‘A real kick up the backside’: The WSL selection headache facing the Arsenal street vendors

Published by

Jack McRae

on

8th Nov 2024

The smells from Gillespie Road waft down the tunnel and into the depths of the London Underground. Week after week, year after year, burgers, sausages and onions have been flipped, seared and fried outside the home of Arsenal Football Club.

Matthew Reed, a familiar face to the thousands emerging from the Arsenal tube station turnstiles, is busy cleaning his van’s worktop after the initial pre-match wave of customers has disappeared into the Emirates Stadium.

His eyes flick up above his glasses when, speaking above the disappointed hum of the crowd watching Chelsea Women beat the Gunners 2-1, I interrupt his scrubbing.

Reed has been selling merchandise or food to Arsenal fans for 50 years and, with a sigh, bemoans the change he has seen in football from his small van window. “It’s too expensive, it’s not a working man’s game anymore.”

While the price of a ticket to see Arsenal’s men’s team play can cost up to £141, many at the Arsenal vs Chelsea WSL clash would have spent a tenth of that price. The increased accessibility and appetite for the women’s game has led to numerous record-breaking, 60,000 sell-out crowds.

Playing at the Emirates can only be seen as a positive in the development of the women’s game, but the street vendors are concerned for their businesses. This season, the Emirates has already hosted four of a minimum of 11 games and is yet to come close to a sell-out – with the game against Brighton on Friday night selling just over 20,000 tickets so far.

“It’s a greed thing,” Reed argues. “They’re talking about having all the women’s games here and it won’t work. You’ve had three on the trot here [against Manchester City, Everton and Chelsea] and crowds are getting smaller and smaller.”

Reed explains that he has come to every single Arsenal Women’s game that has been hosted at the Emirates, but points to the previous week’s clash against Everton which sold just over 25,000 tickets as a potential tipping point for his business.

Speaking ahead of Arsenal’s Champions League game against Norwegian side Vålerenga, Reed is facing a dilemma: to come and potentially make a loss, or stay at home. With only a few thousand tickets sold ahead of the midweek clash, he says that the game “could be a real kick up the backside.”

There was a further blow for Arsenal Women in the Champions League, with the men’s fixture against Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup taking priority over the game against Bayern Munich on 18 December – despite the Arsenal Women’s game being set on that date at the Emirates for months. With Meadow Park not able to host the game, fans are currently unsure where the fixture will be staged. While fans of Arsenal Women have been made to suffer, the vendors may well welcome the decision.

*_{^{Richard has already made the decision to not attend ‘quieter’ Arsenal Women’s games at the Emirates}}*

Reed is not the only vendor considering not coming to the Emirates to serve fans before certain Arsenal Women’s games. Jo, from ‘The Rusty Pig’, explains that “my boss is just having the same [thought] at the moment. We did last week [against Everton] and it wasn’t very good. This week has been better but he is debating the same.”

Reaching the end of the road and taking the left bend onto Drayton Park, the merchandise and food stalls continue right up to the steps which lead to the ground.

A small sign attached to a van across the road reveals that one vendor has been “Serving the Gunners for 35 years”. His van may have a consistent line of customers grabbing a last-minute snack before every kick-off, but Richard has already made the decision not to serve the Gunners on less lucrative women’s match days.

“It’s definitely quieter,” he explains. “We normally look and see how many tickets have been sold before the game. For example, the game on Sunday against Everton had a low attendance. Today’s game was around 45,000, so we worked this one. It depends how many people will be at the stadium.”

Not all vans are ready to pack up and desert the women’s games just yet. Further down Drayton Park sits Astarburgers, where Josh is full of optimism for the women’s games at the Emirates. “They always come with families; mother, father, children. It is a bit [better for business]. The women’s game seems more organised and the way the crowd carries itself, it is more settled,” he says.

*^{_{The sweet stall welcoming women’s football at the Emirates}}*

Each vendor noted the clear disparity between the crowds for Arsenal’s men and women’s sides with many more women and children attending the latter’s games.

“It’s a different kind of punter coming now,” Dean Tonkin reflects. From his sweet stall, his cry of ‘Anywhere you like, have a look!’ has echoed down the streets of north London for decades.

“Women’s football is good for what we sell. We’re selling something that they want,” he says. “It’s a lot more women and kids [in the crowd]. More families come because it’s affordable.”

While some vendors may make tough decisions to not come and sell in their usual spot, for Tonkin and his sweets, “women’s football is good for us.”

A couple of days later, as I emerged from Arsenal tube station before the game against Vålerenga, the spot where Matthew Reed’s van has always been, lay vacant. His return for the Brighton game on Friday night also appears unlikely.

As the Arsenal Women interim coach Renee Slegers prepares her winning selection for Arsenal’s clash with Brighton, the street vendors have their own selection headache: to serve the fans as they have always done, or stay at home until there are sell-out crowds again.

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