Fever Pitch Part 11

Even so, it is a mistake that clubs are perfectly at liberty to make. Football clubs are not hospitals or schools, with a duty to admit us regardless of our financial wherewithal. It is interesting and revealing that opposition to these bond schemes has taken on the tone of a crusade, as if the clubs had a moral obligation to their supporters. What do the clubs owe owe us, any of us, really? I have stumped up thousands of pounds to watch a.r.s.enal over the last twenty years; but each time money has changed hands, I have received something in return: admission to a game, a train ticket, a programme. Why is football any different from the cinema, say, or a record shop? The difference is that all of us feel these astonishingly deep allegiances, and that until recently we had all antic.i.p.ated being able to go to watch every game that our team plays for the rest of our lives; now it is beginning to appear as though that will not be possible for some of us. But that won't be the end of the world. It could even be that increased admission prices will improve the quality of the football we watch; perhaps clubs will be able to play fewer games, the players will become injured less frequently, and there will be no need to play in rubbishy tournaments like the ZDS Cup in order simply to earn a few quid. Again, one must look to Europe: the Italians, the Portuguese and the Spanish have high ticket prices, but they can afford to pay for the best players in Europe and South America. (They are also less obsessed with lower league football than we are. There us, any of us, really? I have stumped up thousands of pounds to watch a.r.s.enal over the last twenty years; but each time money has changed hands, I have received something in return: admission to a game, a train ticket, a programme. Why is football any different from the cinema, say, or a record shop? The difference is that all of us feel these astonishingly deep allegiances, and that until recently we had all antic.i.p.ated being able to go to watch every game that our team plays for the rest of our lives; now it is beginning to appear as though that will not be possible for some of us. But that won't be the end of the world. It could even be that increased admission prices will improve the quality of the football we watch; perhaps clubs will be able to play fewer games, the players will become injured less frequently, and there will be no need to play in rubbishy tournaments like the ZDS Cup in order simply to earn a few quid. Again, one must look to Europe: the Italians, the Portuguese and the Spanish have high ticket prices, but they can afford to pay for the best players in Europe and South America. (They are also less obsessed with lower league football than we are. There are are third and fourth division clubs, but they are semi-professional, and do not influence the way the game is structured. The First Division takes precedence and the football climate is all the healthier for it.) third and fourth division clubs, but they are semi-professional, and do not influence the way the game is structured. The First Division takes precedence and the football climate is all the healthier for it.) Over the years we have come to confuse football with something else, something more necessary necessary, which is why these cries of outrage are so heartfelt and so indignant. We view everything from the top of this mountain of partisan pa.s.sion; it is no wonder that all our perspectives are wrong. Perhaps it was time to climb down, and see what everyone else in the outside world sees.

For the most part, what the outside world saw made a lot of cold, harsh, practical sense. The cover of The Economist The Economist that week carried a picture of the extraordinary shrine of flowers, flags and banners that Liverpool and Everton fans and hundreds of others had created in the goalmouth beneath the Kop at Anfield; the headline, neatly placed just above the crossbar, was "The game that died". I bought the magazine, for the first and only time, and was shocked to realise how much I found myself agreeing with it. Perhaps it was predictable that a magazine ent.i.tled that week carried a picture of the extraordinary shrine of flowers, flags and banners that Liverpool and Everton fans and hundreds of others had created in the goalmouth beneath the Kop at Anfield; the headline, neatly placed just above the crossbar, was "The game that died". I bought the magazine, for the first and only time, and was shocked to realise how much I found myself agreeing with it. Perhaps it was predictable that a magazine ent.i.tled The Economist The Economist should be best equipped to penetrate the muddle that football had got itself into; here, after all, is a multi-million-pound industry which doesn't have two pennies to rub together. should be best equipped to penetrate the muddle that football had got itself into; here, after all, is a multi-million-pound industry which doesn't have two pennies to rub together.

The Economist on the inevitability of the disaster: "Hillsborough was not just a calamitous accident. It was a brutal demonstration of systematic failure." On the state of the grounds: "Britain's football grounds now resemble maximum-security prisons, but only the feebleness of the regulations has allowed the clubs to go on pretending that crowd safety is compatible with prison architecture." On the football authorities: "For complacency and incompetence, there's nothing like a cartel; and of Britain's surviving cartels, the Football League is one of the smuggest and slackest." On the people who own football clubs: "Like old-fashioned newspaper magnates,(they are willing to pay for prestige which they see in terms of owning star players, rather than comfortable modern stadiums." And on what needs to be done: "Having fewer clubs, operating out of smarter stadiums, ought to revive the interest of those who have been driven away from football during the past ten years." on the inevitability of the disaster: "Hillsborough was not just a calamitous accident. It was a brutal demonstration of systematic failure." On the state of the grounds: "Britain's football grounds now resemble maximum-security prisons, but only the feebleness of the regulations has allowed the clubs to go on pretending that crowd safety is compatible with prison architecture." On the football authorities: "For complacency and incompetence, there's nothing like a cartel; and of Britain's surviving cartels, the Football League is one of the smuggest and slackest." On the people who own football clubs: "Like old-fashioned newspaper magnates,(they are willing to pay for prestige which they see in terms of owning star players, rather than comfortable modern stadiums." And on what needs to be done: "Having fewer clubs, operating out of smarter stadiums, ought to revive the interest of those who have been driven away from football during the past ten years."

