Highbury Memories

[Libertine]

As suggested by young Reginald in the History section, a thread where people can stick up there memories of matches at the old girl, Highbury.


Arsenal v Aston Villa - FA Cup Quarter Final - 1982/83

This was a strange time at Arsenal. We still had the nucleas of an half decent team but unfortunately the players that had left - Brady (God) Stapleton (c***) - had been replaced by , at best, average players.
We'd been stuggling for goals since Wanky Stapleton left in '81. Alan Sunderland was getting on a bit and replacements that had come in for Stapleton (Hankin, Hawley, Kosmina) were, frankly, shit! But, this season, it finally looked like we might have cracked it.

England international, Tony Woodcock had decided to return to England, from Cologne, and Arsenal won the race to sign him. We also won the race to sign Stoke City's England U-21striker, Lee Chapman.
Woodcock was an immediate success and was scoring goals for fun. Chapman, unfortunately, started badly and got worse.
We were sitting in the lower half of the table at the New Year (we were good at home but piss poor away) but we'd shown by our run to the League Cup semi finals that we could beat any team on our day.

One of my favourite ever Arsenal players arrived in January, Vladmir Petrovic.
I don't think i can do the bloke justice with words about how good he was. I'll leave it at, he wouldn't have looked out of place in our current team!
Our league form remained consistant (we consistantly won at home and consistantly lost away) but we made our way to the FA Cup quarter finals by beating Bolton (with Alladyce playing) at home, Leeds over 3 games in the 4th round and Boro in a replay at Highbury in the 5th.
At this point you have to bear in mind Aston Villa's standing in the game at this stage. They'd won the League 2 years previously and were the reigning European Champions. They were a seriously good team with household names like Gary Shaw, Peter Withe, Tony Morley and Dennis Mortimer playing for them.

Highbury was packed, 55,000+, and it was blazing hot. These were still the days of pay on the door and, to secure your place, you got in early. By 2 o'clock Highbury was a cauldren of noise as the atmosphere built toward kick off.
We started brilliantly. Petrovic was pulling the strings and Talbot was destroying every Villa attack before it could start. About 10 mins in Petrovic played the ball wide to Rix. Rixy played the ball to the over-lapping Sansom and his low cross was smashed in by Woodcock. Cue pandemonium! We surged forward in celebration and suddenly i was over the boards, onto the pitch, and telling Nigel Spink (Villa goalie) that "we're going to wembley, we're going to wembley - you're not, you're not!".
Villa seemed shocked and Arsenal continued to pile forward and with about half hour gone, there came a goal i still dream about.
Petrovic picked up the ball in midfield, beat his man, laid it off to Woodcock, who played the perfect return pass and Petrovic drove the ball home from the edge of the box. Highbury erupted!
2-0 against the European Champions wasn't the fare we'd been used to!
Villa threw the kitchen sink at us after the break but our defence, superbly organized by David O'Leary (Legend), held out for a 2-0 win.
The North Bank sang "Que sera, sera" through out the second half. We on the Clockend taunted the Villa fans with songs about them "going home in a London ambulance!"

Of course, this being the early 80's, we didn't go on to win the FA Cup. Utd beat us 2-1 in the semi's (after we'd been 1 up at half time) as they had done in the League Cup semi's. We stumbled on the league, Woodcock scoring, Chapman not. Petrovic flitted in and out. Great goals against Stoke and West Ham sat side by side with afternoons standing there with hands on hips, wondering why no-one (bar Woodcock) was on the same wavelength.

Petrovic left at the end of the season. We'd paid £300,000 for him but another £300,000 was due after 20 games so, with 19 games under his belt, he went back to Red Star Belgrade.
I was gutted, he was a brilliant player, as close to a successor for Brady as we'd seen up until then.

But we still had the memories of that afternoon, when we beat the European Champions in the Highbury sunshine!
In the early 80's, believe me, that was as good as it got!

[Cheese]

Great stuff Libertine, it puts in perspective how lucky we are now to be able to mix it with the best teams around, it wasn't long ago like you say winning one-off games but still winning no silverware was about as good as it got.

[SE13]

There are some stunning classics over the barren years. I'll have a think, and see what I can describe.

