New Year’s Day - London style
New Year’s Day might seem like a distant memory, but for me it was a particularly memorable one - a parade and Premiership football match.
I woke up surprisingly early considering the late night I’d had watching the London NYE firework display on the 12th floor of the hotel. To my delight, I discovered there’s a London New Year’s Day Parade.
Having never been to the Notting Hill Carnival, I can only guess that’s it’s in a similar vein - just 20 degrees colder.
I was staying at the Park Plaza Riverbank Hotel near Lambeth Bridge and the hotel concierge had a route map, showing the parade ended just before Westminster Bridge. The hotel couldn’t have been more perfectly placed.
It was a cold and overcast day but thankfully dry, so I wrapped up warm and set out to find the parade. 5 minutes later I could hear the music coming from the other side of Lambeth Bridge. There it was just a 10 minutes walk from the hotel. Fabulous.
London surprised me yet again - the city that keeps giving.
The parade started back in 1987 and this year’s theme was a perfect one for me ‘London Loves Life’.
Marching and steel bands banged out tunes as they went by 1000s of people lining the street. Adding to the noise were the bells of Westminister Abbey ringing in the background. It was a loud, colourful and joyful display of cultural diversity. Apparently, up to one million people line the route from Piccadilly to Westminster.
The participants were from all over London, the UK and other parts of the world, including North and South America. There were loads of cars in the parade too, from supercars revving their high-performance engines to the classic Minis, Aston Martins and Rolls Royces, and a motorcycle stunt team. My photos don’t do it justice, but there are loads more on the official LNYDP website.
One of my highlights was seeing real life Pearly Kings and Queens who kindly let me take their photo. Don’t they look fabulous?
The parade ends just before this iconic building.
What’s that saying about London buses? You wait an hour for one then eight turn up!
In fairness, it was because multiple roads and bridges were closed on the North side of the river. It must be a nightmare being a bus or taxi driver around NYE and NYD.
So to the main event - my first Premiership football game.
Shannon and Chris had bought me tickets to see Arsenal (their team) host Manchester United (my team) at the Emirates Stadium, North London.
It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to see live. OK, watching it on TV means you get close-ups and replays, but you can’t appreciate the speed the players cover the pitch or feel the atmosphere of the crowd. We had fantastic seats just past the half-way line into the Arsenal end.
We arrived as the gates opened at 6:30 pm so we could grab some dinner. There were already a lot of people outside the stadium and, similar to a concert, the excitement was palpable.
The stadium was full as the players came on to the pitch and the crowd roared with passion and expectation. It was brilliant!
My prediction was a 2-1 win for ManU and, unsurprisingly, Chris’ was a 2-1 win for Arsenal.
Although we had a couple of chances, Arsenal played very well in the first half and we were down 2-0 at half-time. The chants between the United fans sitting at the ‘Clock End’ and the Arsenal fans in the ‘North End’ were great to hear. ManU played better in the second half but not as well as their opponents, and by the 80 minutes mark it was clear we needed a miracle.
Sadly, it didn't materialise and the home fans were thrilled with their 2-0 victory. As the ManU team walked off and the Arsenal players stayed to thank their fans, the applause and cheers (coupled with Neil Diamond’s ‘Sweet Caroline’ blasting through the speakers) were almost deafening.
OK not the result I wanted, but it didn’t matter, I loved every minute of it. It was FANtastic!
I hope it’s not the first and last time I spend New Year’s Eve and Day in London. It was a great experience.