So a night of chilling simplicity about it really. Arsenal must win by two goals to take the title. Anything less and it stays on Merseyside with Liverpool. And Arsenal, in their change strip of yellow, get the game under way, attacking the goal to our right. Just think, ten months of struggle in all conditions since last August and it’s all on the last 90 minutes now. And for the first time a huge TV audience will actually see a title decided in the Football League. I just hope you are going to be comfortable there on the very edge of your seats for the next hour and a half or so.
Nothing surprises me at Liverpool because I’d been a player. I knew what it was like to go up there and usually lose. Most teams did lose there because they were so dominant. They had some fantastic players. But I had the little game plan. It had to be well organised. It had to be a disciplined performance. The first thing was the change of system to a three at the back. Then it was selling the idea to the players, trying to explain it to them and trying to build them up. Although some of it was probably a little bit of bullshit. ‘Listen, guys, we’ve got to go out there nice and solid. We’ve got to keep it 0–0. We mustn’t go out there thinking we’ve got to attack.’
The funny thing about it was, Liverpool never came at us. The first 20 minutes and we’re thinking, what’s happening here? They don’t want to come forward. We didn’t want to go forward. So it was stalemate. To be honest I thought, well, this is going nicely. This is fine.
There was always a great atmosphere at Anfield. It was doubly so that night. It was just charged. The emotion and passion of those first 20 minutes, 100 miles per hour, was frenetic. I remember getting fouled by Steve McMahon. I just got my toe there and he clipped me. Mickey Thomas was rampaging around like a mad man and Rocky was certainly fired up.
I think it’s always a responsibility when you play for Arsenal, a George Graham team, to get involved from the off. You try and put teams to the sword straight away if you can. We always wanted to start fast. I might be built like it but I’m not really a physical person. I like to nick balls and try and win balls but not that way. I used to like watching Rocky smash into people. Ha ha ha. It was good to see him and Tony and Bouldy. Oh, they were immense.
I think they had quite a big dislike of us. I think we’d been touted all season in the press as being the new guys in town.
As players we could sense, I could certainly sense, that they were just caught between two stools a little bit. I mean, to think that you could go out and lose a match 1–0. It’s not an easy psychological thing for any footballer. So they didn’t quite know how to approach the task. Do we push on? Play our normal game? Try and get a goal? Might leave ourselves open. Or do we just sit back a little bit? I think they did sit back a bit and that helped us.
I hoped that my reputation was as a referee that let it flow. It wasn’t over-fussy. Having said that, I’m just conscious that I blew the whistle an awful lot in the first half but the players responded well to me. As a referee my instinct told me that I’d got two teams there who despite what was at stake shared great respect between the clubs and between the two groups of players.
That first ten minutes we could have scored. From my cross Bouldy headed it and I thought it was in and someone hit it off the line. We knew we were in the game. We knew it was going to be a long game. If we started on the back foot then it would be all about Liverpool coming on to us. We thought it best to take the game to them.
Was it from a corner? It couldn’t have been from open play because George would have shot me if I had been that high up the pitch in open play. Steve Nicol cleared it off the line. Thank God really, because I think had we gone in at half-time 1–0 up, I think it probably would have changed the course of history. I think we might have had a little bit of a panic up, and I think they probably would have changed their shape and their system a little bit. Nil-nil helped us all round.
Apart from Bouldy’s header there wasn’t much at all. Ian Rush came off, did his thigh. We thought, ooh, that’s good news, but then of course Peter Beardsley trots on. He wasn’t a bad player. Ha ha.
As a sub I was watching on the bench, talking to Hayesey. It was packed. Usually it would just be the subs but we had everyone and his aunty in there. Normally first half, whether it’s home or away, George would be in the directors’ box. He liked to get an aerial view of how the team was set up and the team shape and if he ever came down halfway through the first half you knew someone was going to get a rollicking. But he was in the dugout for the whole game. There were no technical areas then. You could go basically where you like. If he wanted to run down the touchline and have a word with Nigel Winterburn he could have gone and done it but he stayed in his dugout, sometimes leaning over to shout and scream and point a bit, otherwise passing a message through Theo. I wouldn’t say that we were really comfortable but it wasn’t as if we were being bombarded. There was no panic.
They weren’t the Liverpool that we all expected. I think they were nervous, all the ground was nervous, and also I think the Hillsborough factor might have affected them too. It was a difficult time for football but I think it was part of the deal too.
I can’t remember a single thing really about the first half. It was uneventful. You set your stall out. Boring, boring Arsenal. You’re not going to score in the first 45 minutes. We were bloody good at that.
