Post Match Entertainment 1950s Style

Sadly the fate of football programmes lies in the balance with clubs set to vote on whether the issuance every game should remain compulsory. Sales are down across the country and for non league teams selling a handful of copies these labours of love may be soon a thing of the past.

That would obviously be a great shame on many levels. I grew up collecting Arsenal programmes but space and costs mean I no longer collect a whole season, rather just the games I go to. I remain though an avid collector of past home programmes and each one provides a little snippet of a time long gone, a time my parents would be familiar with but an era that will be all but ignored no doubt by my son and his generation as they push the old man to buy the latest computer game.

Programmes are more than a record of a match. They are a social history. They catalogue times past with words and pictures and I for one never tire of seeing action pictures showing familiar stadiums with most unfamiliar architecture.

I recently picked up a copy of an Arsenal programme from the 1950/51 season against West Bromwich Albion. This Division One game, remember that? was played at the end of September and the team line up featured the likes of Wally Barnes, Leslie Compton, Joe Mercer and Jimmy Logie. I grew up with the Arsenal just as the players of this generation were being buried; I never saw them play but had read enough about their exploits to know how deeply ingrained they are in the psyche of out club.

But while the programme is fascinating as usual what lept out at me on page five was a small advertisement. Hard to believe now but Arsenal for so long turned their back on commercialisation. The club boasted about not having advertising boards around Highbury for example and adverts in the programme were all but non existent. The only exceptions seemed to be for local music halls and train travel.

There was no Netflix back then, no DVDs, no videos and no colour TV. Entertainment was more social and long before Simon Cowell came along and created superstars entertainers had to reach  the top through good old fashioned hard work and that meant travelling round the country playing any venue or dive that would offer them a night or two. For the thespians treading the boards, and the likes of Morecambe & Wise began their careers in this way, stardom came via a long hard slog if it came at all.

You can almost taste the woodbine in the air as fans took their leave of Highbury after the game and some of them, feeling the night was still young, would have headed up to Finsbury Park perhaps for the pubs or pool halls. Or some would have headed to the Empire to catch the latest vaudeville act in town. And on this particular evening it was the less than politically correct Lester and his, umm, troupe. 

Later generations would have teddy boys, mods, punks and binge drinking to look forward to but in the 1950s there was the chance to roll up and gawp at small people. 

The programme of course also has plenty of football snippets among it's 16 pages but this small ad speaks volumes of its times. And let us not forget today's programmes filled with international brands targetting the international audience Arsenal attract. In 1950 the Arsenal were a north London club and their fan base was drawn from the streets around the ground. 

Beijing, Tobacco And 1995

The mid 1990s weren't the best time to be an Arsenal and it seemed a nadir was reached in the 1994/95 season with the Tuesday Club in full flow, George Graham being sacked after the bung allegations and losing the European Cup Winners Cup Final in Paris. We finished 12th in the Premier League, below the likes of Queens Park Rangers and Wimbledon and all in all a Gooner's lot wasn't a happy one.

For some unknown reason the powers at be at the Arsenal decided what the team really needed after that season was a trip to the far east sponsored in part by a tobacco firm and so it was the likes of Tony Adams, Ray Parlour et all were unleashed on an unsuspecting public in China and Hong Kong.

First up was a game against Beijing Guo'an in the Workers Stadium, Beijing. A programme was prepared for this game but unfortunately for collectors few saw the light of day. Apparently the Chinese government had imposed some restrictions on tobacco advertising and while Beijing were able to source a new sponsor for the back page of the programme to replace the cigarette firm last minute technical issues meant there was not enough time to publish enough programmes for the game.

A handful were printed but were destroyed though one did turn up on an auctioning website back in 2009 with an estimated price of 1500 quid! Funnily enough as I research this piece a well known Arsenal memorabilia dealer is advertising a ticket for the Beijing game on ebay looking for 29.99!

I was living in Bangkok at the time but there was no question of me flying over to China for the game; I was struggling to afford my drinking habit in the flesh pots and dives as it was. Ray Parlour didn't have such worries and later on during the tour when the team got to Hong Kong a night out proved very expensive for him and some of his team mates and he was left with the lawyers' bill after a few beers in Wanchai got out of hand!