Back in the day, as Libertine pointed out, it was pay on the door for most, and the atmosphere in there was amazing a good hour or more before kick off, with the surges, the chanting and the general party feel. The North Bank and Clock End used to chant to each other, The Clock End used to seriously abuse the visiting fans, while The East and West stands were.... well, The East and West Occasionally you'd get something from them!

Added extra information, is that Highbury was about the only place in North London to get a beer after 3pm, because the licence laws were different back then. I'm not sure if there was a bar at The Clock End, Libs will have to let us know. But we had one at the back of The North Bank, which was rammed solid at half time! At one point in time, we were allowed to take beer back to the terraces, but that was stopped, but I can't remember when.

My entry point to The North Bank was almost always via the gate almost opposite Arsenal Tube, though occasionally drunkeness led to feeling unable to make it all the way round having literally fallen out of a well known bar on The Avenell Road side.

Just thinking back to Lib's post, Villa actually won the league at Highbury a couple of years previously, although we beat them on the day. I still remember thousands of their fans pouring onto the pitch from The Clock End. Someone has to have opened a gate that day, because they only filled the normal areas, yet the stream of their fans was never ending.

However, back on topic, I think thrashing Manchester United in 91 would be a good start.... Only because of what happened to them afterwards, and the fact that they had to do a guard of honour as our players entered the arena.

**Puts note, home to Charlton after The League Cup win.... The players never paraded it at The North Bank end, more of that later*

[mikey_gooner]

Just thinking back to Lib's post, Villa actually won the league at Highbury a couple of years previously, although we beat them on the day. I still remember thousands of their fans pouring onto the pitch from The Clock End. Someone has to have opened a gate that day, because they only filled the normal areas, yet the stream of their fans was never ending.

the day pele was at the arsenal and got all kinds of abuse thrown at him as well as a few other things i believe ! also a big tear up on the pitch with the villa who had ran on

[Libertine]

Arsenal v Juventus - ECWC Semi Final - 1979/80

Highbury at night was a sight to behold.
It was a beautiful stadium at anytime but i always thougt it looked even better at night.
Most grounds had their floodlights mounted on enourmous metal pylons in the corners of the stands.
They lit the pitch but they were eyesores.
Not Arsenal.
Our floodlights ran across the top of the East and West stands. It meant that only the pitch was lit, whilst the 4 stands remained shrouded in darkness. It gave the impression that the pitch was a lit stage.
Same old Arsenal, just that bit classier than the rest.

The European Cup Winners Cup semi final saw the Old Lady of Turin visit Highbury - Juventus.
The Juventus team had an air of mystery about them. Players like Zoff, Bettaga, Causio, Gentile, Cabrini, Tardelli and Bettaga came to town with big reputations but (because there wasn't the 24 hour TV football that we have now) none of us had seen to much of them. In fact the last time we did see those players on the telly, they were wearing the blue of Italy as they comprehensively beat England in the previous World Cup qualifiers. It didn't bode well. But at least we still had Liam Brady.
As long we had the reigning King Of Highbury in the team, we alwayd had a chance.

As always for the big occasions, Highbury was packed with loads locked out. There were plenty of Italians in the crowd too and not just in the away fans section. North London had a massive population of Italians. They ran all the cafe's and chippy's on the manor. Before and after kick off, you couldn't get a cup of tea or a bag of chips locally for love nor money. But it didn't half add to the atmosphere.

Juventus started well and knocked the ball around at will. Tardelli always seemed to have that little bit of extra space that top players seem to have, despite Noddy Talbot's best efforts in midfield. He was getting the ball forward to Bettega with worrying frequency but O'Leary was on his game and was snuffing out the danger.
With about 20 mins gone Bettega's patience snapped and so did O'Leary's shin-pad!
O'Leary cleared a ball near the dug-outs and Bettega launched in, studs up, and crashed into O'Leary's right leg. The crowd went mental! Chants of "you diry foreign bastard!" rolled down from the North Bank. Don Howe and Terry Neill looked like they were going to explode on the touchline. David O'Leary departed on a stretcher and Bettega, unbelievably, only got a yellow card!
f**k me, that cranked the volume up a couple of notches!
The Arsenal players, fired up by Bettaga's challenge, steamed into the Italians. Talbot and Price whacked anything that moved in midfield, Willie Young took great delight in lumping any Italian, who was silly enough to get near him up, in the air!
Talbot brought Bettega crashing to the ground. Unfortunately, it was in our penalty area and the ref pointed to the spot. Jennings saved Cabrini's penalty but the Italian reacted quickest and knocked in the rebound. We went in at half time a goal down.

