What with the lockdown because of Covid19 and the media frenzy that has accompanied it I thought it would be nice to share my story of possibly the greatest evening in Arsenal’s history.

As most will know the football season in 1988/89 was interrupted by the Hillsborough disaster. That day I was in the North Bank watching Arsenal beat Newcastle on a sunny afternoon. As news trickled through on the terraces the assumption was there had been rioting at Hillsborough. News didn’t travel as fast those days. As the disaster unfolded it became clear that football would be put on hold while people were laid to rest.

The football started again, as it always does, with Arsenal in pole position for the league. Things changed: Liverpool had a new purpose to their season and Arsenal started to fold. The Liverpool v Arsenal game at Anfield was due to take place on 23^rd April 1989 (I’ve still got the ticket stub) but was cancelled as it was a week after Hillsborough. Instead the league season was extended and the game was moved to become the final match of the season on 26^th May 1989. As far as I know it’s the only time the top two teams have faced each other in the final game with both having the chance to win the league. Of course Arsenal needed to win by two!

I had a ticket for the original game, but I was going to struggle to get up to the rescheduled game. It was on a Friday night and I was doing exams at school at the time. Luckily a friend of my Mum knew somebody who was taking a minibus to the game and had a couple of spare seats for me and my mate. Also I didn’t have an exam that day. I’m sure my poor marks in GCSE biology haven’t altered the course of my life too much since!

The chances of Arsenal getting a win let alone a 2 goal victory were remote. Liverpool at the time were virtually unbeatable at Anfield, had won the league many times in the 80’s and had a fantastic side. Arsenal  were more industrial under George Graham and hadn’t won the league for 18 years. We went to the game with hope on our side, not much else.

The Friday of the game was a glorious sunny day. The guys with the van wanted to head off early to avoid potential traffic issues on the M1/M6 (wise move) so we set off late morning from Waltham Abbey for the evening kick off. The blokes in the minibus were a nice bunch ranging in age from their 40s to us teenagers. There was plenty of booze doing the rounds and one guy smoked Ganja for the whole journey. We had a kick-about at one of the service stations and then we hit an almighty traffic jam on the M6. As we’d left so much time to get to the game we didn’t miss kick off, but the vast majority of the 3000 travelling Gooners did.

We got to Liverpool and parked up in Stanley Park. The local Scallywags were charging £1 to make sure the tyres weren’t punctured. Real entrepreneurs that lot. Anyway we made it into the away end at Anfield without any bother. When we got onto the visitors terrace there were only a handful of Arsenal fans there, the rest were stuck somewhere down the M6. The visiting supporters at Anfield were given a small corner terrace and some seats next to it in the corner of the Anfield Road end. As with all grounds at the time the fans were crowbarred into a small space with little regard for their welfare. The Kop at the other end was packed with Liverpool fans swaying backward and forward singing away. It was a very intimidating atmosphere.

Before the game the Arsenal players ran out with bouquets of flowers to honour the dead at Hillsborough. This was an amazing touch. Whoever thought that up was a genius. It went down really well with the Liverpool fans, lightened the atmosphere and maybe gave Arsenal something that wasn’t there before. 

The game was a blur at the start. Liverpool really had us on the back foot and surely it was only a matter of time before they would score? Somehow Arsenal held it together with some amazing defensive play. We didn’t have much to grasp at that first half apart from holding the Champions to zero goals: an achievement in itself.

At half time the majority of the Arsenal fans arrived and squeezed into the terrace we were on. We went from having a space to sit down on to being uncomfortably squashed into a spot where it was hard to raise your hands from your sides. All terraces at the time were the same for big matches – downright dangerous.

The 2^nd half started with the Liverpool fans to our left singing about how they were going to ‘do the double again’ (turns out Arsenal were the first team to win the double twice in ’98). The atmosphere was bubbling, but we didn’t think we had a goal in us until…Smith scored from a free-kick. The Liverpool players surrounded the linesman right near our corner and pressured him to give offside. I think he was turning but the referee was having none of it and awarded the goal – game on!

