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May 1998 6.5.98 Liverpool 4 Arsenal Reserves 0 10.5.98 Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 0
Arsenal 4 Everton 0 It’s Monday morning now and only now does the sight of the morning papers splashed with red and white scattered over the bed finally confirm what we thought was rather a nice dream. We are the champions. Only now can most Arsenal supporters finally have what they craved for so long; sleep. No more getting up in the middle of the night, unable to shut your eyes without trying work out those hideous point permutations, goal differences and matches in hand. It’s finally happened. That’s it. We can go to Anfield on Wednesday and be annihilated, and feel good about it. Certainly, yesterday most Arsenal supporters felt bodily ill. We don’t win things with two matches to go, we don’t do it in front of our own crowds, we don’t do it with flair and style. We grind results out with our industrial football on some hostile ground and the sun never, ever shines. That, historically, is our lot. Yesterday morning was all comforting ritual: shower, shave, big heart attacking greasy breakfast, answer a few e mails from those poor gooners scattered like red and white confetti all over the globe, answer another missive from a typical Man United supporter, all spite, hate and childish insults (‘Bergkamp is a cheating cunt.’ Hardly going to be discussed at the Oxford Union, is it?), check on teletext for any news of Petit’s dodgy groin, wash the saddo replica strip that I intended to wear for the game and generally find the time to sit around and shit myself that we would win sod all again. The first surreal spin on the day was that before the game we went to my mate’s house up near Highbury Barn to celebrate his son’s fourth birthday. The whole house was decked out in red and white bits and pieces and flags. What with all the people milling around the streets (hordes of them. Many people just stood outside the ground and listened to the game) my mate’s kid couldn’t believe that all these people were so interested in his birthday. As I walked into the house, Melody FM was playing ‘Solid as a Rock’. The first omen of the day I hoped. Come three o’clock and the incidence of escaping diarrhoea was reaching staining proportions. Fingernails had been bitten down to elbows and hearts were beating like some tecno beat. Looking for good portents everywhere, I asked my mate’s four year old what would the score be. Bearing in mind that numbers aren’t exactly his forte and he was wearing a multitude of badges with ‘4’ on them I wasn’t too surprised to see him solemnly hold up four fingers in answer to the question ‘how many will Arsenal score?’ This was encouraging, though somewhat spoiled by him holding up the same four fingers to describe Everton’s scoreline. An hour before kick-off and the ground was becoming packed with grim looking people all looking a bit ill, all desperate to say nothing to tempt fate. In fact, the Everton supporters that we saw were in far better spirits than their Highbury counterparts. The first bit of cheery news was that Petit was playing. Really, in the last three months you cannot underestimate his importance. Everton, dour and tall, warmed up. They lumbered and scowled a lot. They looked like angry freezer units. From the kick off Arsenal tore into them. Within a minute Wreh forced a full length save from Myrhe who tipped the ball around the post. Arsenal’s pressure was matched by Everton doing exactly…well, bugger all. They let the reds roam at will, sticking out a leg here and there and trying to implement the crappiest offside trap I’ve ever seen. Only Anelka, who was probably more nervous than us, was falling for it. The pressure led to a corner; the ball sailed over towards us in the East Stand, Adams went up holding Bilic in front of him like a hostage or a ventriloquists dummy, somebody got a head to it (later, confirmed as the hapless Bilic) and the ball smacked into the corner of the net. Did that settle our nerves? No, of course not. One goal was never going to enough. Personally, three up at half time would have done me. Everton then began to use their secret weapon; genocide with studs. The brutality was shocking. Arsenal aren’t whiter than white, but this was football with Tarantino and Cronenburg as sweepers with David Lynch and George Romero up front. Ferguson should have walked for trying to re-arrange Keown’s face and Hutchinson’s two footed drop kick on Petit only need some spinning rice flails to complete the kung fu experience. Incidentally, Petit ended up with a sixteen inch gash running down his leg. The referee, Gerald Ashby, was playing his last game. Good. I hope he has a long anonymous retirement. Let’s hope that if he injures himself that bad that the doctor doesn’t notices and just sends him home with a little wave. Good riddance to blind rubbish. There then was a bit of light relief when the Clock End decided to keep every ball that went into the crowd. I think we finished the game on ball four. It was while Petit was on the floor clutching his face from another Everton mugging that Overmars received the ball, accelerated down the touch line, cut in towards goal and did what he always does, hit it at the last possible moment. A powerful shot, it took a bobble that removed most of its sting and it crawled towards the goal, its impetus not helped by 38,000 people all breathing in. It took an age, but the bellowing roar of the crowd finally pushed it over the line into the net. Two up and not yet half time. Still nervous? You bet. Half time was a tense affair. My mate tried once again to get rid of those chewing gums that he’s been proffering all season. People were so tense that they were oblivious to the verdigris on them and were taking them mechanically and shoving them into their mouths. Everton made three substitutions at half time; more uncoordinated psychotic scarecrows. Petit, we heard was on his way to hospital with a suspected broken leg, so David Platt, our best secret weapon of the season, was given a run out. Everton were a touch more organised in the second half, but those shirts of theirs, bearing the legend ‘one-to-one’ started to look prophetic. Next season they’d be having a one-to-one with Bury and Tranmere. Good. Personally, I hope Bolton stay up. The clock was playing all sorts of games; speeding up, slowing down, stopping all together. It was driving us mental. Arsenal began to look a little weary. Vieira, without the shield of Petit, was getting so much of the ball that the odd mistake was creeping into his play. It was about now that time gave up completely, I have no idea of the order of things; it was a red and white blur, that involved goals, trophies, shouting, hugging, large drinks, waving flags and whole bottle banks of broken glass and happiness; a deeply satisfying happiness, tinged with the weariness of nine months of worry, laughs and rages. I remember Overmars receiving a wide ball, running with two Everton defenders. As far as I was concerned he’d overshot the goal, but without stopping he swivelled and described the most acute of diagonals to fire the ball into the net. 3-0. That must be it, surely? Marc danced around and the look on his face said he knew that it was all over by the considerable shouting. Even the sun decided to join in the party. In a bright beam of buttery light Gary Lewin waved the mystical number eight above his head and to add another bright point to a dazzling afternoon, Ian Wright, ran onto a tumult that made your teeth hurt. So who cares he looked rustier than the hinges of the Tottenham trophy cabinet doors? This was Wrighty. This was his day as well as ours. It was magic. That clock was still playing silly buggers. Two minutes to go; a few low chants of ‘champions, champions’ but still nobody looking the gorgon in the face. Let’s face it, we were down to win this one before kick-off and only a plague of medieval proportions would have stopped us doing so. But once an Arsenal pessimist, always an Arsenal pessimist. Somehow Steve Bould had come onto the pitch. ‘He’s got no hair but we don’t care, Stevie, Stevie Bould.’ What he also doesn’t possess is a great passing foot, so when he clipped a ball over some Everton defenders nobody really thought much of it. Except Tony Adams. Suddenly there was Tony doing a passable Bergkamp impersonation. He ran through the Everton back seven, took the ball down on his chest and with only the goalkeeper to beat hit it on the half volley with his left foot. What a beautiful strike. The North Bank went potty. My goal of the season, without a doubt. The sad man in black must have blown the whistle because suddenly the crowd volume went up from deafening to ear drum rupturing. People were jumping up and down screaming, losing their lose change from their pockets, looking at the sky, trying to see the mound of leaping players on the pitch, shaking hands from the elbow, slapping one another, suddenly feeling better than anyone has a right to feel. In all this boiling maelstrom of hapiness I spotted the old bloke in front of me, he was just sitting there quietly, crying. You’ve probably all seen the pictures of the players with the trophy by now; Wrighty doing his nut, not wanting to let the pot go, Lee Dixon typically getting his hands on it and dropping the lid, the French boys, smiles a mile wide, Winterburn and Bould wisely relishing every second, Tony Adams, looking fifty foot tall and Wenger, finally, no longer having to be diplomatic, punching the red and white air with a gleaming trophy. That has to be the enduring image of the season. I could tell you about the rest of the day; the vast dancing seas of singing people, bumping into Melvyn Bragg on a street corner, how we ended up drinking Guinness and playing bingo in a catholic club watching Match of the Day and laughing our heads off, but I won’t. We are the champions. That’s it. I’m happy. Man of the Match: Tony Adams.
Championship Bonus. Whilst going through all the newspapers we found this picture of Overmars scoring his second goal. And guess who you can see in the background. Yep, the @FC boys. That’s us inside the red ring. We’re the good looking ones.
Liverpool 4 Arsenal Reserves 0 Played at the same pace as a testimonial and as riveting, this was never going to be anything but a run out for the Liverpool boys eager to impress on Glenn Hoodle that despite their miserable league form (losing to Barnsley, Southampton, etc) they were really up for the World Cup. Arsenal made eight changes from the team that tonked Everton. We drew so deeply on our reserves that there was even a rumour that Chris Kiwomya would get a game. The highlight of the evening was the fact that despite the game being on Sky, the Arsenal decided to beam it back to an eerily empty Highbury. All the smart people took their tenners down the pub. The North Bank looked like there was about two people in it. People were still singing in the pub, some of them looked like they’ve been there since Sunday. The Gunners pub had huge holes in the ceiling where excited gooners had punched there way joyously through the tiles. Also the roof had collapsed in one part of the pub due to people having a bit of a dance upstairs. To a man we were all feeling like shit. Colds, flu, aches; all that crap you put off until you decide to let yourself go. A sort of metabolic hangover. The game? A bit smelly. Keeping it down to four was excellent. Only Wrighty looked interested and that stopped when Ince clogged him and he was taken off on a stretcher clutching his twisted and damaged World Cup hopes. The highlight of the game was when Manninger brilliantly saved Michael Owen’s penalty. The Liverpool sang ‘You’re crap and you’re Champions’ and Andy Grey decided that Liverpool were ‘awesome’. Really, we had to laugh. Later in the game Vieira and Anelka came on and made an immediate difference. We nearly had the consolation goal when Anelka superbly ran down the Liverpool defence but just steered his shot wide. So, still the Champions (no, it wasn’t a dream) and onto Villa Park for another knees-up. Man of the Match: Manninger for the save.
Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 0 Petit hit the post, Yorke scored with a cheeky spooned penalty and we all had a knees up. Who cares? Man of the Match: Manu Petit.
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