The mood of the game is still very much intact. There’s still everything to play for. Remember Arsenal need to win by two but we’ve come to an interval where it’s Liverpool nil Arsenal nil.
Half-time. I said to the boys, that’s OK, now we’ll try and grow into the game. We’ll start going forward a bit more and a bit more and hopefully we’ll get one. Then they’re nervous and we’ll get another one and we’ll finish up with three. I actually thought we’d win three-nothing! Whether they believed that or not is another story.
George Graham gave as good a half-time speech as any manager ever could. George believed chances will come. Whether you’ll take them is another thing but the chances will come. George is a great scriptwriter. He really is.
I remember sitting there like, what? I was thinking, he’s on what I’m on, isn’t he? Apart from Bouldy’s header we never ever looked like scoring in a month of Sundays. At half-time George was like: ‘Brilliant. Outstanding.’ And I was thinking, we ain’t touched the ball yet. We’ve got to win the game 2–0. What’s brilliant about this?
George knows how to keep you calm. Come on, boys. Don’t worry about it. Come on. Sit down. Relax. Take your drink. Be quiet. It’s all sorted. The plan’s going well. Nil-nil. Don’t worry. We got them. Just keep doing what you’re doing.
At half-time I think a few of us felt a bit disappointed. Gaffer says brilliant, lads. That’s what I wanted. I wanted you to keep a clean sheet. It’s all going according to plan. All I want you to do now is push on a bit. Lee, Nigel, I want you to push up the pitch. Get some crosses into the box to Smudge and Merse and just let’s be a bit more adventurous. But again we went out thinking, OK, the gaffer thinks everything is going well. Going according to plan. Let’s do it.
George thought they might panic and the mood would change if we got a goal, and another would follow. It was as if he’d already seen the game. It was absolutely incredible. How a manager can stand there at half-time and tell you what’s going to happen and make you believe it, it’s absolutely sensational. You’ve just got to go with it, haven’t you? You’ve just got to go with it and give everything and hope it’s going to happen.
And welcome back to Anfield. In the next 45 minutes the championship of the First Division of the Barclays Football League will be decided. Ian Rush saying at half-time the first 15 minutes of this second half could well be crucial. Arsenal, you can be sure now, will be searching even more diligently for that crucial opening goal …
We were right near the front in row 1 behind the goal we were shooting into in the second half. The most vivid memory I have is Bruce Grobbelaar spotted us and he kept coming around and joking with us. He was known as a clown and he was laughing at us and pulling funny faces at us. It was all a bit unusual.
Rocky wins the free-kick and gets up with his gritted teeth and fist pumping. Oh my God. Shiver down my spine. We might have been young but we weren’t boys. You know, we were men. We stood up and fought and they were brave guys and Rocky was like that. I love him and we were kids together and grew up together and you mess about together and get a bond and you’re on the pitch together and you get close, don’t you? He was a fighter. Maybe too much at times. Had to calm him down on a few occasions.
That was him. It was those gleaming eyes. Those pearly white teeth. Come on, lads. Come on.
It was an indirect free-kick I gave and that’s critical. I gave a free-kick for an obstruction as we called it in those days.
I don’t think there was any other team in the country at that time that worked more on set-pieces than we did. It always amazes me that some of the top clubs do not work a lot on set-pieces even nowadays. But we did it. Adams, Bould on the near post for corner kicks. Magnificent. Even when the opposition knew what we were doing we would add a little bit more to it. It worked superbly. It was a lovely inswinging delivery, where the goalkeeper can’t come for it because it’s too wide and at the last moment maybe he should have come.
We’d practised that free-kick so much in training and it had never worked in a match. Nigel swings it in with his left foot. Then me, Bouldy and Tony are lined up. Tony’s supposed to peel round the back. We had practised it so much in training and you think, oh, gaffer, this never works. Are you sure? Tony just ignored what he was supposed to do and just flung himself at the ball, created a distraction, but Nigel delivered a great one in with that trusty left foot.
Winterburn and Richardson behind it … Adams has made a darting little run in there … And Smith! And Arsenal have scored!
My decoy run let Alan touch it. I think I touched it as well. I was convinced. I said to Alan, I think I touched it. He said, no you didn’t. I said I did. That’s my goal but I’ll let you have it. I was so full of shit in those days. As if it mattered but I’m sure I touched it. It was a good run. I wanted to take some credit. It was my decoy run that let you in, Alan. That was it. He’s one of the best headers of the ball in the game, Alan, and he won two Golden Boots. Really underestimated and it’s embarrassing to say that because he’s definitely not underestimated by me. A fantastic centre-forward.
