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At the end of Arsenal’s first season after swapping the intimate and elegant old Highbury for the lucrative scale of the Emirates Stadium, Arsène Wenger admitted that there were times he felt his team were at a neutral venue. It didn’t get off to the most auspicious start when the name etched into the history books as the first goalscorer was Olof Mellberg in an underwhelming and nervous draw against Aston Villa. It’s a difficult business, making a modern arena feel like home.
The imperative to imbue some feeling on to a concrete bowl, to create a semblance of home advantage as quickly as possible, was keenly felt. The club found it challenging enough that they embarked upon a decoration phase their chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, dubbed “Arsenalification”. They commissioned supersized artwork of legendary players to effectively link arms around the exterior, erected statues of Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Tony Adams and Herbert Chapman, and splashed the concourses inside with collages of colour and history.
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from Sport | The Guardian http://ift.tt/1Ia2UKj
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