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Nick Hornby Attends First Aresenal Game
This is the game Nick Hornby first fell in love with the game of soccer. He loved every aspect including the atmopshere that came along with attending games. Playing soccer on the tennis courts was a recess ritual and he too was becoming an adequte street-soccer player. -
Hornby Realizes Arsenal is a Boring Team
Going to many games, Hornby often encountered zero-zero ties as well as only a few goals in 6 games. Arsenal was beginnging to be boring to watch for him since they were not neccessarily the best team in the league. The desire to go to games was diminishing at this point. -
FA Cup Final '78
At this point Nick Hornby was an Arsenal fan for 10 seasons. Of those seasons, they had only came away with 2 trophies. He was sure the team would gaureentee the win against Ipwich. They lost 1-0 and Nick once again had to deal with his team being deeated. -
Rival Game
Arsenal vs. Manchester United
Final Score 3-2 Arsenal The game was back and fourth until the final minutes when an Arsenal player got a toe on a cross and sent it into the back of the net. This was a sweet redempetion and the jaw-clenching rivalry game will never be forgotten by Nick Hornby -
Coaching Job
Nick Hornby was teaching at Cambridge and got a coaching job for the team. One of the triumphs was winning agaisnt the across town team 2-0 even without the star goal-scorer. -
New Team in Town
Due to his new teaching job at Cambridge, Hornby begins to familarize himself with the local club team. He is now an avid fan, but nothing compared to the love his Arsenal team. -
Introducing Pete
Pete is a fellow Arsenal fan extremist. Pete pushed Nick over the edge and Hornby is indifferent about it. One thing for certain is that Pete was able to keep the spark alive of soccer in Nick's life. He still thanks him for that to this day. -
Feeling Good
By this time, Nick was relieved of all depressions he had earlier in the book. He refers to this time as "golden", because that is what the times he faced were. Golden. Everything was going good for once his team was winning and times were good with his girl friend. -
Dedicated Fan
Spraining his ankle was only one of the minor details on his jorney to the Arsenal game. A swollen ankle and the inability to walk on it was not going to slow him down. Once they got to the stadium they stood outside in order for a safer environment for the ankle, it poured rain the whole time. The bright side of the day is that Arsenal won. -
Personal Soccer Career
Every Wednesday night was the night Nick Hornby and friends would hit the field for their own leauge. This was serious game time now. Scores mattered and people actaully tried. This was the first time Nick Hornby seriously played the game he had been watching for decades.