by Amy Lawrence
JOHN LUKIC:
I thought that he handled it very well simply because it could have gone the other way and the players could have lost self-belief. They could have probably resigned themselves to the fact that we were going to finish second. But he said, ‘OK, lads, you’ve got a couple of days off so you go and get away from it all. Reflect and look forward to what possibly might be and then we will get back in the groove.’ And that’s what we did.
TONY ADAMS:
He made every single decision correctly. You know musicians when you’re in the flow. Sometimes you’re just winging it, baby, you’re rocking. You get those moments. I think for the whole week or so George was swinging.
DAVID O’LEARY:
It was unique for the whole league season to boil down to a shoot-out. I had in my head that this situation shouldn’t be coming down to us having to climb this mountain. We should have wrapped this league up by now. But George gave us a great deal of confidence. I’d grown up at the club – it had been 14 years since I had made my debut. All those years I’d heard about how they went to White Hart Lane and won the league in 1971 and it had been thrown in my face a great deal – we’d never won the league. I had that in the back of my mind going on that drive up that day thinking we have a great chance. I know this group of players wouldn’t be in fear of the occasion.
PAUL JOHNSON:
I remember during the week of the game Theo Foley came to me and said we are not going overnight and I said, ‘Yeah, course you’re not.’ He said George wants to go on the day. ‘To Liverpool? Are you mad?’ The biggest game for years. What if something goes wrong with the coach or the motorway, what are we going to do? I was really worried. But we changed travel and hotel plans and on the day they went.
GARY LEWIN:
Mickey had tweaked his knee ligament the week before against Wimbledon. We weren’t sure he was going to make it. We were treating him two or three times a day, every day. I joked with him he would be radioactive by the time I was finished with him and the last game came around. On the Monday we were running with him, Tuesday change of direction, Wednesday ball work, and Thursday was the block tackling; that was when he had a fitness test. He still had an awareness of the ligament. It’s often three weeks and we were talking about ten days. I had to go through all the processes so I could look George in the eye and tell him how he was. I knew if he got a block tackle that it would get sore again. I told George, he’s fit to start … but I am not sure he’ll finish.
NINE
This Is the Day Your Life Will Surely Change
PART I: GOING
ADAM VALASCO:
I didn’t have a ticket but there was no way in the world that I was going to miss the chance of seeing Arsenal win the title. I was in the middle of my GCSE exams and thanks to the back of the Evening Standard I managed to get promised a ticket by a ticket agency, so on 23 May I set off from my home in High Wycombe with the task of going to Arsenal to get my coach ticket and then stopping off at King’s Cross to get my match ticket to return to my school by 2 p.m. to sit my GCSE economics exam. On paper it sounded a simple task and I left myself with plenty of time.
I arrived at Marylebone station to find to my horror that there was a bus and Tube strike. I could not afford taxis but as I was a fit 16-year-old I worked out that if I ran a lot of the way I could still be back in time. It was a scorching hot day but I managed to make good time to Arsenal to buy my coach ticket, so all good. Then something made me stop at a phone box just to confirm with the ticket agency that my ticket was definitely at their office. They told me that they had already sold it and did not have another one. I was crestfallen but determined not to give in, so after purchasing the Evening Standard and ringing around I managed to find another agency who had a ticket. The only problem was that they were in Pall Mall and there was just no way that I could get there in time and still make my exam, so after one second of thinking about it I made them promise to hold the ticket and that I would be there as soon as I could. I explained I was walking from Highbury. I took the mature decision not to bother phoning my school as I did not know what to say, but I left a message on my home answerphone explaining to my mum that I am perfectly safe but she might get some calls from my school as I could not go to the exam but I would explain all later.
Whilst walking to Pall Mall I realised that I did not possess the £75 they wanted for the ticket. I took every penny I had in the world out of the bank and turned up none the less. This gnarled old tout brought the ticket out and asked for the £75. I took out all my money and counted out £67.60 and then emotionally explained that I had run/walked all the way around London and that I had missed my GCSE exam and will probably be thrown out of my other exams because of it and that this really was all the money I had in the world. I also offered my cheap watch as security that I would come back and pay the rest when I had the balance. The tout looked me up and down and said, ‘You know what, I actually believe you. I am too soft and will give you the ticket.’ He asked if I had enough money to get home and then took £65 and said I should keep some money on me.
Later that night I finally staggered home ready to face the fury of my mum. She saw the state of me, listened to my story and my promises of taking the exam again and calmly said, ‘It is your life. If you want to risk messing up your education for a football match, then it is up to you, but we are going to have to think of a good excuse so you are not thrown out of the other exams.’
I collapsed on to my bed and listened to the Liverpool v West Ham game on the radio praying for a draw at least. When the fifth Liverpool goal went in I thought to myself, I have gone through all this today and now we have no hope winning by two goals. Nevertheless, come 26 May, I set off for Anfield.
SPIRITMAN:
My friend and I went up on an Arsenal Travel Club coach from Highbury. Coach number 20. There were 25, numbered up to 26. There was no coach 13 – they knew that we football fans are a superstitious lot.
