity to put us 2-0 up. Reya pulled off a spectacular save but Spurs hit back with a ‘lucky’ Son goal and we entered halftime at 1-1.

Second half saw Rice and Viera taken off, but we managed to attack Spurs for the first 10-15 mins and were rewarded with a penalty that Saka dispatched down the middle.

I took a quick toilet break after Saka’s celebration and was shocked to come back to a 2-2 scoreline…… Our team looked a bit discouraged after that and I have to say that I was quite happy to take the draw given the injuries that we suffered before and during the game.

We stayed back to watch the Arsenal reserve play a mini football game to warm down while waiting for William Saliba to take a group photo with us and hopefully sign some souvenirs. Sadly, he was in a rush and probably not in the best of moods after the draw and left quickly after the group photo without signing anything.

We initially wanted to get some drinks at a pub, but all the drinking places were filled with Arsenal fans so Ronald, Wee Hock, Shi Lin and I split off to have some ‘Nando’ Style chicken and burgers.

So far, the season looks to be more competitive with Spurs and Liverpool having similar points to us after 7 games and Man City still looking unstoppable.

Let’s all rally together to support our Gunner and who knows with some luck, we can go one step better than last season, COYG!