{"id":823,"date":"2020-05-16T16:17:26","date_gmt":"2020-05-16T15:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=823"},"modified":"2020-05-22T17:30:26","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T16:30:26","slug":"fairs-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=823","title":{"rendered":"Fairs Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Seventeen years without a trophy! How often\nhave we heard a similar refrain? It is 1970; we last won the league in 1953 and\nwe have been proven to be second best in two previous consecutive League Cup\nFinals. I don’t recall the 1968 final when we lost by a single controversial\ngoal to Leeds United but I remember all too well the humiliating defeat in the\n1969 final at the hands of Third Division Swindon Town when a certain Don\nRogers was to become the hero of the day. Sad to say, there were no heroes that\nday wearing an Arsenal shirt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was my inaugural Highbury season. I\nhad begged my brother to take me with him to a match against Nottingham Forest\nin the February to the absolute horror of my mother who would have preferred\nher ten year old daughter to show an interest in a more becoming and genteel\nsport such as tennis. My brother recalls his plan at the time for the\nindoctrination of his younger sister \u2013 it seems he was tired of suffering\nalone, attending a school less than fifteen minutes walk from the ground of the\nmore popular North London side of the day whose fans were still lauding it\nhaving secured the  Double nine years\npreviously. Despite him getting me a ticket for the 1969 League Cup Final, my\nmother forbade me to go \u2013 it felt cruel on the day. I had pulled out all the\ncolour supplements in the local newspapers that suggested Arsenal only had to\nturn up on the day to lift the trophy. Perhaps my mother had known better,\nafter all, protecting me from the misery and ignominy of losing to a third rate\nteam from a place I’d never heard of. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I lay on my bed with my cheap, small, tinny\ntransistor radio pinned to my ear. We were losing 3-0 away to Anderlecht in the\nfirst leg of the 1970 Inter Cities Fairs Cup Final. A bit like Swindon, I had\nnever heard of a place called Anderlecht but misery was becoming a familiar\nfeeling and, with Arsenal’s help, I had apparently willed it onto my young\nself! Our Manager, Bertie Mee, gambled by throwing on a little known substitute\nand, a raw Ray Kennedy, grabbed a goal towards the end.  It took a while for it to dawn on me that the\ngoal was beyond mere consolation and had given us a lifeline as I started to\ngrapple with the meaning of a law that meant away goals counted double in the\nevent of a draw. We now only had to beat a clearly superior Anderlecht team by\ntwo clear goals at Highbury in the second leg. Sounds familiar? There was hope!\nArsenal fans seem to trade in hope rather a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second leg of the final was to be an all ticket affair and I recall the queue snaking along Avenell Road as we lined up for hours, past the large ‘Schoolboys Entrance’ sign to the left of the North Bank turnstiles. On this occasion, my first final, I was going to enter the ground with a proper, grown-up, paper ticket. Generally, I would enter through the Schoolboys Entrance for the reduced price of two shillings (ten pence) to then gain access into the North Bank via the large, imposing metal gates on the right hand side. I always felt indignant at the absence of a Schoolgirls Entrance even at such a young age. It seemed that Arsenal didn’t really want girls at football matches leaving me to ponder whether my mother had been correct about embracing tennis, after all!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And so I came to be present at what many\npeople refer to as ‘The Greatest Night Highbury ever Witnessed’. By now, my\nbrother and I had established a routine whereby he would go to the back of the\nNorth Bank and I would go to take my place, as did many children, down behind\nthe goal where there was a chance of actually being able to see some of the\naction. This night, there was a palpable belief from the crowd that we could\nwill the team on to victory. It was a crowd, that in common with the team, was\nweary and tired of disappointment and defeat; and desperate for a famous\nvictory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breakthrough came on 25 minutes and I remember the exact moment Eddie Kelly’s shot flew past a static goalkeeper at the Clock End. I remember every goal that night with a degree of accuracy that is impossible for me these days when my memories of important matches tend to be an amalgam of what I actually saw, or what I think I saw after watching the extended highlights. I was not to see any footage of any of the goals until twenty three years later when the Arsenal Museum in the newly built all-seater North Bank aired some grainy black and white coverage