The first midweek game I was ever allowed to attend was the 1994 Cup Winners Cup semi-final against Paris Saint Germain. I had started to go to home games regularly the previous season but was still not allowed to go to midweek games. As I watched Arsenal beat Standard Liege in the round of 16 and then Torino in the quarter-final on ITV, through the husky voice of (the excellent) Brian Moore, I increasingly agitated to be allowed to go to the semi-final at Highbury.
I knew we would not be able to go to Copenhagen for the Final if Arsenal qualified. My nagging paid off and I was allowed to go. It is one of my favourite ever nights at Highbury and my first exposure to floodlit football. Arsenal had drawn the first leg away from home 1-1 having taken a first half lead (sound familiar?) in Paris.
Kevin Campbell scored in the first half of the second leg (a homegrown player wearing the number 7 shirt) and Arsenal held PSG at arm’s length for the remainder of the game (sound fam….ok, you get it). The explosion of joy at the final whistle will stay with me forever. There is something unique about winning a semi-final second leg at home.
You can wrap up a league title at home; but most trophies are won on neutral soil. A home semi-final second leg is a vanishingly rare and precious thing, because the final whistle is treated like a huge goal but one that lasts for several minutes. The game isn’t restarting so you can really lose yourself, hug those around you whom you sit near and with every single week.
On Tuesday night, we earned that rare honour again. In 1970, the Fairs Cup Final was a two-legged affair with the second leg at Highbury, where Arsenal overturned a 3-1 deficit against Anderlecht to win their first major trophy for 17 years. My stepdad says it is still his favourite football memory. He was at the back of the North Bank and thinks his feet were in contact with the ground for less than half the duration of the game.
Arsenal’s only other Champions League semi-final second leg win happened in Spain in 2006. I was one of the 1500 Arsenal fans crammed into one corner of the ground as we watched the team, frankly, shit itself and desperately hold on to a 1-0 first leg lead as Villarreal contrived to miss a host of presentable chances.
I was at White Hart Lane in 2004 and Old Trafford in 2002 (I am looking for a ticket for Selhurst Park by the way…) and Villarreal in 2006 was right up there with both. Jens Lehmann’s last-minute penalty save is my favourite Arsenal moment inside a stadium.
The nerves, the tension, the frustration all came pouring out in one definitive moment. We didn’t have a goal to celebrate that night but the penalty save, followed quickly by the final whistle, was a rush of euphoria the likes of which I have never experienced before or since.
Last night, I arrived in the vicinity of the Emirates at about 5.45pm. As I made my way towards the Armoury from Highbury and Islington, I could already hear the drums and the distant chanting from half a mile away. Gradually the smell of sulphur from flares began to permeate and a red mist descended as I approached the Bear roundabout.
I literally have not seen that before in all the decades that I have been going to Arsenal, home and away. I made my way to my seat at about 7.45pm after a couple of hurried pints. The Block 10 bar had run out of lager by 7pm. The ground was alive in a way that I have simply never experienced.
The confluence of the rarity of the occasion and a couple of heart lifting Premier League results combined and multiplied like lemon sherbet mixed with Cola and shaken violently in a TNT lined beaker. It was special. I was in Madrid last week for the Atleti game and slightly envied how the home fans had a new, super modern stadium that had retained its intimidation factor.
Six days later I saw that replicated by Arsenal fans in a way that I have never witnessed. For every single second of the game, there was total engagement from every single fan. Scarves were twirled, fingers plunged into mouths to howl and whistle. After Arsenal took the lead, the ball boys and ball girls were effectively on strike.
One of the ballboys behind Jan Oblak’s North Bank goal barely contained his contempt for the Atleti keeper, simply trapping the ball under his foot and waiting for Oblak to retrieve it himself. I loved it because it’s exactly what Atleti would have done to us in the same circumstance. The shithousers became the shithousees.
I had booked my outbound flight to Budapest after Arsenal beat Bayer Leverkusen. Not out of over confidence but because with modern airline price gouging you simply have to gamble. I had booked my hotel earlier this week. I stood to lose around £350 if we didn’t qualify for the final.
As we ticked into stoppage time I had a return flight from Budapest for around £550 in my basket. On 93 minutes I tried to book. Fuck! The algorithm quickly worked out what was going on and I got booted. I scrambled to find a flight from Vienna, around 3 hours away from Budapest by train. Into the basket that went. £700.
I hit confirm, ‘we think you are a bot.’ I had to send a frantic email to reassure the vendor that I was not Bender from Futurama. As the final whistle sounded, I threw my arms around Jon and Trev, with whom I have sat and travelled for many years. They were next to me in Villarreal in 2006.
My phone was in my hand throughout as I waited nervously for the confirmation. It came, relief washed over me and I was able to fully join in with the celebrations. I have a video of those celebrations with Jon suddenly yelling, ‘HE WORKED SO FUCKING HARD TONIGHT!’ as Gyokeres ran past us.
‘The Angel’ boomed out over the speakers and we sang, arm in arm, watching the throng of red and white bar scarves in the lower tier beneath us. Whatever happens in the final it’s a memory I will hold forever, just as I do those last few minutes in Spain in 2006. For so much of the season, as Arsenal fans we have found the season difficult to enjoy.
Indeed, we have been told not to enjoy it, that we don’t deserve to enjoy it, that we mustn’t. Fulham, followed by this game, felt like the break in the thunder cloud in a season that previously felt oppressive and muggy. 60,000 people rain danced as the North London skies opened in an act of pathetic fallacy. Even Mikel Arteta swayed his hips in delight.
We still don’t know our fate this season, whether we win two, one or zero major trophies. What I do know is that nights like this are to be enjoyed and squeezed and rung dry of every nourishing drop. They don’t happen often but, when they do, you talk about them and remember them for years to come. Nights like this sustain you.