These views and others in the same issue well-informed, well-argued, devoid of the football authorities' dilatory self-interest, the Government's loathing for the game (if Hills-borough did nothing else, it wrecked Thatcher's ludicrously misbegotten ID-card scheme) and the distorting obsession of the fans helped one to begin looking at the whole football debacle with something approaching clarity. It was only after Hillsborough, when outsiders began to take an interest in the way football conducts itself, that it became clear just how deeply entrenched in the football way of looking at things we had all become. And that way, as parts of this book demonstrate, is not always the wisest.

On 1st May, two weeks and two days later, a.r.s.enal played Norwich at Highbury, our first game since the disaster. It was a glorious Bank Holiday afternoon, and a.r.s.enal played wonderfully well, and won 5-0; as far as everyone there that day, myself included, was concerned, everything seemed more or less all right with the world again. The mourning period was over, the TV cameras were there, the sun was out, a.r.s.enal were scoring goals galore ... after the bleakness of the previous fortnight, the match took on a celebratory air. It was a tired and muted celebration, but it was a celebration nonetheless, and from this distance that looks particularly bizarre now.

What were we all thinking of that afternoon? How on earth did the Forest-Liverpool game ever get replayed? It's all a part of the same thing, in a way. I went to the a.r.s.enal-Norwich game, and loved it, for the same reasons I had watched the Liverpool-Juventus final after the Heysel disaster, and for the same reasons that football hasn't really changed that much in over a hundred years: because the pa.s.sions the game induces consume everything, including tact and common sense. If it is possible to attend and enjoy a football match sixteen days after nearly a hundred people died at one and it is possible, I did it, despite my new post-Hillsborough realism then perhaps it is a little easier to understand the culture and circ.u.mstances that allowed these deaths to happen. Nothing ever matters, apart from football.

THE GREATEST MOMENT EVER

LIVERPOOL v a.r.s.eNAL

26.5.89

In all the time I have been watching football, twenty-three seasons, only seven teams have won the First Division Championship: Leeds United, Everton, a.r.s.enal, Derby County, Nottingham Forest, Aston Villa and, a staggering eleven times, Liverpool. Five different teams came top in my first five years, so it seemed to me then that the League was something that came your way every once in a while, even though you might have to wait for it; but as the seventies came and went, and then the eighties, it began to dawn on me that a.r.s.enal might never win the League again in my lifetime. That isn't as melodramatic as it sounds. Wolves fans celebrating their third championship in six years in 1959 could hardly have antic.i.p.ated that their team would spend much of the next thirty years in the Second and Third Divisions; Manchester City supporters in their mid-forties when the Blues last won the League in 1968 are in their early seventies now.

Like all fans, the overwhelming majority of the games I have seen have been League games. And as most of the time a.r.s.enal have had no real interest in the First Division t.i.tle after Christmas, nor ever really come close to going down, I would estimate that around half of these games are meaningless, at least in the way that sportswriters talk about meaningless games. There are no chewed nails and chewed knuckles and screwed-up faces; your ear doesn't become sore from being pressed up hard against a radio, trying to hear how Liverpool are getting on; you are not, in truth, thrown into agonies of despair or eye-popping fits of ecstasy by the result. Any meanings such games throw up are the ones that you, rather than the First Division table, bring to them.

And after maybe ten years of this, the Championship becomes something you either believe in or you don't, like G.o.d. You concede that it's possible, of course, and you try to respect the views of those who have managed to remain credulous. Between approximately 1975 and 1989 I didn't believe. I hoped, at the beginning of each season; and a couple of times the middle of the 86/87 season, for example, when we were top for eight or nine weeks I was almost lured out of my agnostic's cave. But in my heart of hearts I knew that it would never happen, just as I knew that they were not, as I used to think when I was young, going to find a cure for death before I got old.

In 1989, eighteen years after the last time a.r.s.enal had won the League, I reluctantly and foolishly allowed myself to believe it was indeed possible that a.r.s.enal could win the Championship. They were top of the First Division between January and May; on the last full weekend of the Hillsborough-elongated season they were five points clear of Liverpool with three games left to play. Liverpool had a game in hand, but the accepted wisdom was that Hillsborough and its attendant strains would make it impossible for them to keep winning, and two of a.r.s.enal's three games were at home to weaker teams. The other was against Liverpool, away, a game that would conclude the First Division season.