of the final. Geordie Armstrong had taken a corner, Frank McLintock had intercepted the ball, sending a diagonal pass through to Eddie Kelly who steadied himself to make room for a shot that flew past Anderlecht’s static goalkeeper, Jean-Marie Trappeniers, comically referred to in Brian Moore’s commentary as ‘Trap ‘n’ Ears’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The first half ended one nil to the Arsenal\nand at the start of the second half, Frank McLintock entered the pitch early to\nfurther stoke the crowd of 51,600. That was the official count but in those\ndays the actual attendance often comprised many thousands more as fans would\ngain entry to the terraces long after the gates had been slammed shut. Judging\nby how we were all crammed in with barely room to move I suspect that the\nofficial attendance was a conservative figure. Tonight was going to be as much\nabout the crowd as the team. \u201cCome on Arsenal, Come on Arsenal\u201d encouraged the\ncrowd; we were playing well but Anderlecht seemed resolute and even spurned an\nopportunity to kill the final off when Deverindt fired straight at our keeper,\nBob Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Down behind the goal of the North Bank, I\nwas struggling to see. On my tiptoes for most of the match I tried to find gaps\nbetween shoulders and heads as I struggled to follow the drama unfolding before\nme. A ball came flying over from a Bob McNab cross and I could just make out\nJohn Radford rising high above everyone else to head the ball into the net. Cue\nutter pandemonium; I was literally swept off my feet as the crowd moved as one\nmass carrying me with it in directions I had no control over ending up each\ntime next to people unfamiliar from earlier on. I asked my brother for his\nrecollection of the crowd at that moment, high up in the terracing of the North\nBank:
\n
\n\u201cThe crowd now went crazy, we were in the lead for the first time on the\ndreaded away goals rule.   This time I\nlanded about fifteen feet from where I took off and although I was screaming\nwith pure ecstasy no noise was coming out as I was totally hoarse by now. We\nwere pounding the air and  hugging\neveryone including the police that mingled amongst us. And then, all of a\nsudden, the  sheer joy and elation was\nreplaced by negative thoughts of  \u201cNo \u2026\nnot 2-0! We haven’t won it properly!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would we be able to hang on and win the Cup on the away goals rule, we all wondered? An expectant crowd gathered more belief just ninety seconds later, when a Charlie George pass found Jon Sammels, who on beating his marker, unleashed a fine diagonal shot past ‘Trap ‘n’ Ears’ into what was the bottom right corner of the goal from where I was watching. \u201cEasy, easy\u201d came the confident chant as toilet rolls reined down onto the muddy, furrowed pitch. While we now had more belief, there was still an unease that Anderlecht could force extra time if they were to get just one goal back. The crowd willed the team on through the final fifteen minutes. \u201cWe shall not, we shall not be moved\u201d was the chant as John Radford almost added a fourth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Highbury erupted on all sides when the whistle finally blew. As people poured on to the pitch to celebrate I was shoved to the ground by supporters pushing down from the back wanting to join in with the jubilation. The police were fighting a losing battle trying to prevent people from entering onto the pitch and I was getting trampled and unable to get to my feet. I think I learned in that moment what it might be like to drown as I was floundering in a sea of legs and boots and having difficulty drawing breath. I recall a calmness when I’d almost given up to resign myself to my fate at which moment I was hauled up by two men. My rescuers turned out to be a somewhat scary looking tattooed and bovver booted skinhead and a more reassuring looking helmeted policeman. By now, the police had made a wise decision to allow people onto the pitch and so the crush was alleviated. I recall Frank McLintock being hoisted above a joyous crowd keeping a firm grip of the trophy outstretched above his head. At last \u2013 a elusive trophy and he wasn’t letting go! Eventually, I was reunited with my older brother who escorted me home to a mother who appeared to be softening, realising that she was losing her battle just as Arsenal had started to win theirs. Little did we know that on that euphoric night, even better was to come the following season!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seventeen years without a trophy! How often have we heard a similar refrain? It is 1970; we last won the league in 1953 and we have been proven to be second best in two previous consecutive League Cup Finals. I don’t recall the 1968 final when we lost by a single controversial goal to Leeds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":827,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}