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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am a lifelong Wolves fan who just happened to attend Liverpool University. I felt very much part of the true football community of Liverpool, which came together, united in grief, after the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989. In truth the whole football community came together because every football fan during this era knew that there but for the grace of God it could have been us standing on that Leppings Lane terrace. During this era, we were all at times treated as thugs; all caged like animals. My best friend’s girlfriend, also a student at Liverpool University, lost her life at Hillsborough and we queued for many hours to pay our respects on the Kop, where she too had stood. I was determined to try and get a ticket for the big match to end all big matches and so I made my way early on the Friday evening in the hope of buying a ticket. Sure enough we soon found a young Scouse lad who sold my friend and I two tickets for the Kop for £10 each and I’ll never forget that the tickets were in his shoe, which he quickly replaced with the £20.
My biggest concern was my actual match ticket, which was for the Kop. The radio at work had been saying all day that any Arsenal fans with Kop tickets wouldn’t get in. I unsuccessfully tried to get into the away end on three separate occasions, before being told I would be nicked if I tried again. On entering the Kop end it was quite moving to see the messages written on different areas, to those who had perished in Sheffield. I asked a steward if he would take me down to the so far empty away end. He said normally he would, but for this game they were not allowed, then informed me, ‘Your lot are over in the corner.’ I was astounded to find about 30 Arsenal fans in the corner, one guy was actually wearing an Arsenal sweatshirt! Everyone was trying to get moved up to the away end, and it was said they were going to move us en masse. About 25 minutes before kick-off with a big cheer we began moving to the top of the terrace to begin our trek to the away end. Unbeknown to us they were passing the lads to the police, who were throwing them out of the ground. Luckily for me I was at the back of the group, and when I saw what was happening, I made my way back to the corner, where only six remained, including the guy in the sweatshirt.
We bundled off the coach and ran to Anfield. We stood near the back, just next to the Arsenal away seats. I had my bag of ticker tape I made using a hole punch at home the week before. It took me days to make enough. I don’t think anyone does this any more but back then I did it a lot.
We secured a ticket from the great Theo Foley at the team hotel and hung around as players and staff mingled. I remember there was a palpable air of calm. It’s hard to explain but you could feel we were going to do it. We got into the ground and I found myself sitting next to Pierce O’Leary, recognisable because he looks just like David.
I was working as an Arsenal Travel Club steward. We missed the first 15 minutes of the game, but were told by a police officer, who came on our coach as we were entering Liverpool, that the game was going to kick off at 20.30 p.m. Amazingly, we didn’t have a radio. When we parked up on the side of Stanley Park and heard the roars of the crowd, there was pandemonium. Fans were running to the ground as quickly as they could and I saw people jump over the turnstiles. I couldn’t understand the atmosphere amongst the away fans, in optimistic mood and looking so happy. They must be mad, I thought.
As the convoy of coaches arrived with the game already started everyone sprinted to get to the entrance, the urgency to get in the ground rising fast. It became very crowded outside the turnstiles with people jostling for position. I recall one mounted policeman barking at the fans outside with piercing shout: ‘Think about what happened at Hillsborough.’ For a moment everyone went quiet, took a collective step back, and got into a more orderly queue. It was a weird feeling to be simultaneously patient and impatient to move.
We parked on a grass verge very near to Anfield. Police told us we would get a parking ticket (which we did) but we just wanted to get into the ground as we were 15 minutes late. I remember a turnstile attendant telling us we were 1–0 up. We all cheered as we ran up the stairs – we weren’t obviously (Scouse humour I guess).
We missed the first half hour and abandoned the minibus driver a fair distance from the ground, saying: be in this same spot after the game. Sure we were the last into the ground.
Ticketless, me and a pal tried to bunk in. We went through an open door in the Main Stand and followed a labyrinth of corridors, ever certain of gratis entrance with the match under way – finally faced with a closed door, we hesitantly opened it to find … the police control room. We (me and my mate Waz) high-tailed it before the assembled puzzled plod cottoned on – back to the away end turnstiles where a friendly bobby told us: ‘You won’t get in now, lads. Best bet is to go to the Arkles and watch it on TV.’ Following a nine-hour drive from Bognor Regis on snarled-up roads with our beloved Gunners in with a smidgeon of a chance to win the bloody league title, we swerved his kind suggestion – and generally panicked. About 15 minutes into the game we heard a commotion and then the sound of people running – three coachloads of Arsenal fans – themselves held up by the horrific jams on the M6 – were frantically legging it to the game. We both stood in the middle and begged for ‘any spares’. Within a minute Waz had a seat for a tenner and I told him to get himself in; a few minutes later I had bagged a ticket for a tenner, too, and in I went.