AMY LAWRENCE:
Quite a lot of the week leading up to the match had been spent in the garage at my friend Anna’s house with an old double bed sheet and a pot of red paint, daubing a dainty cannon and a message our over-thinking teenaged selves thought was significant – Arsenal We’re Proud Of You – on to our home-made flag. The idea was that whether the team achieve the impossible or not, it was important to recognise that they had put in a phenomenal effort.
We were going to Anfield. Red Dr. Martens boots, yellow socks, ‘I’m An Away Gunner’ T-shirt under the replica shirt. Doesn’t bear thinking about today on multiple levels but that’s the 1980s for you. It’s the little details that stick in the mind. Last day of school ever before exams and then the big wide world, and with whispers having got around that we were bunking off mid-morning for a football match it was a pleasant surprise to find the teachers sending us off with a wink, good luck, and pats on the back. Nice to see them recognising the school of life could be just as important as A levels. Mrs Roots, the most inspirational of English teachers, had brought in champagne for our last lesson. An omen, surely.
We marched out of school and jumped into our friend Toby’s Fiesta to head for Highbury. It’s hard to explain how or why but everything felt brilliant that day. Standing outside the coach convoy in the blazing sunshine. So much naive hope in the air. Setting off, the coaches snaked up Aubert Park and I remember four elderly ladies bedecked in rosettes frantically waving us off from their balcony. Then along Drayton Park, and all the kids at the local school were clambering on the orange boat in their playground, screaming and jumping about Arsenal. It felt like the whole community was buzzing, sending good-luck wishes via the fortunate ones heading up to Anfield.
GARY FRANKLIN:
I didn’t think we would win, but hey, it’s a day out, and I wanted to show the team that it had been a brilliant season. I wore my yellow Arsenal shirt; we were going on a pilgrimage. There were only coaches, British Rail cancelled the trains. We left at 12.45 p.
m. with a police escort up the Holloway Road. Everyone was waving and standing outside the shops, people in cars, lorries, leaning out of windows, giving us support. An hour later we were not even on the M1. The traffic was murder, start, stop 5–10mph for over another hour. An accident, roadworks, you name it; our journey was painfully slow. The coaches were ‘dry’ but someone had smuggled a two-litre lemonade bottle on and was passing it around – it was half full with gin. The coach toilet didn’t have a light and I was mid-slash when the driver decided to cut down a slip road on to a roundabout and back up on to the motorway to beat about 200 cars. Everyone cheered, but I was thrown all over the place, and came back out through the door backwards with an embarrassing damp patch down one leg.
RUSSELL JONES:
I was 18 and doing my A levels. Being on a Friday meant bunking off double French, which never went down well with the French teacher, who subsequently failed me. My older friends had organised a minibus to travel up from Grays, Essex. We stopped at Lakeside to fill up with beer. Paul was the only one of us who bought champagne. The rest of us didn’t share the same faith and settled on Carlsberg.
DEAN WENGROW:
Anfield 89 was the day after my 13th birthday. I had an exam at school that day. My dad, Martin, let me off so I could attend the match. When children were recently allowed off school to protest against climate change, my father told me that he felt they should have been at school. What this tells us is that to our family Arsenal is far more important than the world ending.
BARRY HUGHES:
I was a first-year university student in Liverpool during the 88–89 season. I was in Nottingham for a night out on 15 April and remember all the shell-shocked Forest fans returning to the city. I was in Liverpool the week after Hillsborough and left my 79 cup winners’ scarf at Anfield; it was such an awful time. I also remember observing an emotional minute’s silence in Lord Street on the Saturday afterwards. I was proud, living in Liverpool, that The Arsenal were the first team to say they would not be playing in the immediate aftermath of Hillsborough before the league had confirmed postponements. I remember phoning Liverpool FC to make sure our tickets were still valid for the rearranged match on 26 May.
AMANDA SCHIAVI:
I was working in a solicitors’ in London when I told my boss that I had to have the day off to go to Anfield. He said, ‘No way, it’s too short notice.’ I resigned and as I was handed my P45 he said, ‘Go, but I hope you lose.’
MICK WINNETT:
Around Birmingham the coaches got bogged down in very heavy traffic, and soon the driver announced that he knew a short-cut that would cut out a long stretch of motorway and save some time. So he pulled off on to some A road that wound through fields and villages, and was nearly as jammed as the motorway. Eventually he got completely lost, and drove up a narrow lane, where he had to do a U-turn in the tightest of spaces.
MAL SMITH:
I have a bit of a strange claim to fame. I was the very first person in the ground that night. Basically my dad was a sergeant in the mounted police and used to get me into matches. He told me if I wanted to go that night I had to get there very early so I got there for 4.30 p.m. My dad got one of the gatemen to let me in at the Anfield Road end and a policeman then walked me round the outside of the pitch along the Kemlyn Road stand and into the Kop, where I sat on my own for over an hour before other supporters started ambling in.