As the game approached the final whistle we had a great chance with Thomas, but he fluffed his lines. We thought it was game over as time was slipping away. As we know Thomas was just practising his finishing and deep in injury time flicked the ball over Grobbelaar into the net. There was bedlam in the Arsenal end for the next 30 minutes. I remember the guy next to me on the terrace thanking his God for the victory.

We saw the League Trophy presented and it then dawned on us that we had to make our way back to the minibus and get out of Liverpool with our lives intact. The first hurdle was past the mounted police who were meant to be protecting us. One of the coppers looked at me and said “you’re going to get your heads kicked in” as they trotted off into the night leaving us to our own devices. The scousers approached us but instead of giving us a beating they shook our hands and congratulated us. After Hillsborough I think the Liverpool fans had seen enough and maybe the gesture of the Arsenal players laying the flowers had helped.

Things got hairier once we were heading home in the minibus. A group of youths started throwing things at us when we were at a red light in Toxteth. Without a thought the red light was ignored and we were on our way again. A car tried to run us off the road on the M62, but that was the last problem we encountered.

There was an impromptu party at a small service station somewhere on the M62 where about 100 Gooners gathered and we all did a Conga around the forecourt. I remember somebody taking photos of the event. I’d pay good money to see those. We got back home at about 4 in the morning and my Mum had recorded the match, so I watched the last 10 minutes before heading to bed.

We met up with some of the blokes from the minibus a few times, but fell out of contact with all of them pretty quickly. There was a guy called Richard who arranged the minibus; the driver was a big ginger haired bloke; an Indian lad with long hair; Paul with the big ears; little Graham; a lad with a Celtic top and a few others I think.

At the time I thought I was hugely lucky to have been present for possibly the greatest night in Arsenal’s history. I haven’t changed my opinion over 30 years later.

What a day out that was. One I will never forget!

Pete the Thirst

I’m still buzzing from PSG qualifying into the CL 1/4 finals (although anxious that the competition will be cancelled due to Covid-19) and going down the PSG memory lane remembering of times when in the 90s, we had players like Rai that helped us beat teams like Real Madrid, I thought that it would be fun to look back at the Arsenal Invincibles team especially since Liverpool cannot match our feat anymore…What a team we had!

So I asked myself the question, if I could recruit one player from our Invincibles team (took the players with the most played games in the EPL so no Edu or Parlour or Wiltod), who would it be and why?
Lehmann – Lauren, Toure, Campbell, Cole – Freddie, Vieira, Silva, Pires – Bergkamp, Henry

The obvious choices maybe Lehmann – Campbell – Vieira – Henry but Pires was just phenomenal that year and our defense was hard to break and given the state of our defense, shouldn’t we directly upgrade our RB or LB?

It is hard to tell and I am looking forward to your answers. Remember, the angle is not “who you liked best” from the Invicibles team but which player would improve us the most and address our most pressing weaknesses?

I will share with you my views a bit later as I do not want to influence your opinion 😛

RC78

When Alexandre Lacazette banged home our winner against West Ham on Saturday all Arsenal fans breathed a sigh of relief.

We hadn’t been playing particularly well but three points were essential if we were to hold out any hope of European football next year.

I wouldn’t have cared how we got the winner – a rebound off Mark Noble’s backside would have suited me just fine. But I was pleased that it was Laca who made the decisive intervention.

He has not exactly been a fan favourite this season and I have read numerous comments to the effect that we should “dump” him at the end of the season.

Oh, how fickle we fans can be.

I think it’s time to add a bit of perspective to the Lacazette debate.

Yes, he had a rotten run for a large part of this season and his goal drought was becoming positively Saharan. But if you look at Lacazette’s record across a longer period you see a consistent scorer who’s generally good for a goal every second game.

That’s doesn’t make him Thierry Henry, but it also doesn’t make him Lenny Henry. A goal every two games in an EPL season means you end up with 19 goals, which is a solid return, especially in a team where your strike partner is considered the principle scoring threat.

In his Lyon career Laca hit the back of the net 100 times in 203 appearances. In his first season in North London (2017/18) he managed 17 goals in 33 starts. The following season he bagged 19 in 36 starts.  

And hopefully, as the West Ham strike illustrates, he is starting to get back to scoring form just in time for the business end of the season.