When the boys in yellow and blue ran on the pitch before kick-off with the flowers for the Liverpool fans still mourning their 96 brothers and sisters who had died weeks earlier at Hillsborough, we were watching it on the coach’s portable TV, until the Merseyside constabulary decided to give us a fast-track escort to the ground. Once inside, tucked into a corner, I found myself wedged up alongside a Demis Roussos lookalike (look him up, kids).
I got the great David Rocastle’s (RIP) flowers. A man in front caught them and passed them to me. I always felt honoured that they were Rocky’s flowers. I remember a few weeks before I had written a letter of condolence to Liverpool FC after Hillsborough.
We arrived at Anfield full of confidence. We had been in great form and there was no way Arsenal would beat us. We took up our usual places on the Kop. When the Arsenal team came carrying bouquets that they distributed to people around the stadium my friend Andy pointed out that it was a nice touch, but he didn’t like the Arsenal players getting on the ‘good side’ of the crowd.
Instead of joining my mates for the journey north on that fateful day I did my round, selling pork pies out the back of a lorry round the Surrey/Hampshire border. Beef sausages, steak and kidney pies, chipolatas, beef and onion pies. I was a good salesman but on this particular day my mind was elsewhere. I made my rounds on autopilot, returned home about lunchtime and had a few beers in my local before the game started. I got back home, hung my Arsenal flag up in the bedroom window, a feeble gesture I know but I had to do something, didn’t I?
So I sat alone in front of the TV, just me, a six-pack in the fridge and a chicken vindaloo from the local tandoori, curtains drawn, with mixed emotions. I wanted to be there, I should have been there, I deserved to be there. Tonight would be for all Arsenal fans who had seen the dross. Walsall, York City, Oxford United, near relegation, Pat Howard, tonight would make up for all of that.
Anfield 89 is legendary in our family. I was seven at the time and it is my first real memory of any game of football I have watched. My uncle John was playing in goal for Arsenal and so my dad, grandma and grandad were lucky enough to have tickets in the away end for the night. I remember my dad leaving the house with my grandma and grandad and not really being optimistic about Arsenal getting a result given the size of the task in hand.
Me and my younger brother sat in the front room of our house watching the game as my mum had said it was OK for us to stay up a bit later than normal to watch. My brother was only four at the time and so he wasn’t really old enough to sit still and watch all the match but he kept sitting for five minutes and then going to play and then coming back again for five minutes. I wasn’t much older but just remember being glued to the settee.
I was working out near Heathrow. I had this weird afternoon job and I was living in Finsbury Park and I walked down to the Tube to go to work and there was a load of coaches ready to go to the game. I was like, ‘Go on, you’re welcome to it’, as I saw all these people getting on the coach. They’re going, ‘Come on! 2–0 no problem!’ And I thought, it’s very sweet but there’s no way. The sheer agony of those games against Derby and Wimbledon lingered. I couldn’t see how we were going to win the league. It was a reminder yet again that football teams will always let you down and the players are all useless. I got on the Tube. After work it’s a long Tube ride back and I remember panicking a little bit about not getting home in time. I was watching with friends just around the corner from the stadium. I got home about 7 and sat down to watch.
I was in a band with a guy called Simon Wild. That was our band – just me and Simon. He had a guitar and we both tried to harmonise and we did Springsteen and Prince covers and we were awful. He used to come round and practise every Friday after school and this particular day was two days after my birthday and I remember I said to him, listen, we can’t do band practice. But I really want you to come over and watch Arsenal versus Liverpool because if we win by two goals we win the league. He just didn’t like football at all but he was a lovely guy, a good buddy, so he sat down with me not really getting it. We watched it in my sister’s room because she had a bigger room and the portable television.
Me and my mates had booked our annual lager-fuelled summer holiday to Magaluf (I know, I know) earlier in the year for late May. Of course we didn’t know the season would be extended past the FA Cup. A day or two before the game we noticed the Everton players were in Magaluf too on their post-season holiday. On the night of the game we’d found a bar showing the game and the Everton lot were in there too. Whilst at the bar getting a few San Miguels in, one of the Everton lot was also getting some in. I asked him what he thought Arsenal’s chances were. His reply … ‘No fookin’ chance, mate, no fookin’ chance at all.’