RICHARD ROBERTS:
We’d gone early with some footballs as we thought it’d be cool to have a ‘Solidarity with Hillsborough’ kick-around with Liverpool fans when we got there. As it happened we got to the ground in our minibus only about 30 minutes before kick-off, to be met by the police saying we were the first Arsenal fans they’d seen, everyone was held up. They gave us an escort to a parking spot just inside the gates of a massive car park. We were told we had to return to our vehicle immediately after the game as we, of course, were blocking the gates and therefore the exit. We thought, this a really great gesture. They must’ve assumed we’d have nothing to delay us.
SARAH TURNER:
It was a surprisingly warm day, so much so that when I left Richmond for the drive to Anfield I was kitted out in just a T-shirt and shorts. That morning I had been wearing my Arsenal top in Richmond town centre and had been surprised by the number of people who had come up to me and wished me good luck for the game as if I, in some way, could influence the outcome of the match. I drove up with my mate Lee in his car he affectionately called Rusty and to this day I’m still amazed that car made it all the way there and back. The traffic jam was so bad that at one point I actually got out of the car on the M6 and stretched my legs.
Eventually after seven hours of driving, we found ourselves in sight of Anfield with only ten minutes to kick-off. Double parking Rusty, we sprinted to the ground and found the away end practically empty, with 25 coaches carrying Arsenal fans still stuck on the motorway.
MATTHEW LOWMAN:
I was a 21-year-old living on the Nightingale Estate in Hackney in 1989. My friends had earned their season tickets for that season by painting Highbury Stadium during the summer of 88, something I wasn’t able to do as I was holding down a proper job and therefore had to pay for mine, some £75 I think. We had been to most games during the season, including all ten of the games prior to Liverpool. We genuinely questioned whether to travel and put ourselves through the misery of seeing our dreams crushed. In the end we were always going to make the trip and after a half day off work we arranged to rendezvous outside Highbury at noon. Whilst waiting to board one of the coaches one of our group decided to invest a chunk of his wages at the bookies on the corner of Gillespie and Avenell Roads – betting Arsenal would win 2–0. Off we set in a line of coaches on what would be a long, hot and troublesome journey to Liverpool. We were for the most part oblivious to the traffic problems as we happily played cards, drank our can of Coke each and ate a corned beef sandwich – which proved to be the last refreshment we would have until the following day. People started getting agitated the closer we got to kick-off, having still not made it into Liverpool by 7 p.m.
MARK BRINDLE:
The team had a large contingent of South London lads in it and they were only a couple of years younger than me so I really felt an affinity with them. We were the SLAG (South London Arsenal Gooners) army. I had taken the short straw of designated driver mainly because I had just taken delivery of a Renault 5 GT Turbo. As panic started to set in there were several trips up the hard shoulder, several detours, and eventually we hit a bit of clear motorway about an hour before kick-off and the turbo got a good thrashing into Liverpool – including driving past a police car at well over 100mph and him waving us on when he saw the scarves fluttering out the window.
KELVIN MEADOWS:
The traffic jam has passed into folklore. It was as if all vehicles were heading to Merseyside. As we sat there, not moving, I glanced across to the motor next to us. A blue Ford Granada Scorpio. Sitting in the back was John Radford, who was on his way to co-commentate for Capital Gold (we later found out he never made it in time for the radio) and sitting in the front was Michael Watson (he’d recently beaten Nigel Benn at Finsbury Park). We pulled into Corley service station, and at that moment I knew we would do it. I had a sign. Radford was in the motor behind and the van in front had KENNEDY written across the back. Echoes of 71 and the last title.
MEL O’REILLY:
I was travelling alone. Most of the mates I knocked about with at the time weren’t really into football, more acid house, the Stone Roses, raves and failing to chat up girls from what I remember. The mood going up to Liverpool on the coach was helped along with some fierce drinking and singalongs.
DAVE HIGGS:
My sister-in-law was at Liverpool University at the time and we parked up outside her digs on the outskirts of Toxteth. We had a drink and then she gave us a lift across the city to the ground in her mum’s old Escort. We queued up at the front of the away terrace turnstiles. Once
in, we chose our position on the terracing about halfway back. I remember buying a meat pie from the kiosk in the ground. Still comfortably the worst thing I have ever tasted. Not sure what was in it but I didn’t finish it.
TOM BROWN:
On the Friday, I remember leaving work full of confidence and chanting ‘Champions’ to wind up the Evertonians – one of them stopped me and said it was not over yet, to which I replied it was ‘in the bag’. We set off to meet some friends in town before going to Anfield. I clearly remember seeing a penny on the pavement as I walked to the pub and thinking of the saying ‘See a penny, pick it up, and all day long you’ll have good luck’, but I dismissed the superstition and walked on. Since that day I have never failed to pick up a coin I come across on the street. We were in the old boys’ pen area (the corner between the Main Stand and the Kop) and it was full of Arsenal supporters, which was fairly unusual – I guess those were the last tickets available on general sale, but it does show how much easier it was to get tickets for big matches back then.