No sooner had I become a born-again member of the Church of the Latterday Championship Believers, however, than a.r.s.enal ground to a catastrophic halt. They lost, dismally, at home to Derby; and in the final game at Highbury, against Wimbledon, they twice threw away the lead to draw 2-2 against a team they had destroyed 5-1 on the opening day of the season. It was after the Derby game that I raged into an argument with my partner about a cup of tea, but after the Wimbledon game I had no rage left, just a numbing disappointment. For the first time I understood the women in soap operas who have been crushed by love affairs before, and can't allow allow themselves to fall for somebody again: I had never before seen all that as a matter of choice, but now I too had left myself nakedly exposed when I could have remained hard and cynical. I wouldn't allow it to happen again, never, ever, and I had been a fool, I knew that now, just as I knew it would take me years to recover from the terrible disappointment of getting so close and failing. themselves to fall for somebody again: I had never before seen all that as a matter of choice, but now I too had left myself nakedly exposed when I could have remained hard and cynical. I wouldn't allow it to happen again, never, ever, and I had been a fool, I knew that now, just as I knew it would take me years to recover from the terrible disappointment of getting so close and failing.

It wasn't quite all over. Liverpool had two games left, against West Ham and against us, both at Anfield. Because the two teams were so close, the mathematics of it all were peculiarly complicated: whatever score Liverpool beat West Ham by, a.r.s.enal had to halve. If Liverpool won 2-0, we would have to win 1-0, and so on. In the event Liverpool won 5-1, which meant that we needed a two-goal victory; "YOU HAVEN'T GOT A PRAYER, a.r.s.eNAL", was the back-page headline of the Daily Mirror Daily Mirror.

I didn't go to Anfield. The fixture was originally scheduled for earlier in the season, when the result wouldn't have been so crucial, and by the time it was clear that this game would decide the Championship, the tickets had long gone. In the morning I walked down to Highbury to buy a new team shirt, just because I felt I had to do something, and though admittedly wearing a shirt in front of a television set would not, on the face of it, appear to offer the team an awful lot of encouragement, I knew it would make me feel better. Even at noon, some eight hours before the evening kick-off, there were already scores of coaches and cars around the ground, and on the way home I wished everyone I pa.s.sed good luck; their positiveness ("Three-one", "Two-nil, no trouble", even a breezy "Four-one") on this beautiful May morning made me sad for them, as if these chirpy and bravely confident young men and women were off to the Somme to lose their lives, rather than to Anfield to lose, at worst, their faith.

I went to work in the afternoon, and felt sick with nerves despite myself; afterwards I went straight round to an a.r.s.enal-supporting friend's house, just a street away from the North Bank, to watch the game. Everything about the night was memorable, right from the moment when the teams came on to the pitch and the a.r.s.enal players ran over to the Kop and presented individuals in the crowd with bunches of flowers. And as the game progressed, and it became obvious that a.r.s.enal were going to go down fighting, it occurred to me just how well I knew my team, their faces and their mannerisms, and how fond I was of each individual member of it. Merson's gap-toothed smile and tatty soul-boy haircut, Adams's manful and endearing attempts to come to terms with his own inadequacies, Rocastle's pumped-up elegance, Smith's lovable diligence ... I could find it in me to forgive them for coming so close and blowing it: they were young, and they'd had a fantastic season and as a supporter you cannot really ask for more than that.

I got excited when we scored right at the beginning of the second half, and I got excited again about ten minutes from time, when Thomas had a clear chance and hit it straight at Grobbelaar, but Liverpool seemed to be growing stronger and to be creating chances at the end, and finally, with the clock in the corner of the TV screen showing that the ninety minutes had pa.s.sed, I got ready to muster a brave smile for a brave team. "If a.r.s.enal are to lose the Championship, having had such a lead at one time, it's somewhat poetic justice that they have got a result on the last day, even though they're not to win it," said co-commentator David Pleat as Kevin Richardson received treatment for an injury with the Kop already celebrating. "They will see that as scant consolation, I should think, David," replied Brian Moore. Scant consolation indeed, for all of us.

Richardson finally got up, ninety-two minutes gone now, and even managed a penalty-area tackle on John Barnes; then Lukic bowled the ball out to Dixon, Dixon on, inevitably, to Smith, a brilliant Smith flick-on ... and suddenly, in the last minute of the last game of the season, Thomas was through, on his own, with a chance to win the Championship for a.r.s.enal. "It's up for grabs now!" Brian Moore yelled; and even then I found that I was reining myself in, learning from recent lapses in hardened scepticism, thinking, well, at least we came close at the end there, instead of thinking, please Michael, please Michael, please put it in, please G.o.d let him score. And then he was turning a somersault, and I was flat out on the floor, and everybody in the living room jumped on top of me. Eighteen years, all forgotten in a second.

