by Amy Lawrence
NIGEL WINTERBURN:
What are you doing? Dicko? Why are you throwing it out to Dicko?
LEE DIXON:
I was looking at him picking the ball up and he sort of looked at me and I was running up the pitch. Because I know it’s over so just kick it. There’s no point throwing it to me because all I’m going to do is do what you’re doing and you can kick it farther than me so just get the ball and kick it up the pitch.
JOHN LUKIC:
I don’t think he wanted it – he was running away at the time – but he got it because I didn’t want it.
LEE DIXON:
I remember him shouting ‘Dicko!’ and pulling his arm back. I literally didn’t want it. I was like, ‘No. Don’t do that.’ So now I’ve got one thing on my mind. I’m just going to launch it as far down the pitch as I can. I’ve taken a touch and looked up and Smudge is coming towards me and I’m like, what are you doing? Run the other way! This is all happening in slow motion. Smudge is coming towards me. I only had that one ball. So I just thought, for once don’t shank it off the pitch. Try and find your man.
GEORGE GRAHAM:
Lee used to like overlapping and he used to hit the ball at Highbury into the crowd. He used to find this guy in the crowd all the time. Ha ha ha. Anyway this time he whacked it.
LEE DIXON:
I didn’t whack it. It was a cultured right foot!
BRIAN MOORE:
A good ball by Dixon … finding Smith …
ALAN SMITH:
When Lee gets the ball I know where I’ve got to be because we’ve done it so often that season and Lee knows where I’m going to be. You’ve normally got one or two or even three options but I knew he was going to play it up to me and he really did ping it up with some force. As it was coming I thought, I’ve got to turn first time here. I can’t afford to just take a touch and have the centre-half behind me and lay it back.
LEE DIXON:
Smudge did what Smudge does best and took a velvet touch. He has looked inside and Mickey’s set off on this run.
ALAN SMITH:
There’s seconds to go. I’ve got to take a chance – and it was taking a chance that I’d swivel as I took the touch – but it came off perfectly.
BOB WILSON:
Throughout the season Alan Smith was being hit with these missiles. Pragmatic was the term that was given to the Arsenal side at that time and you would hit Smudger with these balls and it would be like a magnet. On that last game of the season even everybody at Liverpool said you could have hit him with anything on that night and it never moved off him. It obviously was crucial.
ALAN SMITH:
The touch was spot on and it bounced just in front of me as I’ve turned and I see a flash of the yellow shirt in my peripheral vision. I don’t really know it’s Mickey but I just help it on in that direction. A little poke forward and there he is running.
BRIAN MOORE:
For Thomas charging through the midfield …
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I just remember the ball hitting Smudger. As usual Smudger chests it and he turns inside and all I see is a gaping space and I’m going to go for a run. I’m going to go for a run. Smudger sees me. He’s going to put me in and that was it. When I tried to hit the ball over Steve Nicol’s shoulder and it hit his shoulder, it hit me and bounced into the path where I wanted to go. Meant to be.
NIGEL WINTERBURN:
Mickey’s on to it. I’m on his outside about five yards wide of him, slightly behind him and I’m watching him. You cannot miss this time. I know what you are like. You are super cool.
ALAN SMITH:
I could see the whole picture unfolding as I was running behind him. The little break of the ball. Those red shirts closing in on the right. Ray Houghton being the closest. I just remember being convinced that he was going to leave it too late because Mickey being Mickey, he always did everything in his own time. Never ever rushed. Stubborn as you like.
LEE DIXON:
I’m now 30 to 40 yards away looking at the back of Mickey’s shirt and it looks like he’s through on goal. He can’t be. Surely not. Talk about time standing still. When you’re looking that far down the pitch you can’t tell where the lines are, whether he’s in the box or he’s outside the box. I just saw players converging on him, thinking, he’s going to get tackled right now.
PAUL MERSON:
If there’s one player in the whole of the team that you would want that to happen to, to go through one on one with the keeper with a minute to go when he’s just missed a sitter ten minutes before, I would say Mickey Thomas. Because if he did miss he wouldn’t give a shit. He wouldn’t. That’s how laid-back he was. If he did miss it wouldn’t have affected him. I think I’d still be in a mental home now if I’d have missed. I don’t know how I’d get it out of my head.
GEORGE GRAHAM:
Mickey was really a cool dude. A talented boy, he just wanted to play football and go forward.
DAVID O’LEARY:
I’m looking straight down the pitch and I see him get through and it’s completely still behind the goal. I’m going, you put that ball in the net, Mickey Thomas. It’s just going on and on and on for ever it seems and I was thinking, get over that line.