I snuck in. I was supposed to make that little dart and I lost my man and got my head to the ball. I just remember it coming in and me just helping it on and not changing the direction of the ball but getting a really solid touch. Grobbelaar had no chance because I managed to get it right in the corner. I followed through, bumped into Steve Staunton and swivelled round to go to the crowd. Ah! Our section going absolutely ballistic. Oh my God.
I knew straight away it was a goal because Alan was right in front of me, that side of the goal. I saw it clearly come off the side of his head. People were all going mad. I felt very sick, and actually it turned out a week later I was actually pregnant with Jess. I thought that was just nerves at the time.
When he scored I’ve got 20,000 Scousers behind me and I wasn’t one to celebrate goals anyway because I was too transfixed in the game but I could’ve heard a pin drop in the Kop when the goal went in.
The ball went into the goalmouth and finished up in the net. I thought Alan Smith had touched it. A direct free-kick means the side who are taking the free-kick can score by kicking the ball directly into the goal. If it’s an indirect free-kick then the ball has to be played or touched by another player before it enters the net and that’s why it was critical that Smithy’s nose was big enough just to touch the ball. I couldn’t see any reason why it should be disallowed but about seven or eight Liverpool players did.
They were all gathered round the ref. They were appealing. What’s going on? We’re thinking, oh no. Offside? I knew I wasn’t offside. Did I get a touch? I had quite a lot of mud there, which looked good because it made people think that was from the contact. But it was a two-pronged appeal.
I looked at my linesman, Geoff Banwell, and he followed my instructions. Right to the very letter. I said if a goal is scored and you’re happy I want you to go back as quickly as you can and hit that centre line and if you’ve got players chasing you go beyond the centre line and my reasoning for that is that if a player goes beyond the centre line he’s had half a pitch to calm down and he deserves to be introduced to my yellow card then. Geoff was on his way as soon as that ball was in the net.
The ref has got this huddle surrounding him, all the vocal boys: Ronnie Whelan, Steve McMahon. Alan Hansen getting in the ref’s ear. Dave O’Leary was our sole spokesperson. Senior man. Go on, Paddy. Go on. Tell them it was a goal. But you’re thinking, no, 90 per cent chance he’s going to disallow this for whatever reason.
It was just a strange atmosphere. I don’t think anybody in the ground really knew if we’d scored or not.
I kept saying to the referee and the linesman, don’t you get talked out of it. That’s a goal. It was only seconds but seemed to be ages. I was thinking, don’t you change your mind.
The Liverpool players were surrounding me. It wasn’t a nasty vitriolic sort of protest. There was frustration and the theme that was heard from one voice and then two voices then three voices – go and talk to your linesman – and I had no need to in my book. I was convinced Smith had nudged it in but how do you manage a situation like that? You’ve got everybody in the country looking at it. I don’t want to start booking players unnecessarily so I said, OK, I’ll go and talk to him. I was so confident in what I was going to be told that I thought, if it gets the players off my back … I said, leave me alone while I go and talk to him and I went across to Geoff and I said, Geoff, I’ve given a goal, some questions. Did I put my arm up for an indirect free-kick? He said yes, you did. I said was there an offside? No. Was there a foul or any other reason why I shouldn’t allow the goal? He said no, none at all.
To be quite honest I had no idea what was going on. You are just waiting and waiting as if you’re going to explode.
I’m sure it came off Alan’s nose. Phil Thompson tells a good story. He was on the Liverpool bench that night. Kenny Dalglish said, ‘Thommo, go down and see if he’s touched that. Have a look.’ Thommo said he watched it in the tunnel about three or four times and he came back and said he touched it. Fair play, though, as the linesman could have melted.
I’m watching the monitor and I think the Liverpool players protested because they felt they should. I don’t think they actually knew what they were protesting about. As far as I could see it was a legitimate goal and it was underlined on the replay.
So, I turned. It’s a goal, lads. I went back to the centre and thankfully the Liverpool lads just moved away and got on with the game and for the rest of the game I can’t recall a single Liverpool player having a crack at me about the goal. They got on with it.
When he pointed to the centre spot we were thinking, wow. He’s been strong there. What a decision.
On the bench when the ref gave it we all went mad. Game on.
Afterwards we were told that both the referee and the linesman knew it was a goal but they did that just to quieten the game down. It didn’t quieten me down I can assure you. Ha ha ha. At the time I was caught up in the moment really. Everything was going to plan.
