|
April 1998 29.4.98 Arsenal 1 Derby County 0
Arsenal 3 Newcastle 1 Typical Easter Saturday this: clouds the colour of bruises, lashings of rain and a wind that could cut your spine in two. It was sodding cold. The Toon army, not all dressed as usual in their barcode shirts, were strangely silent. My mate reckoned the sultriness of the heat down south was making them dopey. I reckon they still had the hump with the Abbot and Costello duo who ran the club and had been knocking out the Geordies hard earned dosh on dodgy Spanish prozzies. Either that or they were fed up seeing their team go from being Championship contenders to a bunch of old tarts whose big fixture next season could be a Grey Green coach trip to play Bury. Honestly, John Barnes. He’s so fat now that when he went up for a header it was a race to see what would return him the ground quicker; either gravity or his tits hitting him on the head. Arsenal tried to keep the same line-up that beat Wolves on Sunday. Unfortunately, Grimandi’s back fell apart so Remi Garde was deputised for the now cursed right back position. Apart from that it was business as usual. Arsenal began cautiously, probing Newcastle’s aged mercenary defence. Newcastle, a wall of old men with Mary Poppins upfront, looked absolutely ghastly. Kenny Dalglish has created a team stitched together from the leftovers found in other teams’ dustbins. A right old monster. Unfortunately, he has neglected to breath any life into it. I know how this film ends, Ken. You’ll have all the yokels from the village, brandishing torches, outside your pad, demanding that you end your unholy experiments. It’ll end in blood. Of course, the first drama came from an iffy Bould back pass that Seaman fell on and then grabbed. Marvellous. Newcastle had a free kick about nine feet from the goal line. This dress rehearsal for the cup final was going exactly to plan. I always think we’re going to lose. Typical Arsenal supporter. Barton flicked it to the still moaning Shearer who seemed surprised when the whole Arsenal team landed on his body and cannoned the ball upfield. After that the thumbscrews came out and Arsenal began to look a bit firmer, show a bit more steel. Petit, in particular, was having a stunning game. One ball he played, inch perfect, across field, must have travelled seventy yards. Arsenal went close just after: Anelka hit the post and missed an open goal and Adams tried to bend a ball around the Toon defence. I don’t know, maybe his benders were better in the past. It was Petit on one of his forays that involved a bit of interplay with Wreh; then back to Manu (short for ‘Emmanuel’ not that team of mutant Bisto Kids from Old Trafford) who with the deftest of touches found Anelka. He shimmied, made a yard, then slid a lovely diagonal ball past Shay Givens and into the corner of the net. 1-0. The relief around the ground was palpable. Loudest cheer of the season, I reckon. The second half began with a Newcastle attack. Barton sped into the Arsenal area, jumped over Bould’s outstretched leg and did a marvellous dying swan. My mate wrote a big nine on his programme and held it up. What a dive. The referee was having none of it and promptly booked Barton. There then followed one of those blinding twenty man melees. Albert ran fifty yards to push Petit in the face, Winterburn’s wagging finger was dangerously close to a fist and Shearer did what he does best: moaned and tried to get his fellow professionals sent off. The man is pure sewerage. Albert went into the book when he should have gone into the bath and that was that. Shearer was still moaning ten minutes later. Not long after the re-enactment of Boyz in the Hood, somebody slotted a ball to Ray Parlour who ran like the wind with it down the right wing, took it through the small black and white gap made by two closing Newcastle players, put over a powerful, but accurate cross that Anelka met perfectly. Straight in. Like an InterCity 125 hitting a rabbit. Marvellous. 2-0. A strange buzz went around the ground. You started to feel that maybe there might be something in all this paper talk of cups, glory and doubles. If we were feeling good then, we were rendered absolutely moist by Vieira’s astonishing goal. He picked the ball up just inside the Newcastle half, dipped his shoulder, moved forward slightly and then with very little lift, just let fly. It must have been 30-40 yards. It flew into the top left corner. The net nearly finished up in Gillespie Road. Breathtaking. 3-0. Near the end we naused up the clean sheet record. Bugger. An offside Warren Barton, by far their best player (Islington born and bred,) was allowed a free shot, that Seaman stood no chance with. 3-1. Boa Morte also scored at the death, but the referee, intent on saving Newcastle’s embarrassment disallowed it for being too good. Inexplicable. So, another three pointer. Can this run continue? Well, Arsenal supporters are by tradition, miserable fatalists. A draw against Blackburn on Monday would be a result. Then we’ll get those calendars and calculators out again. I haven’t had this much excitement since last week. Interesting times. Man of the Match: Mr Petit.