I couldn’t get a ticket for the game. It was a Friday, which was a bit unusual. It was my brother’s birthday. He’s a Tottenham fan. Great. I was down in Whitstable, which is where I’d been to university and I still had lots of friends down there and I was with my good friends Damian Harris and Tom Connolly. Tom was a student with me. Damian was from Whitstable and I used to play pool in the pub with his older brother when I should have been studying. We went to Damian’s house and we watched it there with his dad, who was a big Arsenal fan, and I thought I was going to be late. I remember we’ve got to get some cans in. We’ve got to get some cans from the 10 o’clock shop. And cigarettes obviously. Because it’s the 80s, everyone’s got to smoke. We got some cigarettes and the game started late. So now we’re even more wound up. We’re really tense sat on the sofa.
I was 13 at the time of the game. Growing up just outside High Wycombe the local team was non-league so everyone had a First Division team. My best mate was Andy White and he was an Arsenal fan too. We were both in the Junior Gunners. I was mascot for the first game after we lost the League Cup final to Luton. I still have the pictures of leading the team out alongside Tony Adams through a tunnel of mascots as it was the Junior Gunners’ somethingth anniversary.
Andy was round for the game and we watched it in the front room, just the two of us. I can picture that room clear as day now. Green sofa, mahogany coffee table in front of it that the parents still own, big rug with a red flowery pattern and white tassels round the edge with polished dark wooden floorboards underneath. In the corner was the TV, a boxy number that was pretty big for its day but would be dwarfed by anything you have now. We were having our garage extended and redecorated and that Friday when I got home from school one of the builders asked me if I thought we would do it. I distinctly remember pausing, saying yes, and for the first time actually believing it.
I started regularly attending Arsenal games from 1987. I lived in Billericay, Essex, and would attend with my friend Greg, whose grandparents lived in Highbury New Park. We’d drive there in the morning, eat a nice roast dinner with his grandparents, and then walk to Highbury. Greg’s dad worked for the Met Police. He would go to the front of the Marble Halls on the first game of the season and get chatting to the policeman on duty. He managed to wangle free tickets to the Clock End almost every game. During the 1988–89 season, I went to every home game bar Liverpool and spent a grand total of £20. When it came down to that last game I couldn’t get a ticket. I didn’t hold out much hope. In fact, I didn’t hold any. Liverpool were just too good. They were unbeatable at home and they’d just suffered the Hillsborough disaster. If anything, I thought we should just give up.
In 1989 I was a junior doctor working in the accident and emergency department at the Whittington Hospital. On that Friday night I was rostered for a late shift, 3 p.m. till 10 p.m., but I managed to get a colleague to come in early so I could get off. I was living in South London so had arranged to meet up with some friends in Victoria to watch the second half on TV. I got into my car about 15 minutes into the second half and listened to the game on Capital Gold. The roads in North London were empty, the only similar memory I have of this phenomenon was being in Italy when the World Cup was on and Italy were playing.
That season was my first as a season ticket holder after answering an ad in the programme which called for volunteers to work at the ground during the redevelopment of the Clock End. Aged 15 and arriving at Highbury I was asked could I paint? I said no and after a week largely spent leaning on a broom I received my season ticket. Living in a family of non-football fans I watched the Anfield match alone on an old TV on my kitchen table.
I sat there in my yellow Adidas away shirt willing the boys on. I had a job as a paperboy and had made a scrapbook with cuttings of every match from the season, so felt a victory and the final reports of this would complete my scrapbook and make the effort all worthwhile.
August 1988 had brought me – at the time a 15-year-old American who had never left the country – over to London for what was supposed to be a one-year stay due to my father’s business. I arrived as a ‘sports fan’ with no particular attachment to football, a curious teenager who wanted to assimilate into the culture and loved the incredible underground transport system. I decided immediately to find a football club to latch on to and, living on the Piccadilly Line, the choice was obvious – Arsenal.
I arrived at Highbury early on in the 88–89 season and immediately fell in love. The North Bank became my second home that year. Friday, 26 May 1989, I knew I’d never have the chance to go to Liverpool to support The Arsenal in person, so I made plans to join my mates at a local pub to watch the game on a fuzzy small television next to the pool table. I got in a huge argument with my then girlfriend – 16-year-old romantic dramas are the best aren’t they? – and missed a good portion of the delayed kick-off and first half dealing with that insanity.
Someone whose arse I would’ve loved to have kicked put Gerry and the Pacemakers’ ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ on the jukebox at the pub and there was a near riot. As for me, I must’ve walked the distance between London and Liverpool in pacing back and forth in the pub.
