2003 FA Cup Final
Nobody ever seems to talk about the 2003 FA Cup win. For
some reason it’s been almost totally forgotten. Okay, it wasn’t a great game,
but it was still Arsenal winning a trophy. I wonder if part of the reason is
that we’d blown the Premier League Title in the final few games of the season and
the press went on about it being nothing more than a consolation prize. Maybe
that was the case for those watching it in a pub. For those of us watching it
in the flesh it was nothing other than priceless, as it always is when you win
a trophy. There’s nothing like being there.
We took another fun bus to Cardiff for the game. This time
we were staying in Cardiff itself the night before the match. We left Dover
early afternoon, but not without drama. My future wife had kindly ironed my
home shirt, ready for the game, only to iron a bloody great hole straight
through the front of it. That meant an emergency trip to JJB in town to
purchase another one - £40 worse off, but properly attired for the Cup Final
(the burned shirt had “Bergkamp 10” printed on the back and ended up being
signed by the Great Man later that year.
On the bus we had a newcomer as Haydn joined me, Dad, Mick,
Mark, Frank, Gary, Bill, David and Tony for the journey down, picking up
Matthew at Maidstone on the way. Young Haydn was a dead ringer for Ruud Van
Nistelrooy and not a huge drinker. He was certainly in the wrong place that
day. The beer was cracked early and we were on our way to another FA Cup Final. We hadn’t gone 100 yards from the pub before the bus had brushed a
parked car – the owner was known to Bill and he was happy to take a Cup Final
programme in lieu of the scuff on his bumper. Thankfully the red and white
ribbons weren’t damaged and we moved on down the road.
When we stopped at the services on the M4 we had Haydn’s
first incident. The coffees (tea) in my case were purchased and laced (more
than just slightly) with the usual brandy. As I said, Haydn wasn’t a drinker.
The boy was ashen after taking a massive mouthful of his coffee. He went for a walk.
Suffice to say he didn’t finish his coffee. All the more for Gary, as I recall.
Saints fans recreating 1976
We were at the hotel nice and early that afternoon and straight in to
the bar. There were a few Arsenal fans already there, and a few Southampton
supporters too. The Saints’ fans were determined to enjoy the occasion no
matter what and I thought it was a great idea of theirs to wear a replica of
their 1976 Cup Final shirt once they were confirmed as the “away” team. I
remember us wondering if Peter Rodrigues was skippering them the following day.
We were joined in the early evening by our Highbury
“neighbour” Glenn, and by Andy Gibbons and his mate Buster (who lived in
Cardiff). The evening wore on and we were getting hungry. There was a Toby
Carvery attached to the hotel and that got my vote, hands down. My brother,
however, had suggested a curry. Buster knew of a curry house somewhere nearby
and so it was settled. As we were finishing our drinks there was a noisy hen
party making their presence known in the bar. Haydn went off for a slash and we
went out to the taxi. My brother Mick, who always “organised” these trips away, counted the heads and we were off, in two minibuses (including our own driver,
Geordie John – the Dad of Scott who’d driven us the year before – and
had never been for a ruby in the past). By this time it was peeing down with
rain. We were all in Dover Gooners t-shirts or Arsenal attire of some type or
another, but Haydn had dressed up for the evening out. When we got to the curry
house we realised that young Haydn wasn’t with us. Having nipped off to the
toilet, Mick had then miscounted and we’d left the lad at the hotel. We piled
back in and headed back to find him. Walking down the road in the pouring rain,
with no idea where he was actually going, was a soaked to the skin Haydn. We
got him in the bus and he told us he thought it was some sort of initiation we
were putting him through! His nice shirt was wrecked and Gary was particularly
unhappy that the boy had walked away from a massive hen party to come and eat
Indian food with us bunch of drunks! In fact he has never allowed Haydn to
forget it.
Now drunk people and curry houses are not a great mix, are
they? So imagine drunken Arsenal supporters taking up half the restaurant and
noticing, on the wall, a framed picture of St Mary’s Stadium, marking this
venue out as the favoured meeting place of the Cardiff branch of the
Southampton Supporters Club. Unperturbed, we ordered (with some help for John
who knew only of the “mag-maloo” which is apparently the hottest dish you can
by in Newcastle). I don’t do spice so I picked the bog standard chicken curry.
Those waiters knew what they were doing. Not one of us around that table had
ever eaten anything like the nuclear explosions on a plate that were presented
to us. John, being a Geordie, loved it. My a**e hated it. And was still hating
it 48 hours later (a late recognition of the fact that half the cans of beer
we’d been drinking were past their sell-by date might also have exacerbated
that situation). I reckon the local Saints’ fans would have enjoyed the story
of how the Arsenal supporters were stitched up in their restaurant the night
before the game.
Back at the hotel there were a few more beers, and some chat
with a few of the locals, and a fine day and night came to an end. The best
thing about the booze is that it might just knock you out enough to overcome the excitement that usually prevents a decent kip the night before a
Cup Final.
Under the roof
After a decent breakfast the following morning it was
quickly in to the city where we, again, found ourselves outside Cardiff Castle.
