My Favourite Arsenal Memories!

Like the Gunners have counted down their Top 5 Players of the Year currently, I will over the next few weeks count down my top 5 Arsenal Memories. (By the way I totally agree that Fabregas has been our best player last year… there is not a more dominant Gunner player at the moment).

How does one pick your top 5, interesting question as I have quite a few but here are the ones I selected.

5. Watching my first and second game at Emirates Stadium

Ever seen the movie based around Newcastle United called Purely Belter? If
you have you will know the main character describes through the movie his greatest memory of visiting St James Park. By the end of the movie we find it was actually his best friend’s memory. In the same vein here we go.

My first game at Emirates was to see Manchester United visit Emirates on a cold Sunday afternoon in January 2007. I was in England to visit some of my family and my uncle, who is a season ticket holder, organised tickets for my Dad and I.

We sat behind the north end and the noise and the atmosphere was just electric. I have never before in my life felt such anticipation.

As per every game at Emirates, Arsenal fell behind to an early goal by Wayne Rooney. Van Persie gets pulled into the action in the second half and turns the game. Unfortunately for us and him this will be his last game of the season due to breaking his foot.

As time ticks away it looks like being a draw, but hang on up pops Henry late in injury time to plant a stunning header past Edwin van der Sar. My uncle, my dad and I go absolutely nuts but this is drowned out by 60000 thousand crazy fans screaming and jumping for joy. I don’t think I will ever see such a great finish to a game in my lifetime and this being my first Arsenal game at their new home.

My second game was to see our tradition rival in Tottenham visit for the
second leg of the Carling Cup. I thought I experienced it all watching
United but to hear 60000 fans scream “Stand up if you Hate Tottenham” was something else. Carrying a draw into the second game, we needed a win to get into our first League Cup Final in 14 years.

It turned out it was a frantic game for our Young Gunners, Wenger stuck with youth as he had all season in this tournament.

We scored with 15 to go, they tied it up with 2 to go so Extra time was needed. We then blew them away with two goals, the last an own goal to go through. Sensational…..

Not too bad from my first two games at Emirates, don’t you think?

By the way I have never been to Emirates Stadium, a fellow Gunner fan Adrian, took his son Conor earlier this year to Emirates and this is actually his memory with some extra added by me. I wished it was me there however.

4. Champions League Semi Final 2006 at Villarreal

Ever since I became a hard core Gunners fan it has been great to watch the team win a couple of Doubles, go undefeated for a season and win the FA cup every other year, however it has been a sticking point that we have not gone further in Europe with the team we had.

The year we were undefeated at Christmas we had undoubtedly the best team in the world, playing great attacking football. However as we had always found out, when it mattered in Europe we could not grind out the results. We also seemed to then tumble out of the Premiership and FA Cup within the same week.

Not in 2006 however.

To beat Real, to beat Juventus playing smart European football put us on the verge of something special. In the games against Juve, I finally realized why Vieira was sold. Up to that point I was disappointed about his sale (much like I am now about Henry’s, still in denial), more for the amount and timing as Real Madrid were happy to pay more money the season before to take him. (Again the same now with Henry)

Now on to the Semi finals, after grinding out a 1 nil win at home with a goal to Toure. We had to travel to Villarreal for the final game. While 1 nil to the Arsenal has been a catch cry for years at the club, keeping a 1 nil lead in Europe has been another thing. We were totally outplayed by the Yellow Submarines but were holding firm, with a lot of luck. Then right at the end, would you believe a penalty for a small push in the box by Clichy… At 6.30am on a cold Thursday morning my heart was in my mouth, it could not end like this…. But up stood the Paddle Pop Lion Lehmann to save from Riquelme... Sensational!!!

We were on our way to the final.

The main reason I picked this game over the Final was we won this game playing the opposite style to how we had played Europe before. Whatever happened next at least we had realized years of potential. We gave it a good crack in the final, Lehman should have got a yellow and they should have been 1 up… now that would have been a better final.

Memories 2 & 3 to come next.

Cheers

Frosty 999

PS In total denial over the departure of Henry… All I will say is he will be missed.