It’s over a month ago, already, since mini-me and I had our first soccer adventure … just him and I. To be honest, I’ve always been somewhat nervous bringing him to large crowds or events alone, mainly because I wasn’t sure he would enjoy the event or afraid that he might let go of my hand and wander off.
The Mighty Chelsea FC team was in town and were playing at Yankee Stadium on 25 May 2013 against Manchester City as a friendly match. Screw that! Nothing friendly about playing Man City, even if it is out of season 🙂
Just like last year, I contacted the local CFC supporters group to get ticket prices, and I was absolutely disgusted that the tickets were being sold for $125. Chelsea FC and Yankee set the prices for these events, but that price was extortion, especially considering I could get tickets for a MLS league game with Red Bulls for $25 at a proper soccer stadium.
I refused to pay that amount and had resided to the fact that I was not going. For the next few weeks I was utterly depressed and started to consider options for getting money for the tickets; selling myself seemed at the time like an excellent choice, but at $1 per session I would have to do a lot of overtime.
Praise the Lord for Groupon! Suddenly, as part of the massive amount of spam mails we get, a mailed arrived from Groupon who miraculously had tickets for sale at 50% off. Happy days!
The tickets were in the same section as the Chelsea supporters, so I quickly bought two tickets; one for me and one for mini-me. It was so exciting. I was happy again and sensed a new purpose in my life. The clouds parted and the sun started to shine again … wait, it was just summer arriving 🙂
On the day, the little man and I got out Chelsea kits on and ventured towards Yankee Stadium. What normally takes about 30 minutes took almost an hour due to road works and silly traffic.
We parked at the local Yankee parking house and paid ridiculous amount of money for parking (about $40 if I remember correctly) and walked slowly towards the stadium.
My little man will most times NOT hold my hand. Not sure if he’s embarrassed about holding daddy’s hand, but this time he was the one holding me tight. As we walked through security check he was refusing to let go, so i persuaded the 6″8′ 300lbs security guy to let us pass. The Jedi mind trick does work!
Inside the stadium we quickly queued for fast-food and managed to pay $40 for two buyers with fries and drinks … and I had a bottle of Bud Light for $10.
We waddled towards our seats which is not that easy with food, drinks, beer, bag and a little dude pulling my arm, and then having to show the tickets before sitting down.
The thing about Yankee Stadium is that it’s made for baseball, so fitting a soccer field onto it appears very strange and not all seats have the best view of the pitch. Our tickets were just behind the corner flag, so we had a great view of the pitch.
Ever so often I checked on the little dude and I could tell that he was amazed by this experience. Every time Chelsea scored, and the crowd went bunkers, his eyed opened wide and he looked for my hand for safety.
The game itself was ok; not fantastic, but just ok. It was after all just a friendly, so each team substituted almost every player, but it was still a great atmosphere and seeing the players was amazing. Unfortunately Chelsea was beaten 5-3!
We had a great afternoon/evening. It was the first real event we did together, a boys only event. It was very nice spending time together. We will go again, no question about that!