Anyway come the new season and there was a new look at the club. Bruce Rioch had come in and two high profile signings, Denis Bergkamp and David Platt, were grounds for optimism. Little mention was made of the the Chinese trip, an interview with Parlour in the Inter Milan programme says nothing (!) and only the pre season friendlies were deemed worthy of mention, not some far east jolly that only provided negative headlines! It wasn't till the third home league game of the season, West Ham United, that mention was made as the editor Kevin Connelly interviewed a gentleman who helped organise the games. Presumably, though no mention is made in the article, said gentleman was involved with the tobacco company?

Wenger And The Ides Of March

Wonder why so many of us have little faith in Arsene Wenger to win the league again? Look how many times we have croaked at the business end of the season. We were led to believe the tackle on Eduardo away to Birmingham in 2008 had a real impact on the team and the players, which overlooks our triumph in Milan, but that was just the club offering a lame excuse. Wenger has become better at rewriting history rather than making history. 

Time and time again we have fallen short and nothing Wenger says or does suggests he has the fibre to turn our team of snowflakes in to battle hardened warriors. Too often a big loss is followed by a silent dressing room, no doubt where Wenger lights incense candles and leads the team in a solemn rendition of Kumbaya rather than tearing new arseholes in over paid, over hyped, over groomed players who feel nothing for our club beyond collecting their pay every week. To happen once in understandable, six times in such a short period time suggests a club in denial.

2006/2007

17/02/07 - Blackburn (FA Cup) 0-0
20/02/07 - PSV (Champions League) 0-1
25/02/07 - Chelsea (League Cup Final) 1-2
28/02/07 - Blackburn (FA Cup) 0-1
03/03/07 - Reading (PL) 2-1
07/03/07 - PSV (Champions League) 1-1

2007/2008

16/02/08 - Manchester United (FAC) 0-4
20/02/08 - AC Milan (Champions League) 0-0
23/02/08 - Birmingham City (PL) 2-2
01/03/08 - Aston Villa (PL) 1-1
04/03/08 - AC Milan (Champions League) 2-0
09/03/08 - Wigan Athletic (PL) 0-0
15/03/08 - Middlesbrough (PL) 1-1
23/02/08 - Chelsea (PL) 1-2
29/03/08 - Bolton (PL) 3-2
02/04/08 - Liverpool (Champions League) 1-1
05/04/08 - Liverpool (PL) 1-1
08/04/08 - Liverpool (Champions League) 2-4
13/04/08 - Manchester United (PL) 1-2

Finished 3rd, four points behind champions

2009/2010

27/03/10 - Birmingham City (PL) 1-1
31/03/10 - Barcelona (Champions League) 2-2
03/04/10 - Wolves (PL) 1-0
06/04/10 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-4\
14/04/10 - Spurs (PL) 1-2
18/04/10 - Wigan (PL) 2-3
24/04/10 - Manchester City (PL) 0-0
03/05/10 - Blackburn (PL) 1-2

Finished 3rd, 11 points behind champions

2010/2011

27/02/11 - Birmingham City (League Cup Final) 1-2
02/03/11 - Orient (FAC) 5-0
05/03/11 - Sunderland (PL) 0-0
08/03/11 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-3
12/03/11 - Manchester United (FAC) 0-2
19/03/11 - West Brom (PL) 2-2
02/04/11 - Blackburn (PL) 0-0
10/04/11 - Blackpool (PL) 3-1
17/04/11 - Liverpool (PL) 1-1
20/04/11 - Spurs (PL) 3-3
24/04/11 - Bolton (PL) 1-2
01/05/11 - Manchester United (PL) 1-0
08/05/11 - Stoke City (PL) 1-3
15/05/11 - Aston Villa (PL) 1-2
22/05/11 - Fulham (PL) 2-2

Finished 4th, 12 points behind champions.

