How I Won The Littlewoods Cup

Saturday the 5^th of April 1987. Wembley Stadium. The League Cup Final between Arsenal and Liverpool. My first ever visit to Wembley and a day that I will never forget for as long as I shall live. Apparently the league cup doesn’t mean anything nowadays. Except to me, it does. And that is why I will be making the trip to Portman Road to cheer on the Gunners against Ipswich Town on Wednesday, with the glint of excitement and memories in my eye.

A little background to give the game a KeithTheGooner perspective. I first went to Highbury in the 1985-1986 season when we were, quite frankly pretty shit, finishing 19 points off the top placed side that season- Liverpool. There was definitely not the general air of entitlement to win things that I sense nowadays going to watch The Arsenal. We were just another English team, albeit with a very proud history. We finished the 85/86 season in 7^th place, but importantly above the perennially shit Tott*nham Hotsp*rs. Towards the end of the season, Don Howe resigned and as you all know, a player that had won the famous double with The Arsenal, George Graham took over as manager.

Fast forwarding to the spring of 1987 and The Arsenal were tied with our hated neighbours in the Littlewoods Cup Semi Final, managed by a man that knew just how important it was to beat our local rivals. After Two legs both home and away, there was nothing to separate the teams and a replay was forced. This third game was to be played out at White Hart Lane, home to one of the most famous Lasagne Chefs in the business. Thousands of Gooners packed in the away terrace and Arsenal did what they were good at. They went behind, famously prompting the Spuds stadium announcer to announce to the scum just how they could book their tickets to the final at Wembley. Legend states that this filtered down to the dressing room and in a throwback to Arsenal teams gone by, the true Arsenal spirit dictated that the players weren’t going to be disrespected like that and inevitably fired us up. The greatest away support in the land heard the announcement too and in an unspoken agreement with the team, they agreed to sing the boys on to victory if the 11 on the pitch played us to victory.

My first true Arsenal hero, Charlie Nicholas was carried off injured and I, along with the plethora of watching Gooners on TV was distraught and I’m pretty sure I started crying. I was nine years old and was sure at that time that the only reason I was crying was because I was so young. Many Arsenal performances since then have disproved that theory. I hadn’t gone to the game because my Uncle who would usually take me had decided that it was probably better if I didn’t go to Shite Hart Lane and end up getting stabbed, aged nine. That would have been pretty hard to explain to my mum.

Ian Allinson put us level making it 1-1 and we prepared for penalties. Then with no time left on the clock, David O’Leary hoofed it from a free kick in our own half up the pitch to Niall Quinn and the ball found it’s way into the Spud’s box where my second Arsenal hero was born as David “Rocky” Rocastle got on the end of the ball and somehow got it into the back of the net, sending the away fans into a frenzy, making the TV Gooners spill tea and beer everywhere and most importantly, sending The Arsenal through to a Wembley Final and sending the scum out of the cup! Talk to any Gooner that was at that game and they will no doubt tell you that it is up there with Anfield ’89 as one of the greatest moments to be at and I am insanely jealous that I was not there, singing with my fellow Gooners, “We’re the famous Arsenal and we’re going to Wembley, Wembley, Wembley!” After the game, David “Kerb Crawler” Pleat, then Tottscum manager said, The result was a stab in the heart for Spurs.

So thanks to the amazing supporters and committed attitude of the players, we were now going to Wembley, along with 96,000 other Arsenal and Liverpool fans. Ninety Six Thousand. Think about that for a minute. Well, my uncle and his soon-to-be wife took a young and open eyed KeithTheGooner to Wembley Stadium on that famous day and I couldn’t savour the moment enough. I think I was very quiet, just taking it all in as we walked from Wembley North Tube Station, seeing the thousands and thousands of red and white Arsenal shirts, mixed in with the white Liverpool shirts as well as their famous home red shirts like a sea of ants all meandering towards a pair of towers that I had only seen on the television watching the FA Cup Final before running out to recreate it with my mates. THIS was Wembley. And we were the famous Arsenal.

I can still smell the cigar smoke and the smell of illegal burger vans and warm beer that had spilled onto the pavement. It was a sunny day, as it always seemed to be for every trip I have taken to Wembley ever since. (More about those on later blogs.) The stalls selling flags and air horns and t-shirts and hats were all out in force and everywhere I looked, I could see Gooners all smiling and singing and enjoying the day out for the massive occasion that it was. I think deep down we all knew that we wouldn’t beat Liverpool with names like Ian Rush, Kenny Dalglish, Alan Hansen and Bruce Grobbelaar. But who cared? We were at Wembley and we were going to enjoy our day out and we would sing our boys on no matter what because they were The Arsenal and we were The Gooners. We all wanted to win, but we were the underdogs. Especially if Ian Rush scored, because as the stats proved, if Rushie scored, Liverpool won. End of.

Taking our seats in the Upper Tier, facing towards where we would see Kenny’s Liverpool men lift the cup after 90 minutes, the scale of just how big this was hit me. Not just the stadium and the sheer noise, but the fact that here we were in a cup final at Wembley. I began to believe that this was our day and that it wouldn’t be the Scottish Kenny that would be lifting the cup, but my Kenny, The Arsenal’s number 3 Kenny Sansom. Just before kick off the crowd reached fever pitch and the Gooners were in full force. Credit to the Scousers, they were singing just as loud as us and it all made for an electrifying atmosphere as the two teams stepped out onto that famous Wembley turf to rapturous applause, cheers, air horns and rattles. We could win this. We could win the cup.

