Posted by BigRaddy
May 26 1989, a day never to be forgotten in Gooner history, but also a preface to the modern Arsenal. Here is my story of the evening and why I think it changed the face of our fabulous club.
The run up to the game is embedded in the history books, but no-one can effectively describe the disbelief and despair that echoed around Highbury following the 2-2 home draw to Wimbledon. We had a 12 point lead over Liverpool at Xmas and had seen it whittled away to being 3 points behind. We had thrown away 5 home points in two games against poor opposition. We had choked. Goodness knows the furore had there been blogs in those days – Samaritans would have been busy!
The drudge home after the Dons game was very long. I gave little hope for our chances at Anfield and didn’t even try to get a ticket, but approaching the game I dug deep, sought some “mental strength,” found some fighting spirit.
It should be noted that the game was on a Friday night…. unheard of in those days and rare now.
My wife, thinking that football was a Saturday sport, had booked us to go to a dinner party at her new Boss´s (let’s call him Rupert) flat in the centre of Hampstead. She worked in the media business, and all the guests were from Saatchi & Saatchi. I told her that I couldn’t attend unless I could watch the game through dinner, her response was to tell me to call Rupert. And here we come to the huge social change that came about that night, and in my opinion changed the face of football forever.
This was the season of Hillsborough, the reputation of English football fans was at an all-time low. If you liked football you were either violent or ignorant and uncultured. Football was for Yobs. Rupert, being cultured and polite, was delighted to hear from me and said that as a guest of course I could watch the game, but ….. I would have to sit at the table with the sound off and participate in the conversation.
We arrived and were shown into a beautiful dining room with a long table and I was sat at the end with a separate table for my 14″ TV. I felt humiliated and less-than, however my addiction came first and I was satisfied. The host had caterers to do the food and serve the wine allowing him to concentrate on his guests. Needless to say., I was at the opposite end of the table to him, due to his assumption that my passion must mean I was incapable of enriching any intelligent conversation.
Seriously, to those youngsters who read this, football fans were viewed as stupid. There were no University courses in Sports Management, no Soccer Academies etc et
So, the first half comes and goes and I am getting tense. At half time people were very “nice” to me, commiserating as though I had lost a pet. Champagne was flowing around the table, some guests went to the toilet to “powder their nose” and I sat there non-communicative, wishing I could find somewhere dark to be alone.
Second half kicked off. Smudger scores. I jump up shouting; they look at me as though I have escaped from a Psychiatric Unit, BUT and here is the start of the change – they got caught up in my passion. Rupert asked me to turn the TV so he could see it. Questions were asked “Who is the tall bloke who keeps raising his arm?”, Why don’t they shoot more? ( 😉 )”, “Why , when Arsenal play in red & white are they playing in yellow and blue?” Needless to say, I was incapable of speech.
The Mickey T moment. Never ever to be forgotten. It replays in my mind in slow motion (as I am sure it does for you). The whole table went mental. Jumping in the air, hugging, back-slapping and shouting. My main recollection was thinking “Where is my coat, I have to get to Highbury…”. but Rupert and his friends were high on the game. They had really enjoyed watching a half of football. They connected! If Big Raddy – a less thuggish man you could never meet – was a football fanatic, it couldn’t be just razorblade toting thugs that went to Highbury.
I am ashamed to say that I “liberated” a couple of bottles of bubbly, grabbed the wife, and scedaddled as fast as I could to N5. I was dropped off outside the Gunners Pub carrying the champagne which lasted about 4 minutes. The Fever Pitch film got it right, there was an enormous street party, a feeling of comraderie never repeated. The noise was deafening and I stood on the Marble steps until around 3 a.m. Even at that time the Holloway Road was awash with jubilant Gooners , sharing laughter and booze. Fantastic.
I met Rupert and a number of the fellow guests over the following seasons. All had bought season tickets at Highbury and were as knowledgeable and connected to the Arsenal as any Gooner. Football had become the Cocaine of the Masses!
This is what the Guardian write of the game and the social effect….
“Many cite the match as a pivotal turning point in English football. Writing in The Guardian, Jason Cowley notes how instead of rioting, as had occurred at Heysel with fatal consequences, Liverpool fans stayed on after the game and applauded Arsenal “as if they understood that we were at the start of something new; that there would be no returning to the ways of old”. Cowley describes the match as “the night football was reborn” and that the event “repaired the reputation of football”.
The match is not only seen as the starting point of a renaissance in English football, but also the moment where people started to see the untapped commercial potential of live football on television.”
“Good Old Arsenal We are proud to say that name”
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
Morning all
Apologies to any of you who had already read this post when it was published briefly in error last week.
Unfortunately Raddy is away this weekend and won’t be able to join in the comments but surfice to say its a really good read and will get loads of us reaching for Fever Pitch again ……………..
Tremendous post Raddy. oh what a night that was. I had driven back non stop from Aberdeen to get home and watch the match with my then 12 year old scouser son.
He was heartbroken, I was delighted and trying not to show it.
But yes, a sea change took place in football from then on, hospitality packages became both more popular as a business tool and of course steadily more expensive.
Hi everyone,
We’ve been having trouble with this post, so I’ve put it up with a different title, please click on the home button and it should come up as a new post…..
Yes I remember that night well, too. I was at my mum’s, she was alive then, with no sign of the cancer which was to kill her in 1997 at the young age of 63. My younger brother was also there, he was terribly depressed. I thought he was close to suicidal at the time. He was the one who pulled the birds, but he wanted what I and our other brother had, a happy marriage. At least that’s what he thought I had. So did I at the time, shows how wrong you can be.
The thing was, Arsenal’s performance on the night really cheered him up, the goal by Smudger certainly did a lot, but as the time ticked away, no-one knew what was coming.
The stoppage for the injury to Kevin Richardson, was decisive. Rico had chased back on a Liverpool breakaway, and in stretching to block a shot, had done enough to put the Liverpool player off (was it McMahon?) and as 90minutes ticked up on the clock, the ‘Pool players started shaking hands, and David P***t (why do ITV still let him ruin every televised Arsenal game they get?) gave his infamous summing up of the game.
On the restart, Liverpool were, for once, a rabble, no shape at all, thinking they had done enough. For the first time, the game was stretched, allowing a great breakaway and Thomas’ famous goal.
During the course of the evening my little brother had gone from suicidal to ecstatic. He never really looked back. Nowadays, after a failed marriage, he has found the woman he always wanted, and he couldn’t be happier (except when Arsenal don’t win!). I often wonder whether we would have lost him, as well as my mum, had the outcome been different that night.
Goodness me Dave, Such ramifications from 2hrs of sport, Perhaps sport does reflect life as the saying goes, after all as your post shows, there are winners and losers in both.