2013/2014

08/02/14 - Liverpool (PL) 1-5
12/02/14 - Manchester United (PL) 0-0
16/02/14 - Liverpool (FAC) 2-1
19/02/14 - Bayern Munich (Champions League) 0-2
22/02/14 - Sunderland (PL) 4-1
01/03/14 - Stoke City (PL) 0-1
08/03/14 - Everton (FAC) 4-1
11/03/14 - Bayern Munich (Champions League) 1-1
16/03/14 - Spurs (PL) 1-0
22/03/14 - Chelsea (PL) 0-6
25/03/14 - Swansea City (PL) 2-2
29/03/14 - Manchester City (PL) 1-1
06/04/14 - Everton (PL) 0-3

Finished 4th, seven points behind champions

2015/2016

23/02/16 - Barcelona (Champions League) 0-2
28/02/16 - Manchester United (PL) 2-3
02/03/16 - Swansea City (PL) 1-2 
05/03/16 - Spurs (PL) 2-2
13/03/16 - Watford (FAC) 1-2
16/03/16 - Barcelona (Champions League) 1-3

Finished 2nd, 10 points behind champions

David Dein's Dreams Of Football's Brave New World

The new season kicked off Friday night of course with the Arsenal beating Leicester City 4-3 at the Emirates, a thrilling affair for the neutral and armchair supporter tuning in for the new campaign. The Premier League began in 1992/93 so this new season is the 25th anniversary, the silver anniversary if you like, for what has become the most popular league in the world. Not the best but the most popular. 

In England a generation of fans will have no idea what football was like before the Premier League was vomited forth from a number of the bigger clubs, including the Arsenal, and a TV company desperately short of subscribers. From little acorns and all that. Today the Premier League us arguably more popular outside of England than it is in its own country and pre season tours have become the norm to allow the minted clubs to meet their fawning consumers in far flung places.

Before the Premier League football was not necessarily better and neither was the match day experience. Brawls on the terraces, in the streets or at the railway station were not everyone's cup of tea though many were forced to witness the ugly scenes. Stadiums were slowly being upgraded though so at least we could watch games in a degree of comfort though the enforced introduction of all seated stadia brought in post Hillsborough wasn't welcomed by everyone.

You could though wake up in the morning and decide to go to the game, all ticket affairs were few and far between on the whole, and you could be in the same part of the ground as your mates. Ticket prices were also pretty reasonable, in the last season before the Premier League began Arsenal were charging from GBP 10 - 20 for a seat ticket and GBP 8 to stand.

The last season before the Premier League was 1991/92. It also marked the last time an English coach, Howard Wilkinson, would guide a team, Leeds United in this case, to the title. On the dawn of the new era Liverpool had 18 titles to their name, Arsenal had 10 and the next best, with seven, was Everton. Boy, how that has changed! Manchester City and Chelsea were the also rans of also rans, not world behemoths powered by the deep pockets of foreign oligarchs and sheikhs.

But if as football fans you thought we were wetting our collective boxer shorts at the thought of this super duper new football league you would be wrong. As an Arsenal fan I was more concerned about the North Bank being demolished. I had returned to England in time for the start of the season and went to a few games but I didn't like what I was hearing. Supporters were being asked to hand over in excess of GBP 1,000 for the right to buy a season ticket! You still had to buy your ticket! And there was to be the season when the North Bank would be no more, the construction work of the new stand would continue behind a mural. I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't wanna see Highbury disfigured in such a way so I left, moving to Cologne to live out my Aug Weidersehen, Pet fantasies. For me and perhaps many other fans the Premier League was just another name for Division One. Little did we know how much things would change though it is fair to say a number of fanzines at the time could see the writing on the wall.

In Arsenal's first home game of the 1991/92 season, against Queens Park Rangers, there was a two page interview with our vice chairman at the time David Dein where he was asked to explain this whole brave new world to us and he attempted to woo is by saying 'the present league structure neither efficiently looks after the top of the First Division or the bottom of the Fourth Division. Effective change is virtually impossible under the current football league system as its voting composition very often has a frustrating effect on real progress.' So the Premier League was about power? 