My uncle had tested the waters with me a couple of seasons earlier to see if I would like going to watch the football by taking me to watch my local team, Welling United. (I was at Welling a few years later when Tony Adams played his first game for the Arsenal Reserves after coming out of prison and I got his autograph after invading the pitch… I was a kid, don’t judge me!) I think my uncle’s theory was that if I could watch a Conference team play for 90 minutes without getting bored, then I should be alright to be introduced to Arsenal, the team that I had supported but had never seen when I was 7 years old. Well, probably much to his annoyance, I wasn’t bored by watching The Wings, I was fascinated. I couldn’t stop asking him questions throughout the game, at half time and on the way home. I bet he probably wanted the ball to smack me in the face to shut me up for a couple of minutes so he could enjoy the game. I think his embarrassment peaked when the Welling manager stood up and berated The Wings for playing shit and shouted at the team, “COME ON WELLING, WHAT ARE WE?” And I immediately shouted at the very top of my voice, the response that I had learned to the question, “What Are We?” by watching ITV’s The Wideawake Club. Yep, I stood up and screamed “WE’RE WIDE AWAKE!!!” and I was very confused when not only did nobody else join in, but they started laughing. Except for my very embarrassed uncle who was hanging his head in shame. The next week he took me to Highbury and the rest as they say, is history.

So there we were at Wembley Stadium. My Uncle, my Aunt and a miniature version of KeithTheGooner wearing one of those flat caps with Arsenal cannons and so forth that were the business back then. I had a good collection of flat caps by the time of the final and because I hadn’t been able to decide which one was lucky, I brought all 15 of them in a plastic bag, so that if we didn’t score when I was wearing a particular hat, I could always change it to ensure that we would score. Some things never change if you have read my recent blog about our recent victory over Chelsea.

In the 23^rd minute, Ian Rush scored and because he had scored, Liverpool went on to win the Littlewoods Cup. Except they didn’t. Panicked by the fact that we were now losing to Liverpool, the team that I had grown to hate, especially because almost 50,000 scousers were now singing at me personally because my team was losing, I resorted to drastic action. It was time to find my lucky hat. My Auntie Jo had the carrier bag filled with my lucky hats and I asked her for a new one. A minute later, we hadn’t equalised so I asked her for another one. Then another one. Then another one. By the time of the seventh hat, for some reason, there was a humungous cheer, louder than I had ever heard and people all around me were shouting and punching the air and hugging one another. I later found out that it was because Charlie Nicholas had put us level in the 30^th minute, but I was far too busy making sure that the goal was scored by changing hats to see the goal, so I completely missed it. As did my Auntie Jo, who I have felt guilty about making her miss that goal ever since.

We went in at 1-1 at half time and I had been convinced that the only reason that we had equalised was because I had changed my hat, so I sat there pompously knowing that I was responsible for our goal and that if it wasn’t for me, we would still be losing. Second half kicked off and the red Arsenal flags were still waving while we were still singing loud when George made a substitution that would change history. I still remember the goal as clear as day, out on the wing, Perry “Super-Sub” Groves racing down, setting up my hero Charlie Nicholas as he powered in the winning goal in the 83^rd minute against the best team in the country, sending us all into a state of delirium that I just can’t do justice with any words in any language. All I can think to say is, “We went fucking mental.”

And so the score stayed that way for the final 7 minutes of regular play, while we sang the name of the North Bank’s hero, Charlie Charlie, Charlie Charlie and then the final whistle was a signal that Gooners all over the world should commence the partying immediately. I think I had tears streaming down my cheeks as I watched Kenny Sansom lift the trophy, followed by all of my heroes in red and white, including one young man called Tony Adams who seemed to get a taste for this trophy winning malarkey on that day. I will never forget the smell, the sound and most of all the sight of my Arsenal heroes parading that League Cup around Wembley, proudly showing it off to us adoring fans. We sang, Georgie Graham is magic, he wears a magic hat, And when he saw the League Cup, He said “I’m having that.” Except George wasn’t the only one who had a magic hat. I did too.

After the game, my Uncle and Aunt and I stayed to savour the experience and I think we left almost an hour after the final whistle. We went to the player’s entrance along with a few hundred other fans, mostly Gooners and I stood there with a pen and my programme patiently waiting for my heroes to emerge. After 20 minutes, one of the players who had played walked out with his kit bag in his hand and I immediately recognised him. It was Liverpool’s number 8, Craig Johnston with his silly 80’s perm. He signed a couple of autographs of the other kids next to me and then tried to take my pen so he could sign mine. I quickly pulled it away from him and said “No. I don’t want any Liverpool autographs, you’re rubbish. I only want Arsenal ones.” He looked down and had a half smile and ruffled my hair and I quickly wiped my hair to get his touch off of me. Kids can be brutally honest sometimes.

So here we are, about to play Ipswich over two legs of the League Cup Semi Final and I am reminded about my first ever Wembley experience. I am reminded about Tony Adam’s first ever Wembley experience and how it was the catalyst for us winning the plethora of trophies under Adams’ captaincy afterwards. I am reminded how Michael Thomas got a taste of winning there against Liverpool which was probably somewhere at the back of his mind as he ran towards the Liverpool goal at Anfield in 1989. So please don’t tell me that this cup doesn’t mean anything. Tell that to those guys. Tell it to anyone who was at White Hart Lane in 1987 for the semi. Tell that to the fans who travelled to White Hart Lane for the first round this season, then away to Newcastle and at home to Wigan in the snow. And tell this to Cesc, Jack, Theo, Tommy and the rest of the squad when they step up to compete for their first trophy, inspiring years of famous Arsenal victories in the future. Winning is addictive. Winning is a habit. The League Cup is an absolute priority for us, let there be no mistake and I look forward to celebrating winning it once again with all of my fellow Gooners.

If you doubt how much the League Cup means to the fans, watch my video from this year’s first round.

This post first appeared on the excellent blog, afcnews.com

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