A catch-up with ITV’s Lee Dixon

I TRAVELLED North America’s east and west coasts, from sea to shining sea, clocking up more than 15,000 miles during my never-to-be-forgotten trip to the 2026 World Cup.

It was a month-long jaunt to the four-yearly global jamboree which took me to seven games in Seattle, Dallas, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey/New York, not to mention a week at the start of the tournament in terrific Toronto.

There, I took in a stadium that blazed in glorious red, as Canada left it late to level against battling Bosnia.

Twenty-four hours earlier, I had seen the Blue Jays came from 2-1 down against Philly in the ninth, to win 3-2, prompting unbridled scenes of joy among Major League Baseball fans, as well as major international tournament travellers in that welcoming city.

England score against Panama

The fact it was ‘Loonie Dog Night’ – $2CAD for a box of four hot dogs – as well as being the catalyst for two tequila filled late nights, which saw me head home at daylight, made it even more memorable, albeit ever so hazy by dawn’s early light.

Despite all the pre-tournament doom and gloom, the kindness of strangers – and old friends – never failed to astound.

In the town of Oshawa, an hour along the blue fringes of the stunningly endless Lake Ontario, I stayed with an old uni mate and his delightful young family – a welcome gratefully save on accommodation costs. Here I found comical, wobbly-bottomed, late-night racoons on the front lawn.

There were then trips into Toronto on the mighty triple decker GO train, fuelled by my Tim Horton’s donut of the day. Randomly walking into a bar in that amiable Ontario town, I was met by window full of Arsenal flags, and a bar full of Gooners. No surprise, that became my local for the week as the tournament geared up.

Watching Canada draw with Bosnia in Toronto

The Canadians were genuinely friendly – not least the lads I met in a downtown bar who took me to a fans’ meet-up on the eve of the tournament, and who kindly bought me a Canada supporters’ T-shirt, as they and Toronto gleefully hosted the world.

When it was time to leave convivial Canada, the Durham Region Arsenal Supporters Club generously gave me one of their prized Gunners flags, as well as T-shirts, and a raft of other mementoes that humbled me to the verge of tears.

Thank you John Butcher and the Gooner gang. I promise to do the same for you, when you make it to North London for a game.

A San Francisco beat poet bar

If you threw in my first-ever visit to see the thunderous Niagara Falls from the Canadian side, then it was the perfect start to a memorable trip.

As an aside it was noticeable the Maple Leap side of the falls appeared to be far busier, than over the border.

The Trump effect perhaps? Or ‘that man’ as so many Americans described the great leader to me during my trip, especially in San Francisco’s evocative haunts I was to drink in.

They had once hosted the Beat Poets from Jack Kerouac to Allen Ginsberg. The current clientele are unable to even articulate Trump’s name thanks to their utter disgust of that cravenly venal, racist and misogynistic imbecile currently defiling their country from the seat of power.

Puget Sound

From Toronto it was onto the Pacific Northwest, to stay with another old uni pal, and his lovely family, via a cursory US security check that had me wondering just why I worried so much about making it past American border control for the last 12 months.

Seattle was everything I had hoped it would be. From the mournful pilgrimage to the house where Kurt Cobain’s lived his final hours, to the vibrant bars, whose walls were a Rosetta Stone, tracing all the protagonists involved in the late 1980s, early 1990s music scene.

Not just Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, but the seminal Mother Love Bone, and The Melvins. (You think you know grunge? Until you know the latter pair, then, just as I was, you’re a mere amateur.)

Being in such a vibrant music town, it was fitting my old American mate took us to see his friends’ band on a memorable Saturday night.

A 12-egg omelette

He also took us to a late night locals bar not listed in any guidebook, where we played beer and bingo, not to mention downing huge shot glasses of tequila, before heading onto an ever later Seattle staple, where I ‘sang’ my preferred karaoke tune of choice, to bemused punters.

They eventually, and thankfully, took me to their hearts, even if I say so myself, thanks to my mesmerisingly awful rendition of Elvis’s Suspicious Minds.

It was no wonder the next hungover morning my mate took us to the restorative Puget Sound, a vast, glacier-carved estuary in northwestern Washington State, where the air was fresh and the views stunning.

Later, he also took us to the renowned Beth’s Cafe, where, among the ‘Fuck ICE’ posters, I gorged on their gigantic, fittingly-named 12 egg omelette called the Triple Bypass and a pint of Dr Pepper. The fact I didn’t have a coronary was more to do with luck than judgement.

Meeting Arsenal fans all around the US

I also savoured Seattle’s wonderful Lumen Field, an open-air venue with a welcoming atmosphere, perfectly situated downtown, a few goal kicks from the bustling Pike Place Market, as Egypt nearly beat toiling Belgium.

Staying with old uni friends in both cities 2,500 miles apart was a perfect introduction to the tournament.

As was my friend’s surf and turf BBQ, where he bought steaks so large I mistook them for bricks (of which I still don’t know if he was joking when he told me he’d picked up ‘a few small ones’) alongside mouth-wateringly plentiful, locally sourced, sweet Dungeness Crabs.

Protests outside a World Cup match

Never have I been so happy shucking crab shells as a warm dusk fell, while supping a Seattle IPA with good company to end my first week at the World Cup.

And that was before I headed to Dallas, and the first of my three England matches.

• Journalist and Arsenal supporter Layth Yousif is editor of The Gooner Fanzine. Follow his North American World Cup adventures at @laythy29 on Twitter/X, Instagram and Threads, as well as ‘Layth’s Take’ on Substack. You can also find him reporting, home and away on Arsenal through the season.