Blackburn 1 Arsenal 4 How does the song go?: "Who’s that team we call the Arsenal, who’s that team we all adore?" Well, the team I call the Arsenal doesn’t go four up in half an hour and play some of the best football seen anywhere in the Premiership this season, I can tell you. We were a bit late getting to the pub and arrived bang on kick-off. No worries, after all it was going to be one-one or nil-nil, we’ve seen this game a million times before and Ewood Park hasn’t exactly been a happy hunting ground for us in recent years. A draw would be handsome, we thought. Just over a minute had gone when Bergkamp received a through ball, ran wide and blasted it into the Blackburn goal. It was lucky we were still waiting to get a drink because it would have gone everywhere in the ensuing bedlam. What a great start. A couple of minutes later and we were two, maybe three sips into a cold Guinness, when Bergkamp got the ball again, dipped his shoulder and threaded a pass of stunning precision through the group of statues in Blackburn shirts, to an accelerating Ray Parlour, who hit the ball with such power that the keeper couldn’t hold it. Another billowing net. 2-0 to us. Just as we were all calming down from the mass hysteria and hyperventilation, Arsenal got a corner. Petit squared it to an unmarked Bergkamp, whose shot, rising and stinging caromed into the keeper, came flying out only to find the boot of Ray Parlour who buried the bastard. Hell’s bells. What a fabulous dream this was, I never wanted to wake up. A groin made damp by a displaced pint of Guinness was a sure sign that either I’d spilt me pint or that I was asleep and had pissed the bed. This was all just fantastic. People were still arriving at the pub, squinting up at the scoreline and just picking their bottom jaws off the floor. Nobody could believe it. We all took deep breaths and tried to concentrate on the game. Blackburn, authors of their own misfortune were playing horribly wide. What with the wingers and the blokes to service them, they surrendered the middle of the pitch completely to the Arsenal. Basically, Vieira, Petit, Parlour and Bergkamp claimed the middle ground and annihilated them. Blackburn couldn’t even get hold of the ball. We were probably ready for a second pint when Winterburn, just outside of his own area, sent a ball forward, forty, maybe fifty yards, that Anelka picked up just inside the Arsenal half. He ran with it, trailing Blackburn players in his wake. A French comet, he fizzed into the blue half, took players with him, accelerated, took the ball across the diagonal and then had the cheek to put a foot over the ball in a sublime dummy and then when he was absolutely sure, crashed it into the net. 4-0 and not even half time. Amazing. Nothing can maintain momentum forever. The second half was all Blackburn; crippled and despondent, but they had most of the possession. They even managed to get a goal back. We also had an Easter snow blizzard, that the long lenses of the TV made look thicker than it actually was. We also had an orange ball, that the pub cheered as if it were a favourite sub. At this point, being dour, pessimistic Arsenal supporters we all nodded sagely at one another because we knew that they were going to abandon the game. Nobody can have that much pleasure and remain unscathed. But incredibly, that’s how it ended. 4-1. This was an astonishing game, (well, half of one) that even eclipsed the run-ins with Man Utd. Also, quite inexorably, we are beginning to draw up to United. Another couple of games like this and I’ll end up in an oxygen tent having pureed protein fed to me through a tube. Thank God there’s a little rest before the next game. The players may not need it, but I do. Man of the Match: Ray Parlour.
Arsenal 5 Wimbledon 0 Arsenal have now entered that weird zone previously only inhabited by Manchester United and Liverpool. You know the place: where every ball bounces for you, every pass goes where it should and every half chance, in the vague vicinity of the goal, is drawn magnetically into the net. It doesn’t end there. Newspapers sing your praises, TV pundits come over all red and white and even old taxi drivers who support Tottenham have shut up about Danny Blanchflower. (A quick chorus of ‘You won the league in black and white’ usually buttons them up, anyway.) But us lot, being Arsenal supporters of old, keep waiting for the bubble the burst. We just don’t believe it. And if you listen to the team and Wenger, they too, are being a bit cool about the whole thing. As it stands we need nine points from five games to take the championship. If we win the next three games, we can take the league at Highbury after the Everton game. Now that would be a marvel. Of course, we reckon that Barnsley will turn us over on Saturday. It’s not over until fat ladies sing or the very last minute of the Villa game. You’ve just got used to Arsenal doing it the hard way. There’s something Biblical about the way Arsenal makes its supporters suffer. I know, I’ve even got worry lines on my scrotum. Yes, we are the miserable fuck-pig branch of the supporters’ club, but even old reprobates like us realised that Saturday’s game was a little bit of heaven in N5. Wimbledon are no mugs. Before they came to Highbury they had one of the best defensive records in the premiership. Couple this with the fact that the last time we beat them at Highbury Anthea Turner was still on her first husband and you had a game that screamed 0-0. The first mistake was the Don’s defence; squarer than Michael Barrymore doing a rap and more forward than a cheeky monkey, they strung themselves out in a ragged chain along the halfway line as if Arsenal, despite their ages, were more pacemaker than pace. Of course we murdered them. Maybe, if Joe Kinnear had watched us dissect Blackburn, they might have saved a bit of face. The first goal was pure old time Arsenal. Petit took the corner and Adams twizzled up to meet it