We did practise that free-kick until we were blue in the face and it did actually work on the big day finally, after all those weeks and months of it falling flat on its face. Yeah, about time that came off, lads, wasn’t it? I said something similar to the gaffer. See that free-kick? It’s about time it worked.
When we got the goal you start to realise: wow. The manager has just stood there and said if we score they’re going to panic. We knew after what George had said, getting into the lead, getting that first goal, was so, so important. As the Arsenal end just erupts you know, boy, something special could happen here. You’ve got that massive high but then all of a sudden, you’ve got to recompose yourself again because one’s not enough. You’ve got to get another one.
When Alan scores the goal, that’s when it all changed for me. At that moment, the whole thing turned on its head because at that point you’re at a tipping point in a game. You’ve now got half a chance of winning the league so you know now above all else you can’t concede. Had we conceded I think that would have been a long road back. So my concentration levels as soon as Alan scored have gone through the roof.
Merson … Richardson … A chance here, Thomas … and Grobbelaar was able to grab it! Suddenly Thomas totally unmarked deep inside the Liverpool penalty area, and what a golden opportunity that was …
Mickey missed an unbelievable chance to score. I thought that was it.
It was a bit of a stabby toe poke.
I wanted to throttle him. Ha ha.
Oh, stop it, will you? Stop it. God, I’ll always get that. Oh no! That chance. I don’t know. When the ball came to me on the edge of the box and I turned I just thought I had no time. I had two players right beside me so I tried to toe punt it in and … pfft. When you see it now on telly you think, oh, bloody look at the chance you had. But at the time I felt I had no time to do what I wanted to do and so I just basically rushed it. I hate looking at that and getting told about that.
If I was bigger and stronger and brave enough – oh, what did I want to do to him at that moment! It was the best chance of the game. He’s pretty much around the penalty spot, maybe a little bit further back. It’s a scuffer, hits it straight along the ground and Grobbelaar said, thank you very much, that’s it, the league title is ours. It was an unbelievable chance. Oh, Mickey was so calm as well. Nothing gets under his skin. Nothing.
I went: that’s it. I remember thinking, typical Mickey, with his languid finishing style.
At the time I thought, I’ve missed that chance but I know I’ll get another one. I believed I’d get another chance.
It would have been nice if it had gone in but had it gone in you think you’ve got a long 15 to 20 minutes to hang on. Which would’ve been quite interesting.
Quarter of an hour left. Remember Arsenal need two goals. At the moment they have one. If it stays this way Liverpool will be champions for the 19th time. But will it stay this way …?
The longer it went on the more you thought there could be something on here. I listened to Brian Moore’s magical commentary – and he was in my view the best in the business. He was the master of making the viewer feel that something special was just about to happen and he created that sense in our OB truck that maybe, maybe, there is something going on here. As the game went on and on and we got down to the last few minutes we had a little clock, a little graphic, running. There were no running scores or times on the screen in those days, which is impossible to believe now. Every single sport has got a running scoreline. We didn’t have that because the technology wasn’t up to it. But we had this little digital clock that was counting up towards the 90 minutes and I said to the director, ‘Let’s put that on the screen.’ It had never been done. There had never been a running clock on a football match before and he said, ‘No, no, it’ll look shit.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter. The story is more important than how it looks!’ He went, ‘All right then.’ So, he put it up there.
As the clock ticks towards 90 I’m getting ready to talk to Kenny, who was not the greatest if I’m honest in front of a camera. He didn’t like doing it but I am preparing to talk to him about the year they’ve had, about being a Double winner.
One of the things that comes out of the game, which was made famous through Nick Hornby and Fever Pitch, concerns one thought I was trying to make on the night and the phrase didn’t come out quite right. Somebody reminded me of the exact words recently: ‘I think in a way if Arsenal are to lose the championship having had such a lead at one time it is somewhat poetic justice that they have got a result on the last day.’ Brian Moore nudged me and said, ‘They would see that as small consolation I would think, David.’ Whenever I did a commentary the first thing I thought about afterwards was have I made any faux pas? Usually I hope to have done OK. The amazing thing was whenever I commentated on Arsenal I almost went out of my way to make sure there was not a hint of bias in any shape or form.
It did change gear and we were running out of time. I did sense that and decided to run around like a lunatic. I don’t know, I think I lost my head a little bit. Luckily those around me kept calm, in particular Kevin Richardson, good pros that just steadied the ship. But I was getting anxious. Sometimes you get so carried away and so vain you think you can win the game on your own or you try too hard, stupid hard, and I remember chasing Barnesy and chasing someone else and being out of position and just running around.