What is the correct a.n.a.logy for a moment like that? In Pete Davies's brilliant book about the 1990 World Cup, All Played Out All Played Out, he notices that the players use s.e.xual imagery when trying to explain what it feels like to score a goal. I can see that sometimes, for some of the more workaday transcendent moments. Smith's third goal in our 3-0 win against Liverpool in December 1990, for example, four days after we'd been beaten 6-2 at home by Manchester United that felt pretty good, a perfect release to an hour of mounting excitement. And four or five years back, at Norwich, a.r.s.enal scored four times in sixteen minutes after trailing for most of the game, a quarter of an hour which also had a kind of s.e.xual otherworldliness to it.

The trouble with the o.r.g.a.s.m as metaphor here is that the o.r.g.a.s.m, though obviously pleasurable, is familiar, repeatable (within a couple of hours if you've been eating your greens), and predictable, particularly for a man if you're having s.e.x then you know what's coming, as it were. Maybe if I hadn't made love for eighteen years, and had given up hope of doing so for another eighteen, and then suddenly, out of the blue, an opportunity presented itself ... maybe in these circ.u.mstances it would be possible to recreate an approximation of that Anfield moment. Even though there is no question that s.e.x is a nicer activity than watching football (no nil-nil draws, no offside trap, no cup upsets, and and you're warm), in the normal run of things, the feelings it engenders are simply not as intense as those brought about by a once-in-a-lifetime last-minute Championship winner. you're warm), in the normal run of things, the feelings it engenders are simply not as intense as those brought about by a once-in-a-lifetime last-minute Championship winner.

None of the moments that people describe as the best in their lives seem a.n.a.logous to me. Childbirth must be extraordinarily moving, but it doesn't really have the crucial surprise element, and in any case lasts too long; the fulfilment of personal ambition promotions, awards, what have you doesn't have the last-minute time factor, nor the element of powerlessness that I felt that night. And what else is there that can possibly provide the suddenness suddenness? A huge pools win, maybe, but the gaining of large sums of money affects a different part of the psyche altogether, and has none of the communal communal ecstasy of football. ecstasy of football.

There is then, literally, nothing to describe it. I have exhausted all the available options. I can recall nothing else that I have coveted for two decades (what else is is there that can reasonably be coveted for that long?), nor can I recall anything else that I have desired as both man and boy. So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium. there that can reasonably be coveted for that long?), nor can I recall anything else that I have desired as both man and boy. So please, be tolerant of those who describe a sporting moment as their best ever. We do not lack imagination, nor have we had sad and barren lives; it is just that real life is paler, duller, and contains less potential for unexpected delirium.

When the final whistle blew (just one more heart-stopping moment, when Thomas turned and knocked a terrifyingly casual back-pa.s.s to Lukic, perfectly safely but with a coolness that I didn't feel) I ran straight out of the door to the off-licence on Blackstock Road; I had my arms outstretched, like a little boy playing aeroplanes, and as I flew down the street, old ladies came to the door and applauded my progress, as if I were Michael Thomas himself; then I was grievously ripped off for a bottle of cheap champagne, I realised later, by a shopkeeper who could see that the light of intelligence had gone from my eyes altogether. I could hear whoops and screams from pubs and shops and houses all around me; and as fans began to congregate at the stadium, some draped in banners, some sitting on top of tooting cars, everyone embracing strangers at every opportunity, and TV cameras arrived to film the party for the late news, and club officials leaned out of windows to wave at the bouncing crowd, it occurred to me that I was glad I hadn't been up to Anfield, and missed out on this joyful, almost Latin explosion on my doorstep. After twenty-one years I no longer felt, as I had done during the Double year, that if I hadn't been to the games I had no right to partake in the celebrations; I'd done the work, years and years and years of it, and I belonged.

