Some Things Never Change. . .

This is what writer J.B. Priestley had to say about football back in 1933.

‘Nearly everything possible had been done to spoil the game: the heavy financial interest; the absurd transfer and player-selling system; the absurd publicity given to every feature of it by the press; the monstrous partisanships of the crowds.’

Then again. . .

This was the scene at Highbury in August 1933 when Arsenal played Birmingham. It was a very different scene at the Emirates Stadium last night and what would any one of those people in the crowd have thought if they had been there? Scarcely believable is how they would have found Arsenal's new ground compared to their old one...and there's the small business of the result. Almost everyone in the crowd was wearing a hat back in 1933.