The Italians didn't fancy the rough-stuff after the break and proceeded to throw themselves to ground antyime a red and white shirt came near them. We weren't used to this and every roll and dive was greeted with a chorus of boos.
Arsenal got more into the game. Brady was starting to get a bit more space and Stapleton had started to batter their centre-backs into submission.
With 5 minutes to go, Brady slung over a cross. Willie Young headed it back across goal and Roberto Bettega sliced the ball into his own net. Some sort of justice was done!

The 1-1 draw still left the the Italians favourites to go through. 0-0 (the favoured Italian result of the time!) would put Juventus through on away goals. Add to that no foreign team had won in Turin for over 30 years. Add to that no English team had EVER won in Turin. No-one fancied Arsenal to progress.
And that's just how like it Arsenal!

The Italians settled for 0-0 in the 2nd leg but, with a minute to go, Rix crossed to the far post and a teenage striker called Paul Vaessen headed into Dino Zoff's net for one of the most famous wins in Arsenal's history.

Needless to say, we didn't win the final. We didn't win too may finals back then.
We lost the FA Cup final to West Ham on the Saturday and then the European Cup Winners Cup final to Valencia on the Wednesday.
Worst of all, we lost Liam Brady to Juventus for a poxy £450,000 that summer.

It was so nearly the best of times. Instead we braced ourselves for the worst period of football in Arsenal's history since the 60's.

[StLGooner]

good read libs, I like those. top stuff.

[Libertine]

However, back on topic, I think thrashing Manchester United in 91 would be a good start.... Only because of what happened to them afterwards, and the fact that they had to do a guard of honour as our players entered the arena.

You can stick your f***ing two points up your arse
You can stick your f***ing two points up your arse
You can stick your f***ing two points
Stick your f***ing two points
Stick your f***ing two points up your arse

[Libertine]

the day pele was at the arsenal and got all kinds of abuse thrown at him

He was there advertising some computer game thingy.
Atari or something.
He was walking around the pitch with an Arsenal scarf round his neck and the North Bank were singing: "You'll never play for Arsenal!"

[SE13]

However, back on topic, I think thrashing Manchester United in 91 would be a good start.... Only because of what happened to them afterwards, and the fact that they had to do a guard of honour as our players entered the arena.

You can stick your f***ing two points up your arse
You can stick your f***ing two points up your arse
You can stick your f***ing two points
Stick your f***ing two points
Stick your f***ing two points up your arse

Libertine, were you at O/T for that game? For those not in the know, we were in a pen behind the goal opposite The Stretford End, and scored via Anders Limpar from an acute angle. Obviously we went nuts, but were treated to what I can only describe as sheer disgust from the ManUre fans above. They threw bottles of urine, coins and worse still, other human excretions down on us. There was also a 21 man brawl on the pitch, and the subsequent hearing saw us docked two points.

There was a touch of mayhem both during, and majorly after the game, but I won't go into that here.

Our first home match after the hearing was against Southampton, and after we went 4-0 up, the only song that was sung was that above. "We want five" was drowned out with a sort of protest silence, and choruses of the above. One of the few days that The Clock End outsung us on The North Bank....

Just as a footnote, though I'm sure I have mentioned this before, we had a home game against Middlesex at around this time, and for an £8 (Cat A game) the touts were charging between £15 and £25 for tickets. Bearing in mind the previous season that there were an alleged 50,000 shut out of the ground, and there were a similar number for that game, it shows how ripped off current day fans are.....

[Libertine]

Libertine, were you at O/T for that game? For those not in the know, we were in a pen behind the goal opposite The Stretford End, and scored via Anders Limpar from an acute angle. Obviously we went nuts, but were treated to what I can only describe as sheer disgust from the ManUre fans above. They threw bottles of urine, coins and worse still, other human excretions down on us.

No mate.
I'd got nicked up there the year before (when Rocky(RIP) got sent off) so i gave it a miss.

