SGE forever – this is what we have in our heart. But as an open-minded fan club we are always looking for other nice football fans. One of our favorites are definitely the fans from Arsenal F.C. Let us tell you the story of this wonderful football friendship. And it has just begun 🙂
The Bedu’s have some African origin members. Therefore, we know at first hand that on the black continent “Arsi” is extremely popular. In the meantime we have learned that Arsenal much more preferred the nicknames “Gooners” or “Gunners”. But very much indeed, it will be a bloody hard job to convince the numerous African fans to replace Arsi with Gooners or Gunners 🙂 Anyhow, it made a couple of Bedu’s really curious why are the Gunners so popular in Africa?
To the first personal meeting and huge huge fun came during the match Arsenal vs. Manchester United on October 4th, 2015. If you want to know the game ended with a jolly perfect Arsenal performance 3:0! That afternoon only one team played on the football ground. MU with Wayne Rooney and the teammates didn’t realize they are in the Emirates Stadium to play football …
Our Arsenal friends in Dubai use to meet in a tremendous boozer in the JW Mariott Marquis Hotel, in the Velocity Bar. But the Bedu’s certainly prefer to call it the Arsenal Bar :-). In a very British atmosphere we had got a lot of German connections. The hotel is under German management, our personal friend Ruprecht Quietch is in charge. During the match we could have seen Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mesut Ösil with his team college Per Mertesacker. During the broadcasting we could have explored further persons who lived and worked in Germany like Louis van Gaal and Kevin Keegan. In addition to it, we could follow Borussia Dortmund’s disaster vs. Bayer München on the big screens. Thank God it was not our Eintracht …
The atmosphere with our new friends was just brilliant. It definitely helped that the Gooners played so well, but they’re really jolly good fellows! As we get told they started with 50 fans and now they have over 1.000 members! Objectively the British community in the United Arab Emirates is the largest expat one with round about 240.000 people in total. It is much much larger than the German one. But again, also written in words, ONE THOUSAND! OK, we are a bit envoius, but as a fair sportsman and true football friend, the warmest congratulations to the Arsenal fan club for this tremendous performance in the UAE! Hats off Gunners!
During the intermission the Arsenal fan club collected money for a charity – very impressive! The raffle price was an Arsenal jersey, made by the German company PUMA by the way. We have bought two tickets, but not even as a courtesy they let us win. Hence, it was a fair game 🙂 It is a great idea and hopefully we will make charity projects in the future together as well.
After the charity the Bedu’s had got the chance to present their gifts, an Eintracht Frankfurt flag and a T-shirt about our last international participation in the football world, the European League. We are proud the Eintracht devotees will have a nice place with our Arsenal friends!
To cut a long story short: The Bedu’s are cheerful and proud about the first jolly good event with our Arsenal fans friends! We are looking forward to a great follow up! Last but not the least dear Arsenal fans, thank you so much for the unforgettable evening!
The Bedus give their presents to the Arsenal fan club
The Bedus give their presents to the Arsenal fan club
Our friend John
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Fans in the Arsenal bar
Ösil scored
Ösil will be replaced
The charity
The charity
The winner of the charity
The winner of the charity
Kevin Keegan as TV commentator
The parallel match Swansea vs. Tottenham
The start of the Dortmund disaster
EFC Bembel Beduinen 
One thought on “Friendly with Arsenal”