This year, however, the weather was abysmal. As a result we were all crowded in
to a bus stop with our beer for the day, sheltering from the downpours. The FA
had already announced that the game would be played under a closed roof for the
first (and only) time. The last person to join the party was my colleague Wes
who had booked late on to the Travel Club coaches, but would return in
celebration with us on the minibus after the game. One last can and it was off
in to the ground.
Our seats for this Final were on the opposite side of the
pitch to where we were for the Chelsea game a year earlier, but with a similar
view. The roof being closed made for a really odd kind of feeling. There was a
weird sort of echo to everything and it was a bit like being in a massive
5-a-side hall.
I think that years “Abide With Me” was the most emotional
one I’ve yet experienced. The presence of the massed ranks of Southampton
supporters meant there were large numbers there determined to lap up the whole
thing. I remember a middle-aged Saints fan appearing on the big screen in tears
at the end of the hymn with tears rolling down his cheeks. If that doesn’t
underline the importance of the FA Cup to the fans then nothing can. It also
underlines what it means to be there in person – nobody watching in a pub or
anywhere else can get that feeling, and that’s why we go to games.
Bobby scores the winner
I remember us getting off to a fine start and Lundekvam
should have been sent-off in the very first minute for a professional foul, I
think on Thierry Henry. We continued to dominate without creating too much
clear cut, but we made the breakthrough just before half-time. Dennis Bergkamp
and Freddie Ljungberg combined, unsurprisingly, to get in and shoot. Freddie’s
effort was blocked, but it fell to Bobby who poked it in. There’s nothing like
a goal in the FA Cup Final and the Arsenal end (and much of the other end if
truth be told) erupted in noise that echoed around the closed in stadium.
Luzhny - the real Man of the Match
We had a slightly
weakened side out, to be fair. Sol Campbell was suspended after being
ridiculously sent-off after Solskjaer’s play acting a few weeks earlier,
Patrick Vieira was injured and also absent. As a result we had Ray Parlour
playing a rare game in the middle alongside Gilberto, while a half-fit Martin
Keown was slotted in alongside Oleg Luzhny at centre-back. The Horse was
playing his final game for Arsenal along with David Seaman, who was Captain in
Vieira’s absence. Luzhny was absolutely immense that day. Without a doubt it
was his best performance in an Arsenal shirt and it was an injustice that
Thierry Henry was made Man of the Match ahead of the Ukrainian. By the end of
the game Martin Keown was basically playing on one leg and Luzhny was standing
firm against the Southampton onslaught. We were trying to hit them on the break
and maybe could have had a goal or two more, but with a few minutes to go Henry
and Pires were already playing out time in the corners of the pitch. This was
making us all very anxious as you just felt Southampton would get a chance at
some point.
Big Dave goes out on a high
With a minute or two left Southampton gave it everything and
started to threaten. Brett Ormerod got the drop on our defence for the only
time all day and hit a stunning volley towards the roof of the net. David
Seaman made one final contribution with an outstanding save (he’d already got
us to Wembley with “that” stop in the semi-final against Sheffield United) to
tip the shot over the bar. I’d seen Seaman duck under similar near-post shots
from Giggs and Batistuta in recent years, so to see him stand up and make that
save was fantastic. Our greatest goalkeeper was going out on a high at Cardiff.
We cleared the resulting corner and the final whistle went. The celebrating
began.
Bobby with the FA Cup
Haydn was sat to my left and he was in tears at the final
whistle. He told us that he never thought he’d get to see something like this
in the flesh. The roar that greeted Seaman and Vieira lifting the Cup together
was as big as any other I’ve heard down the years. The Southampton fans were
the first losing supporters I’d ever known to stay en masse for the trophy
presentation, but such was their determination to take in everything and to
give their players thanks for the experience.
Dodgy conga
Our players set off on the usual lap
of honour, with the music blaring and the supporters singing, though I’m not
sure what the conga they did was all about. Kolo Toure was doing somersaults
and getting cheered in the process. For all the media who had gone on about us
getting some sort of “consolation prize” they couldn’t have been further from
the truth. Winning the FA Cup in 2003 was every bit as special as the other
times I’ve been through it. Magnificent.
Walking back to the buses with the Gooners was great as
usual. There was singing and celebrating on the streets of Cardiff. I remember
us seeing Jerry (Gunnersaurus) and Daniel Quy and serenading Jerry with the
Freddie Ljungberg song, changing red hair for grey in his case, as they waited
to pack people off on the Travel Club coaches that they organised. We boarded
the fun bus and headed back East.
I have to apologise to the others on the bus for the state
of my guts that evening. I’m sure that what was being created wasn’t natural in
any way. Matthew owned a pub just outside Maidstone and we piled in there when
dropping him off for some more beers and a bit of pizza to finish the day. One
of the pizzas was spicy. That wasn’t good for me. As a result Haydn wasn’t the
only one to get home that night with a sense of relief that he’d survived the
trip. Another great day of Arsenal glory was at an end.
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