That, slinging shit and piss about, was only done up north.
I remember Leeds doing it at Elland Road in a cup game (2-2 draw - Limpar got both)
Panda Pops bottles of piss rained down on us during the warm-up before kick off.

Middlesborough were bad for it too.

[Libertine]

Arsenal v Walsall - League Cup 4th round - 1983/84


1983/84 - a season i'll never forget.
f**k me i've tried but i'm still haunted by it!
And it had started so well.......

The summer of 1983 and young Scotsman, who'd just scored 52 goals for Celtic the previous season, announced he was coming to play in England.
Was he going to Liverpool, the European Champions?
Was he going to Utd, still searching for that striker to bring them a league title?
Was he going to the yids, who just won the FA Cup twice in a row?
Was he going to Villa, Ipswich or Forest, all teams that were challenging for the league?
No.
Charlie Nicholas was coming top Arsenal!

He made his debut against Luton on the opening day of the season. Thousands were locked out as everybody wanted to see the player who was going to restore the glory days to Arsenal.
We beat Luton 2-1, Nicholas showing a couple of neat touches, and then we won away at Wolves with Charlie scoring twice. Things were looking up!
Then Utd and Liverpool came to Highbury in the same week, both won, and we knew where we stood in terms of challenging for the league. And our goalscoring saviour failed to score a league goal at Highbury until after bloody Christmas!

As always though, we could still stick a Cup run together.
The League Cup saw us sneak past Plymouth 2-1 over 2 legs and then we beat the yids 2-1 at their shithole, with Charlie getting a goal.
He didn't score that many but Charlie ALWAYS scored against the yids!
That saw us get drawn at home to 3rd division* Walsall. (*3rd division is now called League 1)

It was a strange atmosphere at Highbury. We were looking forward to stuffing the no-hopers from the Midlands but our league form was so bad there was talk that the boss, Terry Neill, had to go.
We had a line up that had players of International quality: Jennings, Robson, Nicholas and Woodcock.
Unfortunately, alongside them were players that would struggle to get a game over the park!
But, f**k it, it was only little Walsall........

Stewart Robson fired us into an early lead and all talk of sackings and bad players was forgotten. We really turned on the style for the rest of the half. Fancy flicks and clever touches had Walsall chasing shadows but it remained 1-0 at the break.
I've no idea what Terry Neill said at half time, i don't think he knew what he was waffling on about half the time, but it was a very different second half.

Walsall came out and really went at us. Robson tried to stem the tide in midfield but with a pair of muppets in David Cork and Paul Madden alongside him, (i feel physically sick typing those names!) and Alan Sunderland looking completely uninterested having been put on the wing, he had no chance.
Walsall equalized on the hour and then camped out in our half for the rest of the game.
Our centre-backs, Tommy Caton and Chalky Whyte, were once talked about by people as prospective England players. I've no idea which sport these people thought they'd be internationals in but it wasn't football.
With 5 mins to go, Whyte mis-kicked a long ball straight to their striker and Walsall had won the game 2-1.

"Neill out! Neill out! Neill out!" chanted the North Bank. There was a huge protest outside the main entrance. I climbed up the scaffold, outside a house opposite, and me and some mates slung anything we could get our hands at the old bill (who were trying to break the demonstration up).
A week later, after another gutless defeat at West Ham, Terry Neill was sacked as Arsenal manager.

Don Howe (his assistant) was put in charge as caretaker-manager and we muddled on.
After Middlesborough (2nd division team at the time) dumped us out of the FA Cup, Howe managed to convince England stiker Paul Mariner to join us (in exchange for Alan Sunderland) put a couple of youngsters (Paul Davis and Tony Adams) in the team and things improved.

We had a decent end to the season including another win against the yids, with Charlie Nicholas scoring a wonder goal in front of the North Bank.
Even when we were shit, we could still beat the yids on a regular basis!
Don Howe got the managers job full-time and we all looked forward to the next season with new found confidence.

Did we never learn............

[SE13]

That, slinging shit and piss about, was only done up north.
I remember Leeds doing it at Elland Road in a cup game (2-2 draw - Limpar got both)
Panda Pops bottles of piss rained down on us during the warm-up before kick off.

