Editor’s note: Seems XFE has really taken to this whole blogging business and has come up with another post to fill the void while we’re in London this week. Enjoy!
You recently may have gotten your football related fill here on ThePoeLog, but we are currently in London to celebrate Poe’s birthday week, and we have football on the agenda three times here in London. Once we return I will have a full break down on the games we attended, but in the meantime I figured I would share part of our experience getting tickets and more importantly the “Matchday Experience” we considered but ultimately decided to skip.
Once we settled on London as the destination for this year’s birthday trip, I immediately turned to the current schedule for the Barclay’s English Premier League soccer and most importantly our beloved Tottenham Hotspurs. Thrilled beyond belief it looked like Tottenham was playing an away match at East London West Ham on Wednesday and a home game against rivals Arsenal in the North London Derby (pronounced darby) on the following Saturday. Two Tottenham games, all in London, the week we are planning to be in town. The mere coincidence of these games aligning with Poe’s birthday brought tears of joy to my eyes.
(Editor: please note that after XFE wrote this little post, he convinced me to move up our trip up by a day in order to attend a THIRD Tottenham game — this one against Swansea this past Sunday.)
Sure, the schedule included a random weeknight game in Stoke-on-Trent that I briefly was going to try and work into the program, but two games in London for our team was the minimum and I was excited.
What started to happen next can only be viewed as a blessing and a curse. First, Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United started the season in less than the outstanding form expected by most and the League took on a bizarre life of its own where Leicester City was leading the standings and others were struggling to keep pace.
Second, our Spurs started winning and, even more importantly, not losing. Meaning that by Christmas, they were real contenders for cracking into the top four and even pushing higher in the table. (Note: At the time of writing, Tottenham sits in second place, tied with Arsenal, but a game between writing and publication of this post may change the live standings. If you want live standings, go elsewhere, I am not Rebecca Lowe, for heaven’s sake.)
So, as the New Year launched and Tottneham climbed in the table, my worries about getting tickets increased to a level of pure concern and angst. No tickets for sale were showing up on the usual suspect reseller websites and there was no way we were getting tickets through the club being the lowly American foreigners that we are. A £89 British Pound fee can get you a membership to the supporters club, but that does not guarantee you tickets, just the right to buy tickets from the club towards the back of the line. So rather than waste £89, we started exploring other options.
Fresh off our recent VIP experience in Bilbao, we discovered the Tottenham VIP experiences on their website and sent off an email to inquire. The next morning I awoke to find a very nice email informing me that VIP tickets were still available for the Arsenal home match in something called the “Bill Nicholson Suite.” Wow, this might be easier than I expected. This would get us guaranteed access to the game, meaning that I (we) were guaranteed to see at least one of the two matches for our Hotspurs.
In addition to having availability, the email included the following in response to me mentioning why we’re attending the game:
“On top of the listed details, to make it extra special for your Girlfriend’s birthday, I’d happily get her name included in our Matchday programme and arrange for her to have a photo with a first team player after the game!”
Well, just send the Best Boyfriend in the World trophy over right now, because this competition is locked up. Sorry, Ronaldo! So what else does this experience include?
Seems like a nice way to spend a day enjoying our team, and “buffet” means I can avoid another international soccer VIP experience incident with Poe like the one we had in Bilboa. And free bar “throughout” the day, what can be wrong with that? Digging a little further, we can find some nice pictures of the room and it looks perfectly acceptable. There is a dress code, but I am sure we can work with that little requirement.
So now, the only question I had was: What is this little experience going to cost me?
If you have felt the anticipation building, you were right to feel that way and here you go. This wonderful British soccer experience can be yours for the low, low price of £649 British Pounds plus VAT per person. Well, that sounds….expensive? Not expensive? I don’t know.
For those without calculators handy, let me help. Currently ,the VAT tax is 20% and in mid-January when I received the email, £1 was equal to $1.43. So, adding the VAT, which was £130, and the currency conversion meant that each ticket would cost $1,113.68 per person! Yep, that’s right, for a mere $2,227 Poe and I could have a great birthday experience at the home of our favorite EPL team.
As the shock settled in, I actually considered spending the money. I didn’t want to, but I did want to go to the game.
My head was working overtime trying to justify the expenses and rationalize that I had used points and miles for the flights and hotels, so this was going to be my big expense, etc.–all the usual tricks to say “yes, this is worth it.”
I think I had even manage to convince Poe that we should just bite the bullet, but in the end, we said “NO.” My Boyfriend of the Year trophy would just have to be earned another way, because the Tottenham VIP experience was not going to be my ticket to glory.
So this week while we are in London, we will be skipping the Tottenham Bill Nicholas Suite Experience. But fear not, we will still be going to the game. In fact we will be going to both of the games we identified for our trip. (ED note: Plus one more).
Yes, it will be expensive. No, there will not be a buffet or bar available to us during the game. But in the end, I am perfectly happy eating Pukka Pies and getting buzzed at the local pub before sneaking my road flares into the game.
