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September 1997
Arsenal 4 Bolton 1
Well, the Bolton fan in the pub was certainly enjoying himself. There he was, having backed two Arsenal fans in the corner of The Bank of Friendship, telling the whole world, ‘that he was mad for it,’ again and again, like some badly made Liam/Noel automaton. With his horrible flat accent, his waving uncoordinated hands and his shaven head that somehow was shaped exactly like a Jersey Royal, he was royally getting on my tits. But the good thing was that by half past nine, old ‘mad for it,’ covered in most of the fluids that only an hour earlier were inside his body, had given up the ghost; another northerner once again beguiled by the deceptive strength of Southern ale. That really was a pertinent parallel for the whole day. Another northern team who started strong, made a lot a noise and ended up covered in shit. If anyone in the whole of the Premier League is ‘mad for it’ it must be Ian Wright. After his two stunning goals for England in midweek he must have fancied his chances against a Bolton side that had half of its defence crippled through injury, its top scorer from last season on the bench and a weirdly fat Peter Beardsley up front. Bolton, who everyone seems to using for target practice this season, started off quite well. Colin Todd has them well organised; they can pass a bit, hunt in packs and have the sturdy, problematic Nathan Blake to lead the line. If Blake can get over those massive sulks every time he loses the ball he'd be a fine player. We all enjoyed taunting him with, ‘You’re Welsh and you know you are.’ It was Blake’s cross that led to the first and only Bolton goal. A slow, looping header had Seaman wheeling back to tip the ball up and under into the net. From where we were sitting it looked like he saved it. But the jumbotron never lies, we were one nil down. Just previous to that, Ray Parlour had hit the bar, Bergkamp had shot wide and Wright was running into all sorts of tangles with Bolton’s sticky little defence. Bergkamp, playing a much more muscular role in the midfield, forced his way through the Bolton hordes, pushed the ball to Wrighty, who ran across the area diagonally, always unbalanced and just as you thought he must fall, screamed the ball across the opposite diagonal and into the net. Fine, fine goal. That was the record equaliser. Off came the shirt. No T-shirt this time, but a small white vest with red lettering: ‘179, JUST DONE IT.’ No-one spotted the Nike logo until later. The place went barmy. After that Arsenal piled on the pressure. A move that was more of a push than a sweep ended up with Vieira sticking his long legs through a pile of players, the ball bobbled out, headed towards the line and there, with the easiest of his 180 goals, was Ian Wright. Run, tap, bedlam. This time, the shirt went over the head, he headed for the halfway line laid down and the entire Arsenal team celebrated by forming a human red and white pyramid over the small supine form of Ian Wright. It was a stunning moment that just made you grin from ear to ear. Mad for it. When the din died it was business as usual. Ray Parlour, who quite unbelievably, had a stunning game, even eclipsing Overmars on the other wing, managed to find himself in a shooting position, had a stab and got a fortuitous deflection that wrong footed the Bolton ‘keeper. 3-1 and it still wasn’t half time. Inevitably the second half was anti-climatic. It was as if ‘Gone With the Wind’ had lasted an extra 45 minutes and we were forced to watch Scarlett O’Hara wash out her smalls, tug those annoying nose hairs out and scrape off her toe jam. Bolton went through the motions and very brown they were too. Colin Todd resorted to that most dismal of tactics i.e. ‘.bringing on your son.’ Whether it be the Todds, the Redknapps, the Lampards or the Hateleys, you know that this footballing ploy is truly wretched. The only one I think showed any promise was Bobby Charlton’s, Suzanne. Arsenal’s fourth took me by complete surprise. A lightning cross from the left by sub David Platt, looked to be going too fast for anyone to do anything with, but Wright turned and finished with a first-time volley that was breathtaking. Goal of the month, we reckon. Ian went off shortly after to an ovation rarely heard outside the big grounds of the north. It was an afternoon that should have lasted forever. A fine day and a little bit of history. Man of the Match: Well, Ray Parlour was excellent. OK, then, Ian Wright.