Since breaking his drought in the 4-0 win over Newcastle (when he came on in the 85^th minute and managed a somewhat lucky goal) he has played 243 minutes of footy and scored three times (at an average of one goal every 81 minutes).

It hasn’t all been great. That 243 minutes includes 109 goal-less minutes against Olympiacos on the night we were ousted from the Europa League. But there are signs that Laca is coming back to being the striker we know him to be, as the winner against West Ham indicates.

I don’t want to overstate the level of doubt people have had about him. I certainly don’t think the crowd has been giving him a hard time or anything of that sort. But I have detected a widespread sense that he’s not really up to it, which is just wrong.

In addition to his goal scoring abilities, Lacazette is a very hard worker, always closing down the opposition and defending from the front. Even in the midst of his miserable run in front of goal I never saw him hide for a second.

So let’s all be thankful that a top quality player looks as if he is on the way to regaining his confidence and touch.

When Laca is back, The Arsenal benefits.

RockyLives

Today we take on West Ham at the Emirates after a week and a half of ups and downs.

On the down side we crashed out of the Europa League with a home defeat to Olympiacos and our Uruguayan midfielder Lucas Torreira suffered a fractured ankle in the FA Cup tie at Portsmouth.

On the up side, we qualified from that FA Cup tie and now face Sheffield United away for a place in the semi finals; our Invincibles’ record remained intact when Liverpool were thrashed by the mighty Watford and both ‘Pool and the Spuds got dumped out of the FA Cup.

The Hammers are in desperate need of points in the Premier League. They’re out of the bottom three only on goal difference and potential relegation beckons.

However, they did win their last league game (home versus Southampton) so their confidence may have risen a little. Prior to that they had a tough run of games which saw defeats to Liverpool (twice), Manchester City and Leicester, with a 3-3 draw with Brighton in the middle.

They have conceded more goals in the EPL (49) than anyone except the bottom two clubs, Villa and Norwich, so you would hope our attacking players can make hay with that leaky defence.

When it comes to goal scoring however they are only four behind us (they have 35, we have 39 having played one game less). The main threat in this regard is the French striker Sebastien Haller who has seven, but they can pose a goal threat from midfield with Noble, Snodgrass and Fornals.

I’m never sure what I think about the ‘Appy ‘Ammers. They’re certainly not in the Spuds/Chavs class of despicable London clubs who deserve to be beaten and humiliated at every opportunity. But they can be annoying and, frankly, have an overly high opinion of themselves because they used to have a few good players in the days of black-and-white television.

My next-door neighbour is a Hammer and has a dog called Bobby, after former England captain and West Ham legend Bobby Moore. When Bobby met my dog, Dennis (named after you-know-who) Bobby was sent packing. Some things are just immutably written in the laws of nature.

We’ll probably face one former Gunner in Lukas Fabianski, but we won’t be seeing another one-time N5 star whose career never achieved the heady heights we once imagined for him. Apparently the Hammers are trying to buy out Jack Wilshere from his £100k a week contract because he is hardly ever fit to play.

I feel sorry for Jack. He was the subject of some appalling tackles early in his career and was never given adequate protection by the officials. Mind you, there was something about his style of play which invited opponents to dive in on him. Usually he could hop out of the way just in time, leaving the opponent on their arse or otherwise out of the game. But when he got it wrong, he suffered.

Here’s the team I expect Mikel Arteta to choose today:

Leno

Bellerin – Mustafi – Luiz – Saka

Xhaka – Ceballos

Ozil

Pepe – Nketieh – Aubameyang

The only arguable “surprise” there is that I expect El Patron to persist with Eddie given his wonderfully taken goal on Monday night and given Lacazette’s continuing woes.

Bellerin was truly awful against Olympiacos and really needs to pick up. I back him to do so. I know many people have doubts about Pepe but he has been improving and I expect that upward track to continue. After Nelson’s performance against Portsmouth we have a ready-made replacement if Pepe needs to be hooked.

Ozil was another who had an indifferent game against the Greeks but who I expect to bounce back today. I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re writing him up as Man of the Match after this one.

We have more than enough about us to take all three points and that’s what I expect us to do.

Come on you Gunners.

RockyLives