There’s not a clock in the stadium like there is today so you look across to the bench or ask the ref. How long? You’re hearing the high-pitched whistles coming from the Kop particularly begging the ref to blow the final whistle.
With a minute or two minutes to go I thought, we’ve given it our best shot. We’ve been absolutely superb. The way we’d planned it, the way the lads carried it out on the pitch, it was superb. I was a bit down because we’ve given it everything and it’s not happened. I was thinking, what do you say to the fans and the press? You know, we’ve just lost by winning one-nothing. We’ve done our best. I felt really low.
I knew it was getting pretty late in the game. I had no idea about the time. You’re so wrapped up in what’s going on and what you’re trying to achieve. You’re so focused and I suppose you are dreaming, if I’m honest, that you’re going to get another chance.
Richardson is down with a leg injury … and he’s still down but Arsenal want to go on. 41,783 is the crowd here at Anfield and not a soul has left before the final whistle, you can be sure. Treatment for Kevin Richardson, the referee will have to add on time. Unless there is an amazing and dramatic twist now it looks like Liverpool, David.
I ran on to Kevin. I remember having a conversation with him while I was stretching his leg out. ‘You’ve got to carry on, mate. You’ve got to carry on.’ He said, gimme a sec. I was stretching his hamstring and then relaxing it and I pulled him up and ran off as he carried on. I was just worried we were going to run out of time. Theo said, there can’t be long left, but I knew there was another two minutes of stoppage time as Kevin had been down for ages.
One minute to go. McMahon has got the word from the Kop obviously. But nobody knows exactly how much time the referee will add on … The faces of the players are something to behold at the moment.
Obviously, we didn’t see that happen on the night. Steve McMahon and the one-minute signal has become an iconic thing. I always say it to my friends, you know. Instead of one minute, ‘Oh, I’ll be there in a Steve McMahon.’ I didn’t see him do it on the pitch. I just remember at the time I presumed it wasn’t long to go. Just after that moment I actually asked the referee. How long to go? He just went, ‘It’s done.’ It’s over.
I roughly knew that it was all over. You can tell by looking at the opposition.
The whole night was a really strange, surreal atmosphere. I felt we’d done a gallant job but not quite good enough.
Just a few seconds more now for Kenny Dalglish unless Arsenal can mount something absolutely spectacular in the minutes that remain.
After Kevin Richardson went down injured I said to Richo that I’m just going to break forward now. You’d best hold the fort. I’m just going to look for another goal somewhere and he was like, OK, no problem.
John Barnes went behind me down the right-hand side. So there’s little that I can do. I can’t affect the game. I’m thinking as everybody else is thinking: why is John Barnes not going to the corner flag and flicking it up and booting it out the stand? Everyone would do that, wouldn’t they? But you’re talking about John Barnes. Skilful winger. Unbelievable player. Liverpool Football Club have been brought up and built up on playing and passing and scoring goals. Of course, he’s not going to go to the corner flag. He’s going to go and try and score. Well I’m so pleased he did try and go and score. Because history has been changed by him doing that and Richo comes in and tackles him.
He was one of the best players in England and not far off the top 10 or 20 in the world. He could have done anything that day. He could have literally flicked it up and booted it 30 miles into the stand and everybody just jog back.
I remember Kevin Richardson knocking the ball down and just calmly giving it back to the goalie. I was still in the ‘boot it’ phase. Get it up there. Just fucking boot it. Excuse my French.
I never interviewed Kevin Richardson. I don’t think I ever spoke to him because he was not the most approachable of human beings and he wasn’t one of the stars. But that night for me he was man of the match for Arsenal. He got cramp and the subs were already on and then right at the end he gets the ball away from one of the greatest players in the world, John Barnes. Passes it back – another thing you could do in those days – and then the move starts. I think for that night Kevin Richardson is the unsung hero really.
Very near the end it was getting really tense and we realised we wanted to get round to the dugout.
We were asking a steward if we could go round the perimeter of the pitch but he wasn’t sure. The fans around us were shouting at him to let us through. ‘Look at their blazers! They are the players!’
We were whisked around. As we were walking down the sideline to the dugout the whole thing suddenly developed. We were running down the side of the pitch. It was mad stuff.
Arsenal come streaming forward now in surely what will be their last attack …
It was one of those moments in life. Theo says he’s got me to thank for a scar that he’s got on his head. Because when I threw the ball out that night rather than kicked it he went to stand up to give me a round of vitriol and he banged his head on the dugout.
I thought it was gone anyway. I thought it was all over. You know, whether he kicked it or threw it you think, there’s not enough time. It’s finished.