with a looping header that arced over Sullivan with a satisying plop. The second, minutes later, came from a tight midfield interchange. Overmars, surrounded by blue shirts, stuck out his left foot and steered the ball through the crowd, into the far corner. Bit of a pea roller, really. About this time, somebody with a radio glued to his ear screamed that Spurs were losing to Barnsley and that Newcastle had just put one past United. What a wonderful moment of pure pleasurable screaming bedlam. The third goal was all pace. Anelka gathered the ball deep in the Arsenal half, ran like a very fast animal who I once saw on Survival that I’m buggered if I can remember what it was, squared the ball to Dennis, who buried it in the net. If the net hadn’t been there it would have ended up in some old lady’s lap in Aubert Court, eighty yards behind the Clock End. Cor. In between the thrills and spills there was also some deeply lovely football. The fourth goal came in the second half from a Seaman cock-up. The day before, old spunky had totalled his new Jag in a car park and he seemed to be driving a bit of a wedge in the old defence, but recovered to kick a long ball down the touchline that Bergkamp chased. There was a little cross and suddenly there was Petit, five yards out, head down, looking a bit blonde and porny. His strike, long anticipated, changed the shape of the net forever. Great goal and it was lovely to see how pleased everyone was for him. The fifth goal, right at the death, was a splendid piece of opportunism from substitute Chris Wreh. Going in with Sullivan, one on one, he got the merest of headers to the ball and steered it delicately over the line. As a contrast to the Petit celebrations, nobody went near Wreh as he performed his now customary joyful acrobatics. I suppose, nobody fancied an eye out. What can I say? That we all have died and gone to footy heaven? Maybe, but after all those sodding years in 0-0 purgatory, we deserve this. The only thing is that it never lasts. Too high, too fast. I’ll be happy to win all the rest of games this season 1-0. That I can understand. People like me don’t deserve a performance like this, but believe me, it was fucking special. Man of the Match: Dennis Bergkamp. Glued the lot together.
Barnsley 0 Arsenal 2 Quite unbelievably, over 15,000 of us tramped over to Highbury to watch this on the big telly. By two o’clock the North Bank was full of fidgeting, mumbling people who all wanted this game over as quick as possible. Nobody was there for enjoyment. This was like going to the dentist to have your root canals needled or the quacks to have your haemorrhoids shoved back in. Painful, but necessary. The first fifteen minutes were as painful as any surgery. Barnsley prodded and poked, found one another with decent balls and seemed to be playing an offside trap bought second hand from QPR. Arsenal looked fey and vacant, particularly in the French department; Vieira, Petit and Anelka were nowhere to be seen. We were chewing our fingernails down to the pith, eating extra strong mints and generally praying in that fevered way that only devout Muslims seem to manage, but to little avail. God, being a callous bastard, had turned Mega Arsenal back into Smega Arsenal. Barnsley appeared to have the midfield sewn up; we couldn’t have got a message through it attached to a carrier pigeon. It was bloody worrying. Overmars was running into cul-de-sacs constantly and we really missed having the width of Ray Parlour on the other wing. Tony Adams and Martin Keown looked like the last two geezers left at the Alamo and Lee and Nigel were having to pretend they were twenty five again and still attractive to women. Couple this with a prissy referee and a linesman who couldn’t pick out the top line on a fifty foot eye chart and you had a game that was shaping up to put you in an oxygen tent in the Whittington heart unit. After about twenty minutes Bergkamp received a ball midway in the Barnsley half. He was surrounded by red shirts who closed him down quickly. Frankly, there wasn’t enough space to fit a popadom in, but he turned, saw a chink of light and let fly with a ball that bent like banana, curled around the keeper and settled sexily into the top right corner of the net. We’ve seen him do this before, but this one was amazingly satisfying. Beautiful. Barnsley, who had done nothing wrong, lost a bit of heart. Our French blokes woke up suddenly and the game began to flow our way. Chance followed chance for the Arsenal; balls went wide, went over, clipped bars, indeed, went everywhere except where you wanted the hated thing to go. Just before half time Overmars wriggled free, had a clear run on goal and ended up shovelling it just wide. We all thought that was that; this was going to be 1-1. The second half was more of the same; they should have put a fucking bell inside the ball and brought David Blunkett on. My God, it was hard work. Just when we were so wired out that you could have played ‘Good Old Arsenal’ on peoples’ sinews, David Platt got hold of a nothing ball in midfield that he fired forward. Overmars gathered, ran parallel to the goal, trailing a couple of players, seemed to run too far, stroked the ball in the opposite direction he was running and trundled it into the net. Big, big, screamy, jumpy up celebrations. That really knocked the last of the Paxo out of Barnsley. We held on comfortably and now go four points ahead of Man Utd. At least until Monday. At five to three I was relatively young. At five to five I was a little old man with a dodgy ticker, easily frightened by sudden movement and loud noises. Listen Arsenal, I’ve given you the best years of my life and you used them all up in an hour and a half. You owe me and the other gibbering, incontinent wrecks you created. Three points on Wednesday and Sunday would settle that account. Here’s hoping. Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira. Slow start but fine finish.
