London Calling

The Final Salute.

Arsenal have been very tight lipped about what is actually going to happen after the Wigan game. They’ve been so tight lipped that they didn’t even admit anything was going to be planned until people noticed that the ‘countdown clock’ finishes a couple of hours after the game. There have been many discussions about what might happen but the one rumour that appears to have swept the Clock End is that Arsenal fan Roger Daltrey is going to play a gig on the pitch. This started a discussion of who would be in the ‘Arsenal’ band and such fans as John Lydon and Shovel were mentioned then the conversation rather deteriorated when someone pointed out that Jo Guest was an Arsenal fan and maybe she could pole dance on the centre circle. Oh dear!

Well who’d have thought that one of the main subjects of conversation after the last European game at Highbury would be a rodent? Mind you (natural history fans) as it was a grey squirrel and not the native red I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the tabloids ran an ‘Even the rodents are foreign’ story. Mind you, unlike the spuds at least it’s got Champions League experience…

Villarreal (h).

Semi-finals always make me nervous. Always have done and until the day I manage to bribe the whole opposition team and the ref they probably always will. This was no different, possibly even one of the worse ones not only because of what was at stake, but because we were favourites. Throughout my lifetime the one feeling that permeates through the club and fans is that we are never so good as when we’ve got our backs against the wall or are being written off.

On the way down, despite my nerves, I was hoping that we’d give them a spanking. I was still no closer to having a ticket for the away leg and, expecting to have to buy from tout scum outside the stadium, a foregone conclusion would probably make the tickets cheaper! Oh yes, and we’d be through to the final as well which would be handy (am I getting a tad selfish?).

I was on the lunchtime train down and was sat with George watching SkySportsNews before 4. I needed to relax because I was driving my car back straight after the game as I had to be at naughty boy school in Sunderland Thursday lunchtime. You’ll have noticed from these pieces that I do rather a lot of miles and every once in a while the right foot gets a bit heavy. I seem to have this habit of getting done by a speed camera and getting three points just as the last set have dropped off my licence (coming home from Bolton away was the last time) but in the same week I appear to have caught a camera up here. Anyway, I got a letter giving me a choice. £60 fine and three points or attend a speed awareness workshop for three hours (which costs £65). Well I’ve been driving for over 20 years so it seemed a good idea anyway, but unfortunately the only time/date was the lunchtime after the champions league semi. Mind you, good job it wasn’t the away leg first – that would have been damned difficult to pull off!

And so to Highbury for the one but penultimate time (there must be a real word for that) and a visit to the 12 Pins beforehand (if ever someone should offer to sponsor this column it’s whoever owns that place because they get more name checks than M Wenger). As I was in a ‘driving so can’t drink’ situation I wasn’t going to the bar but we met up with Mac and then a miracle happened. My brother, one of whose nicknames is Scud because he turns up in the wrong place at the wrong time phoned up to say he was just coming out of Finsbury Park, and he was bang on time! I remember thinking that if he wasn’t going to live up to that nickname tonight let’s hope Jinxy isn’t appropriate either!

We set off for the ground because I wanted to have a quick chat with as many people as I could to make sure if any spares turned up for the away leg I might be remembered. I also had to nip up to the box office to get my ticket for Sunderland away. Would have been handy if I could have got my tickets for Citeh as well but they weren’t going on sale until the next day. The day after 30-odd thousand Gooners (and probably the vast majority of people going to away games) are at Highbury and could have picked them up. Now whilst I’m quick to have a go at the box office sometimes I can actually understand that with Sunderland tickets to sell and countless enquiries about Villarreal away tickets it would have been a nightmare to put another set of tickets on sale…but it would have been handy for me and I have admitted to getting selfish in my old age.

(What I can complain about is the conversation that George had with the box office. I’d left the appropriate forms filled out and my membership card with him because when I’d got my Sunderland tickets I asked what the chance was of the club getting any returns. She was honest and said that it wasn’t uncommon and it was just a question of getting lucky when you phoned. I asked her if it would honestly be worth it and her advice was that whilst we’d have to get lucky it was well worth trying. When George phoned up on Thursday he was rudely told that he was being a bit stupid asking and that of course there would be no returns and they’d only gone out ‘yesterday’. The trouble is we’re seen as mere customers with no brand choice these days.)

Carlos (my brother, aka Jinxy, aka Scud…please keep up) and I lost each other going in through different turnstiles (due to my bag taking ages to search (they really are getting thorough these days – checking every pocket and stuff) and him heading straight into the shop when he got in) but I had only one thought in mind – the fabled lift! The original plans for the North Bank had a few lifts but when it was built there was only one put in, with a capacity of 5 people and a steward. I’ve never used it before (didn’t even know it was there for the first 6 or 7 years) but this was the time because my knee wasn’t going to get me up the stairs!

There were two ‘loads’ ahead of me in the queue but a few minutes later I was speeding to the upper tier. I was a couple of decades younger than anyone else in there but after hauling myself up the stairs on crutches countless times before I knew there was a lift and as my knee had never been this bad (at the football) I merited a place. The steward in the lift obviously knew his ‘regulars’, was extremely friendly, and made the ‘journey’ a laugh. But it did make me think about the stewards at Highbury.

They are bloody wonderful. We all take them for granted but there are a lot of them that genuinely care about the club every bit as much as we do. Loads have been doing it for years and there are always stewards at away games that are travelling purely as fans. Thing is, they are still stewards inside. Proper ones. Over they years I’ve heard countless stories of people in all kinds of situations at away games that recognised someone as a Highbury steward and asked for help. Whilst obviously they couldn’t always help, I’ve never once heard of them not trying. Alongside the Corps of Commissionaires they are something we should laud more often.

Well, I was in my seat and we were about to kick off a European semi. I’d seen 4 Euro semi-finals at Highbury before (1980, 1994, 1995, 2000) and as we’d won through to the final on every occasion I’ve never seen us lose a Euro semi (actually, come to think of it I don’t think we’ve ever failed at that stage). This was different though; this was the big one.

What a poseur that squirrel was. Running backwards and forwards and playing up to the crowd. At one point I swear it stood in front of the photographers and posed for them! I don’t know if it’s true but I’ve heard it was done deliberately for a bet, but never the less it was a new one for the ‘seen everything’ brigade and the birth of a plethora of jokes about spuds and Europe.

Despite the wildlife there was a game of football going on. Well, there was when their players stopped tripping over the grass. They may be a Spanish team but the South American backbone of the club is there for all to see. I thought the ref did a fairly good job of not falling for it but I do worry about what will happen in the second leg. Sally Gunnel (sorry Diego Forlan) has already blatantly said that they will play the same way and even said that they should get more decisions at home!

They’re not a bad side at all but we really should have buried the tie. I think in some ways the team lost a tiny bit of belief when Titi had a goal (wrongly from what I could see) disallowed for offside and there was a palpable sense of relief when the wonderful Kolo Toure scored for us. Kolo has been absolutely amazing this year and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that things started to click when he came back from the African Nations Cup. We paid £250,000 for him and by my reckoning (and many others) we’ve got one of the top centre halves playing in Europe. Another thing about him is that if you watch him closely the guy has been running on empty for a few weeks but still keeps going. He’s also extremely affable and incredibly popular with the other players.

So, we streamed out of Highbury’s last ever night game with the refrain ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ being sung. Fitting. And sad. Every game is a ‘last’ at the moment and you can’t help thinking that a couple more games and that’s the end of Highbury.

Come On You Red(currant)s!