It is fortunate that I eat a relatively sensible diet, do a modicrum of exercise and don't smoke. Otherwise I doubt my cardiovascular system would have survived the past few weeks of live Liverpool footy coverage. Once again there was an excellent turn-out by the local Reds at the Belfast pub footy mecca : "The Bot". Everyone knew of the importance of this game, win or bust.
So, 8.00 pm - Kick Off.
Arsenal started well, with the impressive Viera and Bergkamp threatening to run through our defence. A few last ditch tackles here and there kept them out - Kvarme in particular was looking worth every penny of the 3 million we didn't pay Rosenborg.
Suddenly a bit of possession for us - Colly sneaks into the
box and the ball is slipped through to him ... keeper to beat ...
** Roar of expection **
... but no ! He skies it.
A chorus of "No!"s rings around the pub.
Heads are shaken.
Hair is ruffled.
Now it's our turn to press, and Platt's back header falls to
the on-rushing Collymore ... keeper to beat ...
** Even louder roar of expection **
... but no ! Last ditch tackle from Adams, shot goes wide.
Foreheads are slapped.
Spontaneous outbreaks of Berger's name are overheard.
Or as Oscar Wilde once remarked : "To fluff a single one-on-one is unfortunate, but to fluff two smacks of carelessness."
More Arsenal pressure - more great work by Kvarme, Harko and
Wright.
Free kick ... just headed away.
Several corners ... hacked clear.
Sweat sighted on several foreheads.
Then a moment of wonderful skill, Colly waltzes through the
Arsenal defence.
All of a sudden everyone is on their feet, "Go On!" ...
He's clean through ... keeper to beat ...
As one we leap to our feet waiting to cheer the opener - it's
just like being on a terrace again - with an atmosphere to match
...
... but no ! His toe-poke is fumbled away by Seaman.
A loud chorus of colourful language follows.
No one can quite believe it.
But it could have been worse, Arsenal's best chance fell to
Bergkamp who fired wildly over from 8 yards out - he got a chorus
of jeers for his efforts. Arsenal took control of the game after
that, doing a good job of closing us down when we had the ball.
Did we do the same when they had the ball ?
Did we f%*% ...
Anyway, half time.
And thanks to Reebok for using the 2nd movement of Beethoven's
7th symphony in the half-time ad-break, that calmed me down a
bit.
9.00 pm. Second half. Make or break.
We start brightly, pushing more men upfield, which was nice to
see. And that's how Bjornebye happened to get the ball on the
edge of the box. From where he fired in a decent enough shot.
Which Seaman fumbled hopelessly ... and which Colly tucked in !
How we cheered !!!
It was the sort of cheering you do when you've just experienced
an hour of frustration. The sort of cheering that leaves you with
a sore throat until you go to bed that night. No words, just
cheering.
Then Stan wins a long ball, through on goal ...
everyone on their feet again ready to cheer his second ...
... but his shot hits the post !
Unbelievable, it's the Newcastle game from last Monday week all
over again !
I've now run my hands through my hair so many times that I
suspect I look like Christopher Lloyd's character in "Back
to the Future".
The ball continues to be fired from one end of the pitch to
the other.
Wright stands out as the star of the show, winning everything in
the air and smashing it to safety.
Then Fowler runs onto one of Wright's clearances, one on one ...
"Go On!", "Must Be!" shout the faithful ...
... but Seaman catches him, and Fowler flies to the ground.
We all meant to shout "Penalty!" at this point, but in
the heat of the moment it came out as a wordless roar.
Which changed to celebratory cheering when the ref pointed to the
spot.
At this point Fowler can clearly be seen waving his arms as if to disagree with the ref. I thought he was making a case for Seaman to stay on the field, ( although I was personally shouting "Off, Off, Off!" at the time ). But it turns out he was saying "No penalty". Wow. What honesty. Judging from the bench reaction, I don't think Evvo shared this view though, I certainly didn't.
Nevertheless, ball on the spot. Robbie to take.
I didn't watch it though, I was looking back into the massed
semicircle of fans behind me. I could see the faces of about 50
people just drop when they knew Seaman had guessed right ...
so I turned back in shock ...
just in time to see the ball being hammered home by someone else
!
Such were the scenes of celebration that I only found out that it
was McAteer's goal when the replay was shown for the third time.
Ouch, my throat.
The remaining 20 minutes were, quite simply, torture.
There was a time when I'd have enjoyed the rest of game we were
leading 2-0.
But past events have changed all that.
And we almost lost a goal immediately, the ball flashing across
the goalmouth.
A collective intake of breath is heard.
Now children, can you guess what happened with 10 minutes to
go ?
That's right, the obligatory
"set-up-a-heart-stopping-finish-goal".
This time it was Ian Wright with what, in retrospect, was an aesthetically very pleasing lob over David James. At the time however it was a horror goal right from Satan's own terror collection.
The last 10 minues featured end-to-end footy.
Arsenal's playmaker David Seaman would hoof the ball into our
half, Wright or Kvarme would win it, and then smash it downfield
again to loud cheers. Once Bjornebye got on the end of a
clearance and should have wrapped it up. Imagine how we smiled
when Seaman scrambled it clear, ho ho ho.
In fact the closing stages of this game we so painful to watch that I reckon Amnesty International could have sought an injunction stopping this game after 85 minutes with a reasonable chance of success.
But we hung on, James came for, and shock, claimed all the dangerous high balls. This was greeted by ironic cheers at first, but huge bursts of applause by the end of the game.
Clock shows 90 minutes ...
2 minutes, some spontaneous whistling, and 14 shouts of "Referee" later, and the whistle goes, sparking off celebrations that whilst not in the "last-minute-winner-into-the-Kop" category of cheering, certainly made me go home in an elevated state of consciousness.
But how I am ever going to get through the Man U game next month without resorting to prescription drugs is anyone's guess.
As ever, walk on ...
--
Dr Jaron Collis, Dept. of Computer Science, Queen's University
of Belfast
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EMail : j.collis@qub.ac.uk
URL : http://www.cs.qub.ac.uk/~J.Collis/