SEATS

a.r.s.eNAL v COVENTRY

22.8.89

These are some of the things that have happened to me in my thirties: I have become a mortgage holder; I have stopped buying New Musical Express New Musical Express and the and the Face, Face, and, inexplicably, I have started keeping back copies of and, inexplicably, I have started keeping back copies of Q Q Magazine under a shelf in my living room; I have become an uncle; I have bought a CD player; I have registered with an accountant; I have noticed that certain types of music hip-hop, indie guitar pop, thrash metal all sound the same, and have no tune; I have come to prefer restaurants to clubs, and dinners with friends to parties; I have developed an aversion to the feeling that a bellyful of beer gives you, even though I still enjoy a pint; I have started to covet items of furniture; I have bought one of those cork boards you put up in the kitchen; I have started to develop certain views on the squatters who live in my street, for example, and about unreasonably loud parties which are not altogether consistent with the att.i.tudes I held when I was younger. And, in 1989, I bought a season-ticket for the seats, after standing on the North Bank for over fifteen years. These details do not tell the whole story of how I got old, but they tell some of it. Magazine under a shelf in my living room; I have become an uncle; I have bought a CD player; I have registered with an accountant; I have noticed that certain types of music hip-hop, indie guitar pop, thrash metal all sound the same, and have no tune; I have come to prefer restaurants to clubs, and dinners with friends to parties; I have developed an aversion to the feeling that a bellyful of beer gives you, even though I still enjoy a pint; I have started to covet items of furniture; I have bought one of those cork boards you put up in the kitchen; I have started to develop certain views on the squatters who live in my street, for example, and about unreasonably loud parties which are not altogether consistent with the att.i.tudes I held when I was younger. And, in 1989, I bought a season-ticket for the seats, after standing on the North Bank for over fifteen years. These details do not tell the whole story of how I got old, but they tell some of it.

You just get tired. I got tired of the queues, and the squash, and tumbling half-way down the terrace every time a.r.s.enal scored, and the fact that my view of the near goal was always partially obscured at big games, and it seemed to me that being able to arrive at the ground two minutes before kick-off without being disadvantaged in any way had much to recommend it. I didn't miss the terraces, really, and in fact I enjoyed them, the backdrop they provided, their noise and colour, more than I ever had when I stood on them. This Coventry game was our first in the seats, and Thomas and Marwood scored directly in front of us, at our end, and from our side.

There are five of us: Pete, of course, and my brother, and my girlfriend, although her place is usually taken by someone else nowadays, and me, and Andy, who used to be Rat when we were kids in the Schoolboys' Enclosure I b.u.mped into him on the North Bank in George's second season, a decade or so after I had lost touch with him, and he too was ready to leave the terraces behind.

What you're really doing, when you buy a seat season-ticket, is upping the belonging a notch. I'd had my own spot on the terraces, but I had no proprietorial rights over it and if some b.l.o.o.d.y big-game casual fan stood in it, all I could do was raise my eyebrows. Now I really do have my own home in the stadium, complete with flatmates, and neighbours with whom I am on cordial terms, and with whom I converse on topics of shared interest, namely the need for a new midfielder/striker/way of playing. So I correspond to the stereotype of the ageing football fan, but I don't regret it. After a while, you stop wanting to live from hand to mouth, day to day, game to game, and you begin wanting to ensure that the remainder of your days are secure.

SMOKING

a.r.s.eNAL v LIVERPOOL

25.10.89

I remember the game for conventional reasons, for subst.i.tute Smith's late winner and thus a handy Cup win over the old enemy. But most of all I remember it as the only time in the 1980s and, hitherto, the 1990s, that I had no nicotine in my bloodstream for the entire ninety minutes. I have gone through games without smoking in that time: during the first half of the 83/84 season I was on nicotine chewing gum, but never managed to kick that, and in the end went back to the cigarettes. But in October '89, after a visit to Allen Carr the anti-smoking guru, I went cold turkey for ten days, and this game came right in the middle of that unhappy period.

I want to stop smoking and, like many people who wish to do the same, I firmly believe that abstinence is just around the corner. I won't buy a carton of duty-frees, or a lighter, or even a household-sized box of matches because, given the imminence of my cessation, it would be a waste of money. What stops me from doing so now, today, this minute, are the things that have always stopped me: a difficult period of work up ahead, requiring the kind of concentration that only a Silk Cut can facilitate; the fear of the overwhelming domestic tension that would doubtless accompany screaming desperation; and, inevitably and pathetically, the a.r.s.enal.

They do give me some leeway. There's the first half of the season, before the FA Cup begins, and before the Championship has warmed up. And there are times like now, when with my team out of everything by the end of January I am looking at almost five months of dull but tension-free afternoons. (But I've got this book to write, and deadlines, and ...) And yet some seasons the 88/89 Championship year, for example, or the chase for the Double in 90/91 where every game between January and May was crucial I cannot contemplate what it would be like to sit there without a smoke. Two down against Tottenham in a Cup semi-final at Wembley with eleven minutes gone and no f.a.g? Inconceivable.

Am I going to hide behind a.r.s.enal forever? Will they always serve as an excuse for smoking, and never having to go away at weekends, and not taking on work that might clash with a home fixture? The Liverpool game was, I think, their way of telling me that it's not their fault, that it is I who control my actions, and not they; and though actually I do remember that I survived the evening without running on to the pitch and shaking the players silly, I have forgotten it all when the forthcoming fixtures convince me that now is not the right time to tackle my nicotine addiction. I have argued before that having a.r.s.enal on my back, like a hump, year after year after year, is a real disability. But I use that disability too, I milk it for all it is worth.