I was absolutely mentally shot at that time, which is probably hard to believe but as a goalie I was always intense and that second half, from Alan’s goal going in, my concentration levels had gone through the roof so I thought to myself, it’s not going out the box here. That’s as far as I’m going to get it. About five minutes previously I had a kick which I duffed out to the left-hand side. I looked up and I saw Dicko and to me it seemed like he was in oceans of space and it just seemed the natural thing to do at the time and so I bowled it out to Dicko.
What are you doing? Dicko? Why are you throwing it out to Dicko?
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.
I don’t think he wanted it – he was running away at the time – but he got it because I didn’t want it.
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.
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.
I didn’t whack it. It was a cultured right foot!
A good ball by Dixon … finding 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.
Smudge did what Smudge does best and took a velvet touch. He has looked inside and Mickey’s set off on this run.
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.
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.
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.
For Thomas charging through the midfield …
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Mickey was really a cool dude. A talented boy, he just wanted to play football and go forward.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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 his hand all I needed to do was a little clip and that was it.
Thomas … It’s up for grabs nooooowwww!
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.
I’m off. It hasn’t even gone in the net. Whoomph. Straight across the goal. I’m already celebrating.
We all just peeled off and went to the corner to take the acclaim of the fans. The scenes. Absolute bedlam.
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.
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.
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.
I wanted to have played, to add a jersey on the night, but it was the next best. We were right beside it all.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don’t know how long we’ve got left, ten minutes or whatever, before this game finishes. Just sit it out.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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 and 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.
I had my brother and my dad behind that goal and I remember going down at the end to see them. Both of them were saying at the time the same thing. They didn’t think that ball was going to make it over the line for Mickey’s goal.
We just rushed on to the pitch after the game and just celebrated with the players and everybody was on there. To be fair to the Liverpool supporters they stayed behind and they were complimentary. I remember them just clapping us as we went around with the trophy.
I was in a state of shock. Honestly. I could not believe it. I thought it was an unreal situation, a fairy tale.
As a sportsman you don’t pick the moment, the moment picks you. And it was one of those nights where that certainly happened. You know it was our moment and it was meant to be. Just the euphoria of it all. It’s a monumental thing to win the league.
I remember by the bench at the final whistle the gaffer going, ‘Let’s calm down.’ Everyone was jumping on top of each other and he obviously had Hillsborough in mind and to maintain some respect.
I didn’t know what to think. I honestly couldn’t believe it. Because I’d been through it in my mind. We’re going out of here with our best shot and it’s not worked and then when Mickey scored what do you do? What do you do? It was wonderful but I couldn’t have got up and started running because I was not a runner anyway, you know. I wasn’t much of a hugger either. Look at all the coaches nowadays, the way that they’re behaving and acting. I think it’s great. It’s fantastic the way that they’re so emotional. Emotion in a game, that’s what football is about surely. The fans get emotional, the players on the pitch. At times I wish I’d become more emotional.
When George came on the pitch and hugged everyone it was obviously out of the ordinary. He would never hug the players. I remember all the Liverpool stewards were saying well done, and the police, and the fantastic reception of those Liverpool fans who stayed and applauded. That meant a lot to us.
The one thing I always remember is the Kop clapping us off. That’s some going. To lose the league in the last minute on the last day and do that.
Directors’ decorum is that you don’t celebrate when you score a goal. You try to be a bit low-key. Well I must say that when Mickey scored with the last kick of the season, the directors’ decorum for me went out the window. I just catapulted myself about six foot in the air, punched the air and when I came back into my seat there was Peter Hill-Wood and he took out his cigar. He calmly turned around to me and he said, ‘Never in any doubt.’ Ha ha.
Of course you feel so ecstatic and proud. This is the team that you love. That you worship. Where you go to pray every weekend. That’s the team that has just won the league in sensational style and it was memorable and I always say this: no matter how often football is spoken about, written about, filmed, broadcast, that moment, the Mickey Thomas goal, the last kick of the season, will always be remembered.
Although I was the goalkeeping coach in 89 I watched from afar. The fact that I’d been in the side in 71 with George and Pat in such similar circumstances I felt I was really out there with them at Anfield. I was out of control at the end of the game. I think I went unconscious.