PAUL DAVIS:
In those situations he did seem to just relax more than anybody else. He has this way about him, when the pressure’s there he’ll just extra relax.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I’m thinking, I’m right on goal here. All I’ve got to do is put it over Steve Nicol’s head and I’m in. I didn’t get enough on it. It hits his shoulder. It hits me and then bounces beyond Steve Nicol towards their goal. Towards Bruce Grobbelaar. And I’m thinking now, this is my time. I’m going to score this. Ray Houghton was so close. I had no idea he was that close. It is scary. My heart beats even now with the tension every time I see it.
Everybody knows how great a goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar was. Very flexible. I’m waiting for him to make the first move. It’s like a poker game. Me and Bruce have a little stand-off with each other. Who’s going to show his cards first? I’m there waiting for him. Waiting and it seems ages before he made the move. Bruce was taking so long to dive and I’m thinking, come on, please. I want to get this over. Just as he showed his hand I knew what I was going to do.
PERRY GROVES:
All the great sportsmen say all their great moments go in slow motion. They say their body slows down and their mind slows down and it seemed like it was slow motion to me. I’m facing that way and Thommo’s running through. Basically I go to being a fan. I’m on the pitch but in that moment I am a fan with kit on because I can see it happening and there’s nothing I can do to influence it because I’m too far away. I can remember just thinking, for fuck’s sake, Thommo, shoot!
ALAN SMITH:
It was a cat-and-mouse situation. Under those circumstances, he’s incredible. So many players would have just panicked and just got the shot off quickly, especially as he missed that earlier one. But he didn’t. Cool as a cucumber. He was determined to wait for Grobbelaar to make a move and wait for him to go down before he was going to flick it and that’s exactly what he did in the nick of time before the challenge came in. It’s not even about points at this stage and it’s not even about goal difference. It’s about goals scored. So to score one goal more than them over 38 games brings us the spoils. But that’s the beauty of football. That’s how things can condense. After all that blood, sweat and tears it can come down to that. Just five seconds. You flunk it and it’s all gone to waste and you keep your cool and you’re a hero.
PAUL MERSON:
Ray Houghton was saying not too long ago he could have brought him down that day. I talk to Bruce Grobbelaar and he thought he had it.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
The pressure probably would have crushed me if I knew what time it was. Because there was no clock I didn’t know how long it was to go so that’s why I just thought: no pressure. Once Bruce showed h
is hand all I needed to do was a little clip and that was it.
BRIAN MOORE:
Thomas … It’s up for grabs nooooowwww!
MICHAEL THOMAS:
Once it hits the net I’m just thinking ecstasy really. It’s just incredible. I’ve done what I wanted to do. That’s that feeling. I’ve done it.
NIGEL WINTERBURN:
I’m off. It hasn’t even gone in the net. Whoomph. Straight across the goal. I’m already celebrating.
ALAN SMITH:
We all just peeled off and went to the corner to take the acclaim of the fans. The scenes. Absolute bedlam.
LEE DIXON:
As it hit the back of the net I remember just bursting out crying on the pitch. It sounds melodramatic but that’s what it was.
TONY ADAMS:
I pretty much lost my head. It was probably the only time in my career I had been knocked off my feet. When Mickey scored I was actually emotionally knocked off my feet. It’s a weird sensation but the legs had gone and I was down on my knees. You know, just phew. It must have been the build-up of the occasion and the enormity of what’s happened because that doesn’t normally happen. I don’t think I’ve ever been knocked off my feet since. So that was pretty powerful stuff.
PAUL DAVIS:
Myself, Brian and Quinny just celebrated as a three together at the side of the pitch. We were jumping up and down amongst ourselves. It was indescribable.
NIALL QUINN:
I wanted to have played, to add a jersey on the night, but it was the next best. We were right beside it all.
STEVE BOULD:
I saw the goal from the bench as I had been subbed. I remember there was a police officer in front of us with a big stick and as we jumped up he started to knock us back with it. I think he realised it was going to be mayhem on the pitch.
GARY LEWIN:
That police commissionaire with his cane was trying to get us to all sit down again on the bench. He wasn’t happy at all.
JOHN LUKIC:
From my end of the pitch I saw the goal go in and it was like somebody had just turned a switch. The place went absolutely silent apart from the 4,000 Arsenal fans up in the top corner. It was almost surreal.
TONY ADAMS:
I couldn’t run up the other end and congratulate him because I was on my knees. In real time it’s very quick and all I remember is Nigel wheeling off to the crowd. The game wasn’t over yet and if I’d run up that end and done a Nigel I don’t think I’d have got back.
JIM ROSENTHAL:
For a moment, the whole place went quiet. Because I don’t think Arsenal could believe what they’d seen and the Liverpool fans were just dumbfounded. Then Mickey Thomas did this celebration and I’ve never seen a celebration like it. He’s like a corkscrew trying to screw himself into the Anfield turf.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
People always remind me that I nearly broke my neck in that celebration. Why didn’t I just run into the Arsenal supporters? I didn’t know what I was thinking.