SEVEN GOALS AND A PUNCH-UP

a.r.s.eNAL v NORWICH

4.11.89

For a match to be really, truly memorable, the kind of game that sends you home buzzing inside with the fulfilment of it all, you require as many of the following features as possible: (1) Goals: Goals: As many as possible. There is an argument which says that goals begin to lose their value in particularly easy victories, but I have never found this to be a problem. (I enjoyed the last goal in a.r.s.enal's 7-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday as much as I enjoyed the first.) If the goals are to be shared, then it is best if the other team get theirs first: I have a particular penchant for the 3-2 home victory, with a late winner after losing 2-0 at half-time. As many as possible. There is an argument which says that goals begin to lose their value in particularly easy victories, but I have never found this to be a problem. (I enjoyed the last goal in a.r.s.enal's 7-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday as much as I enjoyed the first.) If the goals are to be shared, then it is best if the other team get theirs first: I have a particular penchant for the 3-2 home victory, with a late winner after losing 2-0 at half-time.

(2) Outrageously bad refereeing decisions: Outrageously bad refereeing decisions: I prefer a.r.s.enal to be the victim, rather than the recipient, of these, as long as they don't cost us the match. Indignation is a crucial ingredient of the perfect footballing experience; I cannot therefore agree with match commentators who argue that a referee has had a good game if he isn't noticed (although like everybody else, I don't like the game stopped every few seconds). I prefer to notice them, and howl at them, and feel cheated by them. I prefer a.r.s.enal to be the victim, rather than the recipient, of these, as long as they don't cost us the match. Indignation is a crucial ingredient of the perfect footballing experience; I cannot therefore agree with match commentators who argue that a referee has had a good game if he isn't noticed (although like everybody else, I don't like the game stopped every few seconds). I prefer to notice them, and howl at them, and feel cheated by them.

(3) A noisy crowd: A noisy crowd: In my experience, crowds are at their best when their team is losing but playing well, which is one of the reasons why coming back for a 3-2 win is my favourite kind of score. In my experience, crowds are at their best when their team is losing but playing well, which is one of the reasons why coming back for a 3-2 win is my favourite kind of score.

(4) Rain, a greasy surface, etc: Rain, a greasy surface, etc: Football in August, on a perfect gra.s.sy-green pitch, is aesthetically more appealing, although I do like a bit of slithery chaos in the goalmouth. Too much mud and the teams can't play at all, but you can't beat the sight of players sliding ten or fifteen yards for a tackle or in an attempt to get a touch to a cross. There's something intensifying about peering through driving rain, too. Football in August, on a perfect gra.s.sy-green pitch, is aesthetically more appealing, although I do like a bit of slithery chaos in the goalmouth. Too much mud and the teams can't play at all, but you can't beat the sight of players sliding ten or fifteen yards for a tackle or in an attempt to get a touch to a cross. There's something intensifying about peering through driving rain, too.

(5) Opposition misses a penalty: Opposition misses a penalty: a.r.s.enal's goalkeeper John Lukic was the penalty king, so I have seen a fair few of these; Brian McClair's last-minute horror in the fifth-round FA Cup-tie in 1988 so wild that it nearly cleared the North Bank roof remains my favourite. However, I retain a residual fondness for Nigel dough's efforts, also in the last minute, during a League game in 1990, when he missed; the referee ordered the kick to be retaken, and he missed again. a.r.s.enal's goalkeeper John Lukic was the penalty king, so I have seen a fair few of these; Brian McClair's last-minute horror in the fifth-round FA Cup-tie in 1988 so wild that it nearly cleared the North Bank roof remains my favourite. However, I retain a residual fondness for Nigel dough's efforts, also in the last minute, during a League game in 1990, when he missed; the referee ordered the kick to be retaken, and he missed again.