Chelsea 2 Arsenal 3 Well, I would have been happy watching this in the pub, but when three tickets turn up to one of the most expensive, impenetrable grounds in the league you don’t say no, do you? The last time I went to Stamford Bridge at least it looked like a stadium. Now it looks like a cross between Homebase and a petrol station. The twenty storey tower block being built at the old Shed end is a particular laugh; all the windows appear to face away from the pitch. Brilliant move. As the two or three thousand gooners squeezed into the miniature seats on the lower east stand, the sun blinding us all to the glories of a Chelsea monument to all things jerry built, most of us couldn’t help wondering if the underpowered performance against Salonika might have some bearing on this match. We need not have worried too much. Chelsea the team are much like their fans: old, stupid and definitely not local. It’s always amazed us that out of all the supporters in the league it’s the Chelsea fans that have no conception of the rules of football. They shout, swear and moan about absolutely everything with no idea of what is going on. It’s probably got something to do with the fact that the bulk of their fans last went to a game in 1971. And with Ken Bates’ prices, who can blame them. The Chelsea machine has a shiny blue paint job, streamlined fins, bright lights and a nasty, black oil burning engine full of ill-fitting clanging parts. Old Ruudy knows a dirty git when he sees one. One tackle on Vieira from the taxi-hating sooty puppet, Wise, was like something out of a Clive Barker novel. Le Saux had a go at feigning being kicked and Hughes tried to eviscerate Winterburn in the last minute. Incidentally, after Nutty and Hughes had their tussle, Winterburn turned to us, pulled a piss taking Welsh face and mouthed something very rude about old Marky. Enough of the inter-London internecine warfare, what of the game? The return of the non-flying Dutchman, Mr Bergkamp, made all the difference. His two goals were prime bits of predatory striking. The first, not long after Poyets feeble tap in, came via a neat Vieira pass that found Wrighty’s head. He headed into Bergkamp’s path and the shot, though simple and straight, was sweet. 1-1. Just after half time Chelsea cocked up a clearance, the ball ran out to Bergkamp, who hit a low shot that had De Goey well gummed up. The Blues responded by bringing Mark Hughes. Within minutes he had sprung the Arsenal offside trap, put in a blinding cross that fell for that grinning chimp, Zola to fall over and bundle it into the goal. I must say that I thought Seaman flapped a bit. It was a soppy goal to let in. 2-2 and that might have been it but Le Beouf, their best player by a mile, managed to get himself sent off and Arsenal, smelling blood, started to sharpen their knives. Chelsea decided to sit back and camp a bit. Bad move. What Chelsea are to defending John Inman is to heterosexuality. Arsenal came at them in waves and the Blues cut them down like corn. Some of the tackling was shocking. We seemed to be in for a sizeable chunk of injury time, when Nigel Winterburn intercepted the ball around about the halfway line, looked up and let fly with the only foot that he’s got. We were sitting right behind his arse, looking straight down his spine, looking at an angle you’ll never ever see on any TV camera. For a split second we saw what Nigel saw. No way would he shoot from there, I thought. His foot went back and the ball went up, over and down, prescribing the same arc as a well hit nine iron. I watched that ball all the way. When it went in that top corner of the net, I couldn’t believe it. Sensational. The gooners went ballistic. A big fat bloke fell on me and I copped a smack in the ear. What a goal. Nutty came running over to the away fans and just stood there, arms at his side and bellowed like a man possessed. You don’t get that kind of rush sitting in your living room, I can tell you. A fine victory that in the end had more to do with traditional Saxon endeavour than Euro equipoise. We were all ecstatic walking down the King’s Road singing ‘You’re not very good’ to anyone in a blue shirt and pondering things like why the fuck Chelsea have a lion on their shirt. A toothless old pensioner is more like it. Man of the Match: Sorry Nige. Has to be Denny boy yet again.
Arsenal 4 West Ham 0 Football may be a funny old game, but this was definitely a game of one half. 4-0 up at half time there was nowhere for West Ham to go. All the ersatz cockneys could do was try and restore a bit of pride. And, against all the odds, they did that magnificently. They held onto the ball, kept possession and passed it brilliantly. Mind you, that was the supporters, not the team. Every time a ball went near the West Ham crowd they hung onto it, threw it about a bit and generally showed the sorry sods in the Irons shirts on the pitch how to deal with total Arsenal domination. Even from the off, the West Ham tactic of pushing up to the half way line looked decidedly iffy. At one point I counted five of them, all strung across the centre line. All they needed was a bar through the middle of them and we could have had a blinding game of table football. But, slagging off West Ham could take all the bandwidth in the world, so I’ll be quiet now and just mention that any team that relies on the human sucker fish, Ian Dowie, as a main striker deserves to have its bumps felt, or in the Hammer’s case, its bubbles burst. The evening started with an over the top tribute to Ian Wright. The Daily Mirror produced cheap looking, black and white, Ian Wright masks that we