GEORGE GRAHAM:
I was shocked. I didn’t really embrace the second goal as much as I would have liked to have done. I should have been on the pitch, jumping and hugging everybody, but I was so taken aback because I had been thinking: we’ve given it our best shot and we’ve come up short.
JEFF FOULSER:
I was on the phone to ITN because following us was News at Ten, and I had been talking to their programme editor and they were going to come to us right at the top of News at Ten if Arsenal managed to win by two clear goals. As he’s saying that I can hear Brian Moore’s commentary building up and him saying it’s up for grabs now and I sort of look up with the phone to my ear and oh my God Mickey Thomas scores and all hell broke loose. I said I’ll have to ring you back.
ANDY COWIE:
As a photographer towards the end of a game that’s poised the thing you had to worry about was your film was only 36 frames and you wondered, have I got enough film in the camera? All of a sudden sometimes when you press nothing happens and you think, oh, I’ve run out of film. That’s it. Because Thomas kept coming and coming and coming, I was still firing and thinking, how many frames have I got in the camera? Have I got enough if he does score? I’m still clicking away. I don’t normally shoot more than two or three frames but I shot 18 frames. I was panicking so I kept going and kept going and going.
MARK LEECH:
I was the opposite side of the goal from Andy and took a frame that never saw the light of day because Nicol’s arm is across Michael Thomas. But the point missed there is the fact that Ray Houghton’s toe of his boot is on that ball. It’s just a whisker away. Just before Thomas pulls the trigger and puts the goal in the net. Houghton is unbelievably close.
JIM ROSENTHAL:
As a piece of sporting drama you’d struggle to find anything to compare with it. How it can just change like that. At that moment in time. With that prize. With millions watching at home. You couldn’t script it. But of course there’s still time to play and Brian Moore is saying, hold on a moment.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I don’t know how long we’ve got left, ten minutes or whatever, before this game finishes. Just sit it out.
LEE DIXON:
I’ve managed to stop myself crying on the halfway line. I got back to my position and then thought, come on, ref, you just said it’s over. Then they kick off and they have another attack. Mickey is there at the edge of the box, cool as you like, and rolls it back to Lukey with the outside of his foot when he should’ve just launched it in the stands.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
I remember Rocky and the lads saying afterwards, what the hell were you doing? Why didn’t you put it over his head or whatever? I was facing our own goal at the Kop and then someone was coming towards me and I did a side-step and passed it back to John Lukic. I can’t believe I did that. We were 2–0 up and if they scored a goal we’ve lost the league and I didn’t really think about it. But for me to do that was normal.
LEE DIXON:
But that was him. Like the goal was him. Take as much time as you can. Don’t hurry or anything. It’s just fine.
ALAN SMITH:
I don’t know what was going on inside his head but from the outside it looked like water off a duck’s back. He was the most laid-back man going and he seemed to just revel in it. I suppose, why wouldn’t you?
MICHAEL THOMAS:
A lot of players would say it couldn’t fall to a better person in the team than me because everybody else would have stressed out about that situation. Whereas I was thinking that I’ve missed one before, I’ve got to bury this one and that was it. To put it in was just amazing. Being a London boy. Scoring that goal. To bring the trophy back to London for the first time since 1971. It was fantastic. Just see our travelling supporters, that was it for me.
LEE DIXON:
The ball is launched up and I think Smudge hears the final whistle. He does his little double skip thing. Then the realisation that it’s over and then mayhem. Everyone’s just running.
MICHAEL THOMAS:
It was nice to be a part of history in the making. Especially for Dave O’Leary because I’ve watched Dave O’Leary throughout my whole life as a kid. Seeing him in cup finals. The next minute I’m being an apprentice to these guys and I’m in awe of them. He’s been through everything and not won the league. He was part of the family. Graham Rix was there, which was great. Kenny Sansom was there, which was fantastic. They had both left but to celebrate with them, see them there, seeing Arsenal win the league, was fantastic for me. It doesn’t matter if you leave. We’re still family.
There are pictures of me with David Rocastle, Tony Adams, Paul Merson. Paul Davis, Kevin Campbell, Niall Quinn and Martin Hayes were there. Just seeing us. What we came through. We’ve come through the ranks as a group and the only person that was missing was Martin Keown. It meant so much to us all. We fought together, cried together and this one was obviously a big one – to win it a
nd to feel we were all part of it. It’s a brotherhood. We never had many arguments in that squad. We all got on very well. It’s weird to have a squad with no squabbling, no in-house fighting about anybody. It was just great to be a part of that. Nothing ever better for me.