Later in the interview the programme editor, Kevin Connelly asked Dein if the creation of the Premier League was about money. I can only assume Dein put on his ultra gravitas voice as he said 'No, it is about progress, management, the future,' before adding money played an important role, England needed to keep its best players playing in England. Dein noted Liam Brady, Mark Hateley, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Waddle, Paul Gascoigne and David Platt had all be tempted by the riches on offer overseas. 

\Dein also insisted the clubs from the lower divisions would also benefit in  this brave new world with the Football Association, which would run the Premier League, promising to 'indemnify' clubs should their income stream be impacted negatively by the new league.

Then came the key question, on page two, when Connelly asked Dein 'Who will be the ultimate beneficiary in the Premier League?' Smooth as you like Dein replied 'First the spectator because there will be better facilities and stricter criteria for grounds. Secondly, the international team because when the Premier League is finally reduced the England manager will have more time with his players. Thirdly football generally because progress will be able to be made without the confines of an unwieldy system.'

At the time there was talk of a payers' strike and legal action being taken by the Football League so the rest of the interview covered those topics before one little gem. 'What role will television play in the new Premier League?' Answer? 'There will be joint negotiations between the football association and the Premier League together with broadcasters...'

As far as interviews go Dein was giving little away probably because, much like the ministers today discussing Brexit with the EU, no one really knew what they were doing. Nothing like this had been done before and all involved were essentially inventing the wheel.

Twenty five years on and with some hindsight offering some excellent benefits, it is clear the arguments Dein put forward for the creation of the league have been shown to be bogus except one about power. Certainly the national team hasn't improved, the gap between the haves and have nots has widened to a chasm  and television basically owns the game. TV clicks its fingers and football rolls over to have its tummy tickled. 

The Premier League has become massive thanks to the brands, the history and the chaotic style of play. When it kicked off all the football money was concentrated in Italy. Sky and the Premier League has changed the way people see football and the way football is viewed. Clubs are brands, players are celebrities and replica shirts are fashion items and not even the far seeing Dein could have envisaged that. English football, once the preserve of people like me and eccentrics from Northern Europe has come to be shared by people all around the world and especially Asia and Africa. 

Top flight football for many of my generation is irredeemably broken on the alter of mammon but it is more popular than ever and Arsenal, through David Dein's efforts, were there at the very start continuing the innovative thinking that had started in the 1920s and 1930s with men like Henry Norris and Herbert Chapman. And that innovative DNA continues to this day with the great prophet Arsene Wenger convincing a generation of fans football isn't just about trophies and an American owner who is so disconnected from the club he may as well be on another planet or in the Serengeti being hunted down by hordes of wildebeest or irate shotgun packing conservationists. And yes, both Wenger and Kroenke were introduced to the Arsenal by Dein

The Bird Man Of North London

It has only been in recent years that I have realised how lucky the Arsenal have been with goalkeepers. Growing up I knew all about Jack Kelsey, hell  I even had his book, and would see him in the club shop on the rare occasion I visited that primitive emporium. I got to see Bob Wilson, Jimmy Rimmer, Pat Jennings, John Lukic and David Seaman, I went through life thinking every goalkeeper in England was blessed with talent and everyone who signed for the Arsenal was a cut above the rest.

Some keepers of course made no impression on the first team even though I was familiar with their  names from my avid reading of the match day programmes. Geoff Barnett was 'my' first proper second choice keeper. Famous for his hair (!) he did play a few first team games but was never able to dislodge Bob Wilson and was allowed to leave. Brian Parker and Martin New made even less impression than Barnett and it wasn't until the signing of Rimmer from Manchester United in 1974 that we had a successor for Wilson.

After a couple of years where Rimmer, along with the goals of Brian Kidd, almost single handedly kept us from relegation, new gaffer Terry Neill decided to let Rimmer go to Aston Villa and he signed Pat Jennings from that lot up the road and for a while the genial Irishman was untouched as our number one.

In 1978 we signed Paul Barron as understudy and from the little I saw of him I liked what I saw. However he was never going to take over from Jennings who was still a model of consistency despite being in his mid 30s and when Neill sought to swap Clive Allen for Kenny Sansom in 1980 Barron was added to the deal as a sweetener.