were all supposed to wear. Most of them ended up on the floor as they seemed to frighten the kids. On the pitch a bunch of red balloons each one representing one his goals was coaxed into the September sky. A group of kids wearing shirts of teams he has scored against joined hands and looked terribly Beneton. If they had sung, ‘We are the World’ I’d have fucked off home then and there. Hill-Wood, looking like a Aga oven in a black suit, gave Wrighty a black box with something gun shaped in it. It went on a bit I can tell you. The match, when it arrived, was almost like an afterthought. The West Ham fans obviously fancied their chances. The dreadful ‘Bubbles’ song rose and fell; a clapped out old music hall number long past its best before date. Exactly like the team really. (Why do they sing that song, anyway? I would have thought that the last thing you would do is sing about how you like to fellate Greeks.) When the game finally got underway it was obvious that the boys meant business. Our midfield: Vieira, Petit, Parlour and Overmars looked quite superb. Petit, in particular had his best ever game for us. It was Petit’s long pass that found Bergkamp running one on one with a West Ham defender. The ball bobbled, but even at speed Bergkamp controlled it well. Ludo closed in, but Dennis managed the bounce and guided it past the ‘keeper with what looked like his thigh. It wasn’t long before Bergkamp had the ball again and slid a micron perfect pass through a tangle of legs that Marc Overmars ran onto for a satisfying slot into the West Ham goal. If the fates had conspired against us in the Spurs game, then in this one they were giving us 24 carat hand job. The penalty decision against West Ham looked a little harsh, but Ian Wright put it away with a ball that barely missed the inside of the post. Precision stuff. Arsenal’s fourth came from another breathtaking Bergkamp pass and again it was Overmars on the end of it. This time he had much more space; poor old Ludo had a flap at it, but a drunk trying to stop a 125 would have had more joy. The half ended with the clock end singing, "Brazil, we thought we were watching Brazil," to the old ‘one nil’ theme. Anti Welsh Bit. (Skip if sensitive or a bit PC) Also, right on the stroke of half time, Hartson used his famous Welsh elbow on Winterburn’s jaw. The ref saw nothing, but as it happened right in front of us we couldn’t fail to notice it. If you want to try a similar move at home you’ll need a small Sony Playstation and a handy sized Mortal Kombat cartridge. X-certificate stuff, Taffy. The sooner we get complete independence from Wales the better; pack off all those choir singing, thuggish, morons who think Max Boyce is actually funny and make Offa’s Dyke three hundred feet high, mine the fucker, put razor wire on the top and don’t let them see a fucking penny of our taxes. Oh, and your women all look like pointy nosed pigs. You can take that bulimic weather girl, Sian, something or other and lock her up in a pen with all the other ugs somewhere near Abberwristjob. Return to biased match report The second half was all about Harry Redknapp trying to make his CV look less shit and to be fair to West Ham hung onto the barest shread of their dignity. What can you say about Dennis Bergkamp? Buddhists understand all about transcending to a higher plane, but to be fair we don’t see a lot transcendence in British football. David Pleat probably thinks that Satori is a midfield player from Bari. If you can get hold of a video of the first half, I’ll guarantee you won’t believe your eyes. I know it was West Ham, but Arsenal purple patches are so rare that you owe it to yourself to have a look. Some of the stuff that didn’t come off was absolutely gobsmacking. You just have to pray that Bergkamp stays fit. We all know what a capricious game it can be. Hubris affects players and fans alike. Keep your fingers crossed. Simply the best first half in years. Bergkamp may not be able to walk on water, but surely it’s only a matter of time. Man of the Match: Dennis Bergkamp.
Everton 2 Arsenal 2 Somebody called Everton a ‘sleeping giant’. Well, if this giant is a lardy bloke, pissed out his brains asleep in front of Match of the Day, his fag burning a hole in the carpet, then I reckon the description is spot on. Gaz’s law says that today is when the fat geezer wakes up. Arsenal arrived at Goodison looking a bit whacked. Particularly Winterburn, who was definitely whacked (Hartsonus Bashus Jawus), Wrighty (Groinus Pingus) and Bergkamp (Knackerus Dutchus). Well, Arsenal went off like a rocket. Bergkamp, still flying around the stratosphere of Planet Football, put a fine ball through to Wright, who did what he does best; making a mug of anyone Everton put between the sticks. A little later, Overmars, saw his semi lob sail over Gerrard’s head and into the net. Half time and two nil up. In the old days you could have gone home there and then, taken the team with you, and just left an old no entry sign on the penalty spot. But in the modern Arsenal world they’re as leaky at the back as an old brass. In the end 2-2 was not only inevitable, but somewhat lucky. Someone called Michael Ball (not the singing plumpo with the dustbin shaped torso) scored along with this week’s wonder kid, the peculiarly named, Danny Cadamarteri. Arsenal held on, but did look at little ragged toward the end. Still, not a bad day. Taggert’s lot went down 1-0 to Leeds, so Arsenal are still top, a point ahead of Moan U. Salonika on Tuesday and believe me, that’ll be a bruiser. Man of the Match: Dennis Bergkamp.
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