For every journalist the ‘runner’ – the running match report which is written during the match – is probably the most terrifying experience. Every night match I did in the early days I would go home with a bad tension headache. The last section you send has to be in on the whistle, dictated down the phone to a sub-editor in the office for reasons of speed. When you are in big, big trouble is when you get something like events at Anfield. Everything you have written up to stoppage time shows that brave Arsenal fell short. It puts you under enormous pressure. Michael Thomas turned a routine drama into one of the greatest, most unpredictable and most shocking dramas ever seen on an English football field. My word it was difficult, though, rewriting it in the space of 30 seconds. Once I had telephoned in my initial report I remember looking up at the Kop, which was to the right of the tight little press box at Anfield. It looked like a lot people had sat down they were so shocked. They rose to their feet again and applauded Arsenal’s achievement. Something I will never forget.
After the game, look at George, he’s Mr Cool. As he was throughout the night. I felt deeply for Kenny because he had that horrible glazed look that coaches get when they just don’t know what’s happened. I interviewed Tony Adams on the pitch. It was chaotic out there. As an aside I’d had a little bet with Tony Adams in pre-season. This was a different era when the media and players were friends because you could mix with them. There was no social media. There was no one taking pictures. On the back of a disastrous European Championships in 1988 I’d spoken to Tony and we’d talked about the title and he said, ‘We’ll win it’ and I said, ‘No chance, Tony’ and he said, ‘Go on then, what do you say? £100?’ I went OK. And at the end of the game the first thing Tony said to me was ‘100 quid!’ I did pay him and I was happy to pay him as well.
Later I caught up with my son and daughter who came to the game. There was some nice pictures with my daughter walking up the steps with the famous ‘This Is Anfield’ sign behind. It was a lovely little thing that Bill Shankly came up with wasn’t it? This Is Anfield so everybody would be frightened. Oh my God. Let’s shake.
Back in the tunnel the referee David Hutchinson at the end of the game came up to me and his face was as white as a sheet. He said, ‘Jim, Jim, did he touch it?’ And I went, ‘Of course he touched it, David’ and the colour came back into his cheeks. He gave me a little hug and said, ‘Oh thank you so much for that.’
It’s one of the things if you have made a mistake, you’ve got to be big enough to live with it. But I was certain it was a goal. Geoff was certain it was a goal. The first hint of any pressure was as we came off the pitch at the end and Kenny Dalglish just shook hands and said thank you very much, are you absolutely certain that that was a goal? At that time I can remember saying well, as of yet, I have not had chance to look at it on the box but yes, I’m as certain as I can be. And then bless his heart, Jim Rosenthal suddenly put his head in between and said you’re OK, Dave, on the goal. Smithy touched it. Phew! And all credit to Dalglish. Twenty minutes after the game there’s a knock on the door. Dalglish is there with a bottle of champagne and he said, we were hoping to drink this but you may as well have it. I don’t think he was being sarcastic. He was being very genuine and it was appreciated.
There was a huge sigh of relief. Not audible but you know I can feel myself just starting to relax. I’m told by my colleagues that I was always ice cool in the dressing room before a game and I did that deliberately. It was my job to keep my colleagues calm and I needed that for that particular match. But after the game, I think we all relaxed a bit. Only problem was I’d still got to drive 200 miles back down to Oxfordshire after the game. This game was on the Friday but on the Sunday I was fourth official at Wembley for the final of the Sherpa Van Trophy. Torquay and Bolton. A different kettle of fish.
I was just completely taken over by the emotion. I vaguely remember them wheeling this wallpaper pasting table out that the trophy got plonked on and then we were all standing around willy nilly, not organised at all. Some bloke from Barclays came on. There were two trophies. One was a trophy that nobody seemed to know what it was (it was from Barclays) but then the proper trophy was there. It’s a beautiful, beautiful trophy as well. Absolutely stunning. I remember looking at it going, wow. The lights of Anfield shone and it all started to flood into the system. I remember holding it up and from then onwards I’ve no clue what was going on. You just go mad but it was quite surreal in the dressing room because it wasn’t expected.
There’s always a few extra people in there on occasions like this and then the TV cameras came in and I gave an interview with Mickey and people are chucking stuff at you, the champagne’s flying. Then you get in the bath – a small bath like a lot of the places had back then – and you just can’t believe it. I think what we all agreed, we thought, it’s not going to get better than this. It can’t get better than this. How can it?
We smashed in the false ceiling in the Anfield dressing room. Sorry. Apologies.
I was sitting with Bouldy and Merse in the dressing room. We’ve got a couple of beers and I said, ‘Do you remember what Mystic Meg said there before the game? The gaffer predicted we go in 0–0 at half-time then if we get a goal the tension will swing and then we’ll nick it?’ That’s folklore.