With Barron leaving there was a need for an experienced keeper to standby in case Jennings was interested so Neill, perhaps feeling 18 year old Rhys Wilmot was not yet ready to step up to the first team, went back in the transfer market to sign 27 year old Scottish international George Wood from Everton.

The Scotsman didn't have long to wait for his debut, deputising for Jennings in an away game against Middlesbrough and although we lost the game 2-1 he was retained for the following week. The next game was against Nottingham Forest at Highbury and for many of us it was the first chance to see our new keeper. We won 1-0 and went home happy, not giving the new man between the sticks a second thought. He played the next nine games before Jennings came back to the first team and his record was: Played 11, won five, drew three and lost three. He also played in a couple of League Cup ties away to Stockport County and Spurs.

The 1981/82 campaign saw Wood even more involved as he played in 26 league games and one League Cup tie, a replay at Anfield, and with Jennings not getting any younger it was looking like the former Everton keeper was being groomed to take over from the big man. From my place on the North Bank I was not convinced. Jennings had started the season with Wood not playing his first league game of the season until Janurary away to Stoke City. We won that game as we had won the previous five games but we as a team were not playing well and the confidence many of us supporters wasn't transfered to our new keeper.

Wood kept his place from the Stoke game onwards  and we lost one game in our last seven but we weren't playing that well, it was only in our last game of the season at home to Southampton that I felt we played with any kind of fluency or confidence. We had lost players like Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton over recent years and their replacements, be they Paul Davis, Graham Rix, Brian McDermott or John Hawley weren't felt to be up to the task. With Jennings absent for much of the campaign we were missing a core of the late 1970s team which had reached four finals.

Wood started the 82/83 season playing in our opening 13 games when we only won three games. We had been promised big signings and Terry Neill had certainly spent big but Tony Woodcock and lee Chapman were facing their own problems adapting to their new surroundings. Jennings and Wood alternated between the sticks for a while but the Scotsman's number was up. He was involved in the 5-0 debacle at White Hart Lane and played just one FA Cup tie, the semi final against Manchester United which we also lost.

A few days later George Wood pulled on the Arsenal number one shirt for the last time in a midweek league game away to Norwich City four days after that semi final loss. We lost 3-1, Jennings saw out the season and Wood was allowed to leave during the summer.

Personally I was glad to see him gone. I never took to him as an Arsenal player even though he was experienced and had a good background. He never felt like an Arsenal player and I never felt safe when he was playing. No disrespect to the lad but for me he was the worst keeper we had...until Manuel Almunia.

Still, there was one thing I always remembered about George Wood. He wasn't what you would call a party animal and with Charlie Nicholas arriving in the summer to team up with Woodcock, Alan Sunderland, Kenny Sansom and the other drinkers in the club he would most definitely have been the odd man out. For Wood was no party animal. He was in fact a twitcher. A bird watcher.

The programme for Liverpool at home in September 1982 had a profile with Wood and we were told Wood had grown up in Scotland spending his free time with a game keeper learning about animals and birds. He would lie on a river bank with his arm in the water trying to find trout for example and if he got lucky, as he frequently did, he sell the surplus to local restaurants or hotels.

Even as an Arsenal player he never lost his interest in the countryside and would carry out a survey of birds in Hertfordshire as well as counting the winter birds in his area. While most players of that era were listening to U2 or Level 42 Wood was most content listening to recordings of bird songs, preferring a bit of 'cheep,cheep' to 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. As for his football ambitions? He was happy enough being a professional footballer. Anything beyond that was a bonus he felt.

While I never rated him I did like the fact he was more eclectic than your average footballer and am happy that whenever it comes to listing Arsenal's worst ever keepers Arsene Wenger has provided me with a number of alternatives to push Wood the Birdman down the list.

Over Land & Sea. And Leicester.

So here we are  on the first day of a new season and we are hosting Leicester City on a Friday night. Golly, hasn't football changed? Forty plus years ago who'd a thought we would have seen Leicester crowned champions, play in the European Cup and Arsenal fans celebrate a victory over them like it was we who were champions.

