1999/00

3rd Round

13.12.99 Arsenal 3 Blackpool 1

4th Round

9.1.00 Arsenal 0 Leicester 0

13.12.99

Arsenal 3 Blackpool 1

I’ve never been to Blackpool. I must admit, all the fat northerners, the seaside tat and the food cooked in industrial strength lard has always appealed to the bit of me that hasn’t been scoured by political correctness or corrupted by the insidious yuppie values of modern Islington. And one other thing; everyone I’ve met from Blackpool has been completely barking English mad. For instance, I worked with a geezer from the Golden Mile who used to drink the most revolting concoction I’ve ever seen; namely, wait for it- pints of Guinness and blackcurrant. Firstly, it smells like something ejected from a gland near a monkey’s arse and secondly it looks like you’ve got pyorrhoea or you’ve just coughed up all the soft organs in your mouth into a pint glass. One pub we used to go in even refused to serve it because it made the barmaids feel ill.

My mate thought it was the best drink in the world. That’s why I like people from Blackpool. They’re big, they’re brash and they don’t give a rats.

In yesterday’s Sunday papers the Blackpool manager was banging on about how ‘they didn’t have a chance’ and that ‘they were just going to enjoy the night’ and how ‘it was an honour to play the Arsenal’. Bollocks. These third round games are serious stuff. You treat them any less at your peril. And in a nutshell this was Arsenal’s problem tonight; they fannied about. In particular, Marc Overmars, who put so many shots high he should have been called ‘Marc Overbars.’ With a forward line of Sukor, Overmars and Henry we thought we’d be laughing, but we reckoned without the almost cataclysmic pairing of Adams and Luzhny. Indeed, Blackpool’s equaliser, a fine cross and flick, came from someone creeping up on Tone’s blind side.

Arsenal’s first goal, a long range shot from outside the area, that walloped in by the far post, came after a sustained bit of pressure. And guess where that goal came from? Oh course, the Gallic Goal Machine, Gilles Grimandi. Astonishing. No John Jenson, he.

Half time, 1-1 and Arsenal looked a little rough. Sukor was getting nothing from a greedy Overmars and Petit was finding himself completely swamped in the midfield by hurtling Blackpool players. It wasn’t until late in the game after Henry attempted the obligatory Arsenal overhead kick and found himself dumped on his derriere that Overmars whipped a ball into that other well known predatory striker, one Tony Adams. Fast, simple slide in/come poke. Blackpool tried to get back into it but Arsenal’s substitution of Kanu for Suker saw them just about give up and watch the Nigerian’s performance of drag backs, rollovers, foot kisses and leather strokes. Absolute poetry. On for 15 minutes and definitely man of the match.

The very late Marc Overmars’s low stab through a packed defence was a goal especially for those frozen souls who hadn’t fucked off early to catch a bus.

The Blackpool fans went mental at the end. A little bit of Blackpool rock. Good luck to them, I say.

Man of the Match: Kanu. Warmed up everyone’s cockles.

4th Round

9.1.00

Arsenal 0 Leicester 0

The old bloke at the bus stop, wearing the deeply unfashionable Arsenal bobble hat, had this one pegged.
"The ref," He said. "Was well bent."
"How can you say that? He sent a Leicester player off for absolutely nothing." (That, incidentally, was me at my most reasonable, rigidly fed-up and frozen solid.)
"When I say bent, I mean homosexual. He was a homosexual." I love old blokes, they come from fricking planet Knitwear; woolly hats, woolly clothes and definitely woolly thinking.
"He didn’t know which way to bleedin’ turn." Ah. The nub of the argument. I see. As for the ref really being ‘homosexual’ the people I know that are gay are usually bright, witty and blessed with impeccable eyesight. None of these you could level at the referee. He was a prissy, vindictive git, though. Maybe old man cardigan had a point.

If this was anyone’s first ever Arsenal game, then you have my heartfelt apologies; what a complete pair of pants this was. Great big grey y-fronts with a two-tone urochrome wee-wee hole and a crusty Marmite coloured gusset. Terrible, terrible game. The one momentous sliver of the day that wasn’t crushed by the constant workmanlike hoofing of a Leicester defence that treated the ball as if it were a live grenade or a fish bowel containing the anthrax virus was a terrific Sukor shot that the under-worked Foxes ‘keeper tipped over the bar. Arsenal, lacking nearly all of their probing instruments (Parlour, Overmars and Bergkamp) had all the bite of a slug. Indeed, most of Arsenal’s balls ended up hitting a Leicester player who then whacked the ball as hard as he could into the Van Allen Belt. Drivel.

The other highlight of the day was the free bags of Curry Twiglets given out to us by some particularly unlovely women outside the ground. Football fans are a lot cheaper than lab rats, so the unregulated Twiglets were distributed willy nilly to anyone who looked like a fat bastard. Me, I got three packets. For the uninitiated curry Twiglets taste like ordinary Twiglets that have been inserted into an Indian’s rectum, wiggled about a bit and then bagged while they’re still dripping. Consider this a health warning.

My mate commented the other day that he couldn’t wait for the season to get going. At this rate the only thing that’ll get the Arsenal going would be a monster delivery of Twiglets’ newest flavour.

Man of the Match: Silvinho. You have to go through a lot of shit to find a diamond.