I was tearful. Tony Adams told me to shut up, you big tart. He said, ‘Man up.’ I just couldn’t believe it! I couldn’t wait to go in and see Pat Rice in the dressing room afterwards. I’d heard it all from him about how they had gone over to Tottenham and won the league. I remember him even saying beforehand ‘It’s about time you got a medal. It’s about time you went and done the business.’ I couldn’t wait to get in there and shut him up because I had to listen to him for years saying that type of thing to me.
The celebrations in the dressing room bring you even closer together. There is almost an invasion of people who want to be part of it. But one thing that stands out on the night is a couple of Liverpool players came in. One was Bruce Grobbelaar and the other one was Peter Beardsley, which was a very magnanimous thing to do. That’s not an easy thing by any stretch of the imagination. To have it snatched out of your hands in the final kick of a football match and to have that about you to actually be able to rise above that and congratulate the other team. That takes a lot of doing.
That was Bruce. I got to know him afterwards. To come in to bring the champagne in and to congratulate us was class from him. He said, we’re not going to drink it, give it to them. I’m so pleased that I celebrated with my team-mates and my best friend and my teacher, Brian Johncock, who looked after me as a footballer from a young age and now he was there celebrating with me in the dressing room, which was fantastic. He used to follow me everywhere like a father figure. Wherever I went to play football he used to take me. He managed me and David Rocastle at county level.
Ronnie Moran came in, giving us a crate of champagne and saying, ‘You guys deserve it.’ It was really nice and he was humble in defeat, representative of a great club. Interestingly, what he didn’t realise, the bottles had ‘Liverpool Champions 1989’ on. We should have kept them. We started spraying them all around the room, which was silly.
The medal comes in this little box and you open it up and it’s made in Birmingham – they used to make all the medals back then, which I’m particularly proud of because I’m a Brummie. It’s just a little coin really and then it’s got a little hook on the top which you can put a lanyard or chain around but nobody does. All the lads were picking them out the box and looking at the back. League Championship winners 1988–89. Phew. That’s what it’s all about. It’s a lovely little thing.
I went back out pitchside to phone my wife with a brick of a mobile phone that the club had and I remember crying on the touchline. She was crying down the other end. I remember Ronnie Moran and Roy Evans coming in, Bobby Robson popped his head in. We took forever to get changed, the lads were going mad in the dressing room.
After the game George Graham was as cool as a cucumber when I saw him upstairs outside the boardroom. Although I was Tottenham orientated, I always had great respect for people I got to know at Arsenal. George I knew for years. We had played against each other as schoolboys at Wembley. I knew the family very well. I remember clearly saying hello to his daughter, Nicole. I imagine it was quite a shock when it is winner-takes-all like that. When it is the very last game and so much depends on it, to be able to relax the players to cope with the tension was impressive. The tension must have been unbearable.
I didn’t go back to London with the lads. It was probably the biggest regret in my football career. My uncle was over from Australia and I hadn’t seen him since I was six months old. He came to the game and my mum had organised a party for him in Manchester the next day as he was going back to Australia. I’d promised the family I’d be there. I remember the lads getting on the coach arranging this party and I was standing in the players’ entrance watching them drive off into the distance thinking I should be on that bus.
Halfway through Liverpool, because I’d had all this champagne and I hadn’t eaten anything, I was a bit woozy. I said to my brother, I’m starving, I need to eat. We saw a chip shop. So he pulls in and I jump out the car and go running into this chip shop without even thinking about it. I’ve got my Arsenal blazer on, my tie on a bit to one side. ‘Three lots of fish and chips, mate,’ and I just had a sense of people in the chippy staring. Oh that’s it, I’m going to die because we’ve just beat Liverpool. I’m in Liverpool. I’m in an Arsenal suit and tie asking for fish and chips. I looked up and this bloke’s looking at me. He said, you can have extra, la’ because we’re all Evertonians in here. Everyone in the chip shop started jumping up and down going ‘Wahey!’
Isn’t it lovely to have moments in your life where you think, oh, nothing can beat that. Nothing. Sometimes you sit back at my age now and you think, hey, I’ve had a great career. I’ve been a goodish footballer who’s won most of the trophies in English football and then I went into coaching and management and even surpassed that. You know I’ve won more as a manager than I did as a player. What a lucky person I’ve been. It was the best.
On the way back home all the boys went celebrating and all that. Early next morning my son and I drove up to Glasgow to play golf with my brother and my nephew. We had a fourball. So I could keep away from the media. I knew it would drive me mad. After the golf game this guy comes up and says ‘You look just like the guy on television last night, the game between Arsenal and Liverpool. You look just like the guy on the touchline.’ I said, a lot of people say that. Ha ha ha. I just got on with my cup of tea with my family.