Arsenal 1 Derby County 0 Chalk this one up and file it away. Three more points and we can all go batshit. Even the crusty old pessimists in the East Stand are starting to believe that we can do it. Derby, however made it difficult. The old pals’ act between Jim Smith and Alex Ferguson was obviously in full force as Derby came to Highbury intent on stopping the rot in their current form by eviscerating as many Arsenal players as they could get away with legally. Bergkamp was the first to go, midway through the first half, clutching a hamstring that had come unstrung, helped by the appalling attentions of that bunch of sheep shagging shits from Derby. Really, I’ve seen three teams this year that are not fit for the Premier League; they have bad attitudes, bad tactics and bad teams. Congratulations Derby, you’ve just joined Southampton and Crystal Palace. It’ll be a bloody shame to see Bolton and Barnsley go down, at least they tried to play some footy. But I digress. Arsenal had their current nervy start. Derby, however, a body without either a brain or a head, were awful. Lots of pub players who would kick a shadow if they could get their studs into it. Granted, they were without their collection of Slav cast-offs, but their one tactic was to cheat blind side of the ref and put as many Arsenal players in casualty as they could manage. The referee didn’t help by giving Arsenal a fairly inexplicable penalty, that Bergkamp placed well only for Poom to save. Poetic justice, really, but it fucking shredded my nerves to noodles. Did I mention that we were all wound up tighter than Anthea Turner’s arsehole? This was fun? Having your heart go like a jackhammer every time a Derby player got the ball? Seeing those coloured lights before your eyes, meaning that some overloaded blood vessel in your head has finally exploded? We all felt like shit. This wasn’t football, this was something from the lives that we all go to football to get away from. This was raw reality. And horrible it was too. Suddenly every bounce, every stretched leg, every wayward pass has become important on a microscopic level. The old acid heads amongst you out there will recognise the symptoms. Certainly, healthwise, we all felt better when we were winning nothing. Petit’s goal when it came was a glorious release; a great roar that exploded out from Highbury and filled north London with an aural tsunami that rattled windows and dislodged slates from Avenall Road to the North Circular. Manu got the ball on the edge of the area and basically, just belted it. It snuggled into the left hand side netting and the crowd went potty. Having spent most of the first half not moving a muscle for fear of missing something, I was in the process of negotiating an extra strong mint with a mate when the goal went in. For one horrible moment, the mint, propelled by celebrations, slipped down the gullet and capped the old wind pipe like a well fitting manhole cover. Great. The happiest I’ve been for years and I’m going to fucking die by choking on a Trebor. It’s a funny old game life. If it wasn’t for all the leaping and backslapping that accompanied the goal you’d be looking at a black bordered page and reading a tearful eulogy from the missus. ("He loved the Arsenal, but he still had a few nasty habits and was always getting drunk and falling asleep on buses.") After the goal the ‘spirit’ went out of Derby. Arsenal had more chances and only Poom kept them in with a shout. No shots on goal and five yellow cards; that was what Derby contributed to the game. From us came a couple of sizzling Petit free kicks, some marvellous running from Vieira and a brilliant ‘hold up play, Alan Smith type’ performance from Anelka. And in the end it was comfortable apart from a cock-up at the end where Seaman collided with a couple of players and the ball ballooned skyward towards the open, undefended Arsenal goal. It took a millisecond to realise that it was going wide, but it was the longest slice of time I’ve ever experienced. After the final whistle everyone felt curiously deflated. A few people in cars tooted their horns and others told them to ‘shut it’. Nobody wanted to tempt fate by thinking too far ahead. The equation has become simple as a mantra: Sunday, Everton, three points, that’s it. Let’s hope that come Monday we’re nursing the mother of all hangovers. Man of the Match: Nicolas Anelka.
I Current Season I Match Archives I Mail us I Links I Home I
|