(6) Member of opposition team receives a red card: Member of opposition team receives a red card: "It's disappointing to hear the reaction of the crowd," remarked Barry Davies during the Portsmouth-Forest FA Cup quarter-final in 1992, when Forest's Brian Laws was sent off and the Portsmouth supporters went mad; but what does he expect? For fans, a sending-off is always a magic moment, although it is crucial that this doesn't happen too early. First-half dismissals frequently result either in boringly easy victories for the team with eleven men (c.f., Forest "It's disappointing to hear the reaction of the crowd," remarked Barry Davies during the Portsmouth-Forest FA Cup quarter-final in 1992, when Forest's Brian Laws was sent off and the Portsmouth supporters went mad; but what does he expect? For fans, a sending-off is always a magic moment, although it is crucial that this doesn't happen too early. First-half dismissals frequently result either in boringly easy victories for the team with eleven men (c.f., Forest v v West Ham, FA Cup semi-final, 1991), or in an impenetrable defensive reorganisation which kills the game dead; second-half sendings-off in a tight game are impossibly gratifying. If I had to plump for just one dismissal to take on to a desert island with me, it would have to be Bob Hazell of Wolves, sent off in the last minute of a fourth-round cup-tie at Highbury in 1978, when the score was 1-1. As I remember it, he took a swing at Rix, who was trying to get the ball off him so that we could take a corner quickly; from said corner, Macdonald, freed of his disgraced marker for the first time in the game and thus completely unmarked, headed us into a winning lead. I also enjoyed, enormously, Tony Coton's long and lonely march at Highbury in 1986 there is something special about seeing a goalkeeper go and Ma.s.sing's murderous a.s.sault on Caniggia, followed by his valedictory wave to the crowd, during the opening game of the 1990 World Cup. West Ham, FA Cup semi-final, 1991), or in an impenetrable defensive reorganisation which kills the game dead; second-half sendings-off in a tight game are impossibly gratifying. If I had to plump for just one dismissal to take on to a desert island with me, it would have to be Bob Hazell of Wolves, sent off in the last minute of a fourth-round cup-tie at Highbury in 1978, when the score was 1-1. As I remember it, he took a swing at Rix, who was trying to get the ball off him so that we could take a corner quickly; from said corner, Macdonald, freed of his disgraced marker for the first time in the game and thus completely unmarked, headed us into a winning lead. I also enjoyed, enormously, Tony Coton's long and lonely march at Highbury in 1986 there is something special about seeing a goalkeeper go and Ma.s.sing's murderous a.s.sault on Caniggia, followed by his valedictory wave to the crowd, during the opening game of the 1990 World Cup.

(7) Some kind of "disgraceful incident" (aka "silliness", aka "nonsense", aka "unpleasantness"): Some kind of "disgraceful incident" (aka "silliness", aka "nonsense", aka "unpleasantness"): We are entering doubtful moral territory here obviously players have a responsibility not to provoke a highly flammable crowd. A brawl between Coventry and Wimbledon on a wet November afternoon in front of a stupefied crowd of ten thousand is one thing, but a brawl between Celtic and Rangers players, given the barely controllable sectarian bitterness on the terraces, is quite another. Yet one has to conclude, regretfully and with a not inconsiderable degree of Corinthian sadness, that there is nothing like a punch-up to enliven an otherwise dull game. The side-effects are invariably beneficent the players and the crowd become more committed, the plot thickens, the pulse quickens and as long as the match doesn't degenerate as a consequence into some kind of sour grudge-match, brawls strike me as being a pretty desirable feature, like a roof terrace or a fireplace. If I were a sportswriter or a representative of the football authorities, then no doubt I would purse my lips, make disapproving noises, insist that the transgressors be brought to justice argy-bargy, like soft drugs, would be no fun if it were officially sanctioned. Luckily, however, I have no such responsibility: I am a fan, with no duty to toe the moral line whatsoever. We are entering doubtful moral territory here obviously players have a responsibility not to provoke a highly flammable crowd. A brawl between Coventry and Wimbledon on a wet November afternoon in front of a stupefied crowd of ten thousand is one thing, but a brawl between Celtic and Rangers players, given the barely controllable sectarian bitterness on the terraces, is quite another. Yet one has to conclude, regretfully and with a not inconsiderable degree of Corinthian sadness, that there is nothing like a punch-up to enliven an otherwise dull game. The side-effects are invariably beneficent the players and the crowd become more committed, the plot thickens, the pulse quickens and as long as the match doesn't degenerate as a consequence into some kind of sour grudge-match, brawls strike me as being a pretty desirable feature, like a roof terrace or a fireplace. If I were a sportswriter or a representative of the football authorities, then no doubt I would purse my lips, make disapproving noises, insist that the transgressors be brought to justice argy-bargy, like soft drugs, would be no fun if it were officially sanctioned. Luckily, however, I have no such responsibility: I am a fan, with no duty to toe the moral line whatsoever.

The a.r.s.enal-Norwich game at the end of 1989 had seven goals, and a.r.s.enal came back from 2-0 down and then 3-2 down to win 4-3. It had two penalties, one in the last minute with the score at 3-3 (both, incidentally, terrible decisions on the part of the referee) ... and Norwich's Gunn saved it, the ball rolled back to Dixon, who scuffed it, and it trickled, very gently, into the empty net. And then, all h.e.l.l broke loose, with more or less everyone bar the a.r.s.enal keeper involved in a bout of fisticuffs which seemed to last forever but which was probably over in a matter of seconds. n.o.body was sent off, but never mind: how was it not possible to enjoy a game like that?