Leicester do appear once or twice in the annals of 'memorable if not not classic' games over the years. First and foremost they were our first opponents at Highbury more than a century ago. And let us not forget there was the day we beat Leicester at the old Highbury in the last game of the season to be crowned champions ourselves at the end of our unbeaten season

Yep, things change and how Leicester are perceived but for me a game with Leicester City always brings to mind an old chant you used to hear on the North Bank and at away games.

We will follow the Arsenal

Over land and sea (and Leicester)

We will follow the Arsenal

On to victory

(All together now)

Supporters at other clubs used to sing something similar but I don't recall whether they added the Leicester bit to their version. But we did. Why would that be?

Some people have suggested it may have been because the M1 motorway would have signposts which would give distances and say things like The North followed by Leicester but I'm not convinced football fans even noticed road signs on the way to and from games. No, what football fans remember are games and places visited and for some reason we used to visit Leicester quite a lot.

Take, for example the 1974/75 season. In  that season, best forgotten really, we played the Foxes home and away in the league as you would expect. We started the season playing them away and we started well, Brian Kidd netting on his debut for the club to give us a 1-0 win. We also drew them in the League Cup being held to a 1-1 draw at Highbury before going to Filbert Street and getting beat 2-1. 

A couple of weeks before Christmas and we met them at Highbury for our second league meeting and with both teams in the bottom five of the table it was the Foxes who had the most to cheer heading back up the M1 with a point from a 0-0 draw. 

While we may have been pants in the league we were struggling but winning in the FA Cup. We were held 1-1 at home by York City in the third round but a Brian Kidd hat trick in the replay saw us earn a trip to Coventry as a reward. We drew, of course, brought them down to Highbury and thrashed them 3-0 (in that season 3-0 was a thrashing).

Our reward for beating Coventry? Leicester at home. The first game was a repeat of our league encounter at Highbury back in December, a 0-0 draw, so we were back up to the East Midlands for a replay. That ended blank after 90 minutes, we went to extra time and ended up drawing 1-1. Back in those days there were no penalty shoot outs, we had a second replay and teams would toss a coin for the venue. We lost and had to return to Filbert Street five days later to try again. This time we won thanks to a John Radford screamer meaning for this particular season we would not be returning to Leicester. 

Division One 17/08 - Leicester City (A) 0-1 Brian Kidd 

League Cup   10/09 - Leicester City (H) 1-1 Brian Kidd

League Cup   18/09 - Leicester City (A) 1-0 Liam Brady

Division One 14/12 - Leicester City (H) 0-0

FA Cup          15/02 - Leicester City (H) 0-0

FA Cup          19/02 - Leicester City (A) 1-1 John Radford

FA Cup          24/02 - Leicester City (A) 0-1 John Radford

We weren't finished with trips to Leicester though. In 1978/79 we were involved in an FA Cup marathon with Sheffield Wednesday which saw us play at Highbury, Hillsborough, Filbert Street, Filbert Street and Filbert Street. By then the chant was a staple on our terraces and perhaps it had started life with some terrace wit adding Leicester to the original as a recognition of those tiring treks north up the M1.

Its worth bearing in mind the organic development of a chant like this when you hear of clubs trying to force feed supporters a song or an anthem like the Arsenal did with The Wonder of You. Terrace culture isn't developed in a board room with a bunch of suits looking at flow charts, drinking from expensive bottles of water. It comes from the terraces but in this modern era clubs are scared of fans. Clubs are reluctant to even use the word fan, they want to turn us into consumers  and control the whole matchday experience and they may be earning bucket loads of cash from Sky but at the end of the day football without the fans is nothing and the sooner the corporates realise this the better the matchday experience will be for the players on the field, the fans in the stands and yes, even the viewers on TV.

Brisbane & A Long Distance Phone Call

It's not right is it? A new season kicking off on a Friday night. It's bollocks but it's to be expected. Football sold its soul so long ago I struggle to recall when it still had one. If a Friday night kick off keeps the bean counters happy then so be it and as for the fans who have to make nightmare arrangements to get to North London, people in football stopped caring about them yonks ago.

