The early departures have been discussed many times. Those 5 minutes make the difference between getting a train or P and R bus relatively quickly, or having to queue up for sometimes an hour or more. For night games, that’s even less fun than it is on rainy, wintry afternoons. It’s bad enough...
I'm sure the atmosphere was great in the NS but unfortunately it doesn’t really carry unless you sit close to the North. I sit one block to the left of the halfway line in East Upper and blimey, the Ajax fans were seriously loud when they got going.
Any half decent commentator will do his research before any game they’re working on. They’re journalists first and foremost. I’m sure Darke is knowledgeable but he will have genned up on the obvious stuff like injured players and have it all written down in front of him.