The two teams were fined heavily, which was only right, of course. In situations like this, the FA could hardly send them a letter thanking the players for giving the fans what they want. And given a.r.s.enal's later problems, discussed elsewhere, the fight has in retrospect lost some of its gloss. But it's this centre of the world thing again: after the game we went home knowing that what we had seen, live, was the most significant sporting moment of the afternoon, a moment which would be talked about for weeks, months, which would make the news, which everyone would be asking you about at work on Monday morning. So, in the end, one has to conclude that it was a privilege to be there, to see all those grown men make fools of themselves in front of thirty-five thousand people; I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

SADDAM HUSSEIN AND WARREN BARTON

a.r.s.eNAL v EVERTON

19.1.91

A little-known fact: football fans knew before anybody else that the Gulf War had started. We were sat in front of the TV, waiting for the highlights of the Chelsea-Tottenham Rumbelows Cup-tie just before midnight, when Nick Owen looked at his monitor, announced a newsflash, and expressed the hope that we would be able to go to Stamford Bridge shortly. (The report of the game in the Daily Mirror Daily Mirror made peculiar reading the next morning, incidentally, given the circ.u.mstances: "Wave after wave of attacks left Tottenham hanging on for grim life", that kind of thing.) ITV beat the BBC to the news by several minutes. made peculiar reading the next morning, incidentally, given the circ.u.mstances: "Wave after wave of attacks left Tottenham hanging on for grim life", that kind of thing.) ITV beat the BBC to the news by several minutes.

Like most people, I was frightened: by the possibility of nuclear and chemical weapons being used; of Israel's involvement; of hundreds of thousands of people dying. By three o'clock on the Sat.u.r.day afternoon, sixty-three hours after the start of the conflict, I was more dis...o...b..bulated than I can recall being at the start of a football match: I'd watched too much late-night television, and dreamed too many strange dreams.

There was a different buzz in the crowd, too. The North Bank chanted "Saddam Hussein is a h.o.m.os.e.xual" and "Saddam run from a.r.s.enal". (The first message is scarcely in need of decoding; in the second, "a.r.s.enal" refers to the fans rather than the players. Which makes the chant self-aggrandising, rather than ridiculing, and which paradoxically reveals a respect for the Iraqi leader absent in the speculation about his s.e.xual preferences. A consistent ideology is probably too much to ask for.) It was an interesting experience, watching a football match with the world at war; one I had never had before. How was Highbury to become the centre of the universe, with a million men preparing to kill each other a thousand miles away? Easy. Merse's goal just after half-time earned us a 1-0 win, which would not in itself have been enough to distract attention away from Baghdad; but when Warren Barton's free-kick got Wimbledon a result up at Anfield, and we went top of the League for the first time that season, everything became focused again. Eight points behind in December and one point clear in January ... By a quarter to five, Saddam was forgotten, and Highbury was humming.

TYPICAL a.r.s.eNAL

a.r.s.eNAL v MANCHESTER UNITED

6.5.91

In May 1991 we won the League again, for the second time in three years and the third time in my whole life. In the end there was none of the drama of 1989: Liverpool collapsed ignominiously, and we were allowed to run away with it. On the evening of the 6th May, Liverpool lost at Forest before our home game against Manchester United, and the United game was thus transformed into a riotous, raucous celebration.

If ever a season has exemplified a.r.s.enal, it was that one. It wasn't just that we lost only one League game all season, and conceded an astonishingly miserly eighteen goals, although these statistics are in themselves indicative of the team's traditional tenacity. It was that the Championship was achieved despite almost comical antagonism and adversity. We had two points deducted after becoming involved, in retrospect unwisely, in another brawl, less than a year after the exciting Norwich fracas; soon afterwards, our captain was imprisoned after a stupendously idiotic piece of drunken driving. And these incidents came on top of heaps of others, on and off the pitch fights, tabloid reports of obnoxious drunken behaviour, ma.s.s displays of petulance and indiscipline (most notably at Aston Villa at the end of 1989, when most of the team surrounded an unhelpful linesman long after the final whistle, gesturing and shouting to the extent that those of us who had travelled to support them couldn't help but feel embarra.s.sed), and so on and on and on. Each of these transgressions isolated the club and its devotees further and further from the lip-pursing, right-thinking, a.r.s.enal-hating mainland; Highbury became a Devil's Island in the middle of north London, the home of no-goods and miscreants.

"You can stick your f.u.c.king two points up your a.r.s.e," the crowd sang gleefully, over and over again, throughout the Manchester United game, and it began to seem like the quintessential a.r.s.enal song: take our points, imprison our captain, hate our football, sod the lot of you. It was our night, a show of solidarity and defiance that had no grey areas of vicarious pleasure for anyone else, an acclamation of the virtues of all things unvirtuous. a.r.s.enal aren't a Nottingham Forest or a West Ham or even a Liverpool, a team that inspires affection or admiration in other football fans; we share our pleasures with n.o.body but ourselves.