Source: Telegraph
Alan Smith: Arsenal memories ensure club will always be at home at Highbury
That's if you somehow didn't know Arsenal had moved down the road more than three years ago, leaving Highbury at the mercy of the cruel wrecking ball.
No sign of all that now though. Precious little to suggest, from this angle at least, that the heart had been ripped from this famous old ground.
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The giant cranes have all gone, the dust has disappeared and two listed art deco stands have been lovingly scrubbed up to form the basis of a residential development housing more than 600 apartments.
Highbury Square, it's called; in many ways a labour of love by the Arsenal board, particularly Danny Fiszman and Ken Friar, who didn't want to say goodbye without paying lasting homage to a stadium with few equals in terms of old English charm.
The result is an evocative project designed to retain the feel of an iconic structure that had hosted football matches since 1913.
As a former player, then, it was all the more eerie to walk up the main steps where Nobby, the commissionaire, used to stand on matchdays and to push open the same heavy wooden doors that guarded the famous Marble Halls. Still do in fact.
At first glance, nothing seems to have changed in this well-trodden reception area. Ticket office to the left, doors leading to the dressing rooms on the right and right there in the middle, where he always was, stands the bust of Herbert Chapman, still smiling pleasantly at every visitor.
These days, however, those walking through the door are just as likely to be young working couples with no interest in football as rabid Arsenal fans who moved here for the memories. Because after you have passed through this beautifully preserved lobby the true purpose of the place becomes all too clear.
Those doors on the right no longer lead, of course, to dressing rooms. Neither do the ones on the left lead to the manager's old office where everyone from Chapman to Bertie Mee to George Graham mapped out their grand plans.
In their place, long carpeted corridors house rows of doors which open out into one, two and three-bedroom apartments, all boasting uninterrupted views of a space in the middle that has seen so much action in its time, starting with the visit of Leicester Fosse nearly a century ago and ending up with a grand farewell on May 7, 2006, – for the record, a 4-2 win over Wigan who, coincidentally, visit Highbury's successor, the Emirates, today.
Nowadays, though, the most excitement to be had down in the middle, once you walk down a passage where the old tunnel lay, is staring at the bubbles in transparent water features or sitting on benches enjoying an al fresco lunch.
The pitch area, you see, has been converted into communal gardens where residents can enjoy a bit of greenery. Actually, the architects involved have done a great job in creating an oasis of calm in this busy part of north London.
Surrounded by privet hedges, flower beds and swaying pampas grass, your mind can wander off in any direction. Mine, naturally, concentrated on the good times in this neck of the woods.
For instance, my Arsenal debut against Liverpool in 1987, a burning hot day when, so packed was the ground, a handful of lads lay precariously on the roof of the old North Bank. Or the night we beat Manchester United, with me grabbing a hat-trick, having already clinched the title that afternoon.
Just as prominent were the Tuesdays spent running round the track and racing up the terraces. First one to bang on the corrugated iron at the top was the winner. Talk about feeling old! It all seemed like a lifetime ago as I sat on a patch of grass where the penalty area used to lie.
In some ways, Arsenal now feels like a completely different club to the one of old. New stadium, new training ground, many new people working behind the scenes.
That impression was reinforced on hearing that Maureen Byrne, familiar to everyone at Highbury as the ever-smiling tea lady for so many years, had moved into the affordable housing that forms part of the development behind the Clock End. Maureen, like most employees, was deeply attached to the place.
But it's the history more than anything that lends credence to this project. Given Highbury's unique ambience courtesy of the club's groundbreaking exploits during the Thirties, the idea seems to work on a romantic level in a way no other ground would be able to manage.
As a result, the Emirates, for all its stunning facilities, is overshadowed in one sense at least. While it might not be a football ground anymore, the new-look Highbury can still evoke a whole host of stories.