My best mate Tommie and I worked in Pizza Hut, Cambridge Circus at the time; I was the restaurant manager and Tommie a shift manager. Owing to staff shortages we both had to work, which meant we couldn’t even watch the game. Although the restaurant was busy I dialled up the Arsenal Live phone line from the main restaurant phone and put it on speaker.
During the week leading up to the match at Anfield arrangements were made as to in which pub we would be watching the game. The Kings Head? Nah, too small. The Cat and Lantern? Nah, Dave’s been barred after a fight the weekend before. We agreed on a 3 p.m. kick-off at the Prince of Wales. A good-sized boozer which was often frequented by a good bunch of Spurs fans too.
On the Thursday afternoon my boss dropped the bombshell that I’d be required to work overtime on the Friday – that Friday. Talk about deflated. He apologised profusely, saying that he had no other options due to the workload and that he’d make it worth my while. I had considered phoning in sick on the Friday but you can’t do enough for a good boss. I made my way into work that day wearing the now famous yellow shirt defiantly. On the journey from Cockfosters into London that morning I copped a few ‘You haven’t got a chance, Gooner,’ from people. Fortunately I had a Sony Walkman with a built-in radio, so at least I’d have some coverage of the match. I arrived at work to find my boss waiting by his office door. He explained again how sorry he was for asking me to work and informed me that he’d brought in a portable TV for me to watch the game on and that he would afford me a two-hour break when the game was on. He set it up in the conference room to afford me some privacy. Privacy? My arse! Every few minutes someone would pop their head in: ‘Any score yet, Andy?’, ‘How’s your lot getting on, Gooner?’ ‘You ain’t got a chance aaaaaaaahhhh!’ to mention but a few.
So here in Australia the game was being shown live on SBS TV. I was up very early in the morning to watch the game, hoping against hope. Unfortunately my one-year-old son was also awake. ‘It’s OK, I will take care of him,’ I tell my partner. ‘You can go back to sleep.’ What a good father I am!
As it was a Friday night my girlfriend at the time was expecting to see me. I watched the game with her dad. We sat engrossed and tense, with my girlfriend completely marginalised.
I was 11 in 89. I was allowed to stay up late to watch the game. I remember my parents (who weren’t particularly enamoured with football) were interested because of what had happened to the Liverpool fans at Hillsborough. They also were quite keen on Liverpool winning for the same reason. It was the first time I had really wanted a team to win a match. I had been to nearly every FA Cup final since Man Utd beat Everton 1985 as my grandfather ran the line in a League Cup final in the 60s and got two free tickets until he died in the 90s.
I had been to every game that season. I was able to make the original fixture but had something organised for 26 May that I could not get out of. I offered my ticket to a friend who was obviously delighted to go. The day before the match the planned thing I had was cancelled and so I could go to Anfield but my mate quite rightly told me to bugger off; he wasn’t handing the ticket back. I ended up in my local pub that night, and met my future wife. Destiny or what?
Reg Lewis, who scored both Arsenal goals in the 1950 FA Cup final against Liverpool, was my stepdad. By 1989 I was a teacher at Thomas Tallis School in south-east London and was also working at the youth centre every Friday evening. In those days it really was ‘in loco parentis’. Nothing much was on my mind that day except the game that night, and I had arranged with everyone that I would leave the youth centre at 7.30 p.m. so as to get home easily for the 8 p.m. start. At 7.30 a mother rang me up at the centre regarding her daughter Natalie, who very worryingly had not gone home that night. Natalie’s mum was in a terrible state. She begged for my help. Did I have any idea where she might be? I said, ‘Leave it with me and I will do what I can.’ I felt the most important game for years disappearing from me and felt awful. Amazingly I remembered something that I thought I heard briefly, in one ear, earlier in the day about ‘tonight’, ‘my house’, a boy’s name. Yes, Natalie was there! Her mum phoned me back full of relief and thanks. I got home in time to see the Gooners going to all corners of Anfield handing out wreaths respecting the loss and horrors of Hillsborough – what a genius, wonderful thought of Ken Friar to organise. Reg was his favourite player and I am sure that it is also down to Mr Friar that Reg is one of the legends at the stadium, with Patrick Vieira’s arm around him.
In 1989 I was living back in Melbourne, Australia and received the Arsenal matchday programmes by mail subscription. The match was broadcast live on TV here early Saturday morning our time. I was watching by myself as the wife and kids were still sleeping. I looked through the programmes to see whether we recorded league runners-up in our list of honours as I thought that would be an achievement in itself.