But for all the faffing around imposed by the TV companies there is still something special about the first game of the season. The excitement of seeing any new signings, what will the new season's programme be like, meet your mates again in the usual places, perhaps even the smell of paint lingering on the crash barriers. And of course the game was played on an immaculate pitch swathed in sunshine as Match of the Day faithfully recorded. Oh yes, and we were unbeaten of course What was not to love. Up and down the country there were people setting out for the first game with the same thoughts whether they were Arsenal, Hartlepool or Plymouth fans. The season returns.

In 1987 I missed all that much like I am missing all that in 2017. But 1987 was my first year away and, I thought at the time, my only year away. Exciting things were afoot at the Arsenal with George Graham delivering a trophy in his first season and the promise of better things around the corner. New players were coming in like Alan Smith, Nigel Winterburn and Perry Groves while youngsters like Tony Adams, Martin Hayes and David Rocastle were coming through the ranks and making their mark. Why would anyone want to leave the country?

Fact is I had had this urge to visit Australia for several years and I knew if I didn't do it in my early 20s I would never do. When the company I worked for in Guildford decided they wanted to relocate to the west country, offering staff like myself favourable mortgage rates, this seemed the best time. Early 20s, what the fuck did I want a mortgage for and why the hell did I wanna live out there in Wurzel land?

So I left in June 1987 and after a month in South East Asia landed in Sydney wondering how the hell I would be able to keep up with the football from back home. No internet you see and we used pigeons to send letters around the world and a mobile phone was a landline you threw at someone. Luckily there was this wonderful little weekly newspaper called British Soccer Weekly that would prove a lifeline to me and no doubt thousands of other homesick pommies pining for the round ball game in a land of tight shorts and Midnight Oil. The problem was BSW came out on a Monday if I was in Sydney. It could take a few more days if I was further north and come the first game of the 1987/88 season I was in Brisbane and we were playing Liverpool at Highbury.

It promised to be a massive game. We had fucked Rushie's record up at Wembley in April thanks to Bonnie Prince Charlie and like I said we were buzzing about a new era at the Arsenal. Liverpool weren't bad either, manager Kenny Dalglish had signed Peter Beardsley, John Barnes and John Aldridge. In the run up to the game I wondered more than once whether I had made the right decision to leave but I was stuck working at a department store the centre of Brisbane developing a taste for getting pissed even more often than I had in England. Nope, I was stuck and I had to get used to it.

Come the first day of the season and there were more than 57,000 descending on Highbury including my match going mates. Fans were climbing in walls to get a decent view some even on the roof of the North Bank. With a nine hour time difference between London and Brisbane the game kicked off midnight our time. No internet, no world service, no pub showing the game, me and a Liverpool fan who had tagged along were in the dark about events thousands of miles away. What the fuck was going on? We drunk quickly and drunk nervously. We had to, beer was served in oversized thimbles which may have been good for inner city Aussies but no use to the generation which had invented binge drinking to get us through lunch time before returning to the office.

The game finished before two am our time and we staggered home wondering how the fuck we would find out the score. Finally Liverpool fan had a wheeze, found a few coins and rang home. I forget the names but remember the conversation which went something like this;

Brisbane - Hey sister is mam there? Mam?

Liverpool - 

Brisbane - Mam, mam, it's me, John. What was the score?

Liverpool - 

Brisbane - Yeay, thanks mam, bye.

Brisbane - Take that you cockney twat

I am now approaching my 31st season as an exiled Gooner. Thanks to the wall to wall coverage, the internet, cable TV, I am better informed now about my club than I was when I lived in England and used to go to the games. But spare a though eh as you head out on Friday to the game, as you go for that pre game pint, buy your programme and fanzine, moan about Wenger during the game and call the ref a wanker when we lose and face a long journey home with nothing to show but some betting slips and the makings of a hangover. I will probably wake up five minutes before the game starts, swear at an empty house before venting my rage on Twitter and going to bed before the ref's pea has barely finished rolling around his whistle unable to sleep as I rerun the game in my mind. All the while I will be wishing I was inside the stadium.