Ah yes, that sequence. This is back in the days when games just kept getting replayed until a result was ground out. That game would have been the second or third replay. We were penned into the corner, and there were numerous bottles raining down on us, along with coins, bricks and fairly much anything they could lay their hands on.... And Limpar beat at least 30 players with a mazey dribble, and netted a beauty.

Right, let's get my thinking cap on for the 91 game against ManUre.... I was as drunk as a skunk long before kick-off, so the brain has little recollection!! Perhaps the beer leg up until the moment I passed out would suffice...?

I'll put something up this afternoon.

[Libertine]

Arsenal v Liverpool - Division 1 - 1984/85

Despite opening the season with a draw against Chelsea and defeat at Forest, things looked better than the previous season. Don Howe had gone with a new formation of Paul Mariner and Tony Woodcock upfront, with Charlie Niocholas playing in the hole behind them. For those of us who'd been brought up on 4-4-2, this was a radical change. And it sooned paid dividends!

Charlie scored twice and set up the other two goals in a 4-3 win at Watford. We attacked constantly during the game, with new signing Viv Anderson and Kenny Sansom piling forward from full-back at every opportunity. We then beat Newcastle 2-0 at home the following week with Anderson scoring the first and Brian 'Noddy' Talbot curling in a 25 yard free-kick (Platini like!) for our second. The following Saturday, Liverpool came to Highbury.

Liverpool were by the far the best team of this era and we hadn't had much (any!) success against them for quite sometime. We looked upon this as the real test of how good this playing style was.
Luckily for us, goal-machine Ian Rush was out injured and their midfield general Souness had gone to Italy during the Summer. With us in top form, it was a good time to be playing them.

People say "lightning never strikes twice in the same place". Bollocks can't it!
After a tense opening period we won a free kick 25 yards out in front of the Clockend. Up stepped Brian 'ZICO' Talbot and curled it into the top corner. We lead 1-0 at half time and we all hoped we could hold on for the next 45 mins.....
Instead we battered the scousers in the second half!

Viv anderson sped down the right wing and crossed into the six yard box, Paul Davis knocked it back to Tony Woodcock who blastered us two up. Paul Mariner had a chance to make the game safe when he went round Grobelaar but Hansen cleared his shot off the line. Never mind, a couple of minutes later Charlie Nicholas put Anderson in behind their full back and his cross was met by a diving header from Talbot for a 3 goal lead. The North Bank erupted, we knew we were safe now.
The scousers got a late goal but never threatened to spoil the day. At the final whistle we celebrated not only an amazing 3-1 win but also.........

....We'd gone top of the league for the first time in 12 years!

Not that it lasted of course!
We continued to play well up until December, although the goals were slowly starting to dry up.
3rd Division Oxford United knocked us out of the League Cup and, a month later, 4th Division York City did the same in the FA Cup.
You could see that players like Mariner and Woodcock didn't really have their hearts in it. They'd be superb against United but looked like they couldn't give a f**k at places like Ipswich.
Don Howe tinkered with the formation but couldn't seem to rediscover a winning formula.

The only remaining highlight of the season was f***ing up the yids title challenge!
Unbelievable as it seems now, yids (having won the FA Cup twice in succesion) were having a real crack at the championship. Another Charlie Nicholas goal and late second from our 'player of the season' , Brian Talbot soon put a stop to such sillyness though!
As we never tire of telling them: "61, never again - 61, never again!"

We finished up in 7th place and missed out on a UEFA Cup spot. Not that it mattered, the Heysal tragedy happened a couple of weeks later and all the English teams were banned from competing in European competitions.

On the plus side: England international Steve Williams had joined from Southampton and had struck up a good partnership with Paul Davis in midfield. We'd also been hearing good things about a few kids in the reserve teams.
Arsenal were finally coming out of the 'Dark Ages', in fact, we were on our way back!

[SE13]

That's a cracking read! As I recall, there were well over 60,000 in for that game. Wasn't that the one where they wore a weird silver kit?

I remember that York game only too well......

[mikey_gooner]

nice post libs , remember that game , as well as the two defeats against york and oxford , if i remember rightly we played west brom away last game of the season , needing a result to qualify for uefa , went to the match that day up at albion , same day as the bradford fire and wall collapsing at birmingham leeds match ? don howes red and white army , don howes red and white army