Dying deep in enemy territory - Liege Preview
Liege 0- Arsenal 7
By Boris Mellor
September 15 2009
I never quite understood why a lifelong Arsenal fan would retire to Tottenham; he said it was because there was a branch of Sainsbury walking distance from the house. More importantly it was only 10 minutes from the Victoria Line which meant he could get to the West End, or Arsenal, in minutes.
It was a nice house, but its main selling point was a quick escape from Tottenham. However, that was back in 1968, now he was old, and dying of cancer he could only follow the team on the radio, his wife was dying in hospital and he was living alone. I ferried him backwards and forwards to the hospital, and drove him past the new North Bank Stand which he thought was wonderful. Neither of us guessed that it would not survive for very long.
My girlfriend at the time had never seen a football match, so I told her I would take her to the best. There were no membership schemes; to be honest I hadn't been following the team for quite a while. Graham's inability to contest the league was beginning to depress me. We were a cup team, and not always pleasant to watch.
Nonetheless tickets were easily available and I parked immediately outside the ticket office and bought two tickets in the East Stand Upper for the Liege match on 20 October 1993. I wasn't expecting too much, but the view would be good.
We ferried the old boy back towards Tottenham, but the traffic was heavy, I had to stop and get him a cab back the rest of the way. The cabbie promised to make sure he was safely indoors before he drove off. I abandoned the car down a side street and we got a cab to the ground. We had to run up the stairs to see the kick off in time.
I don't remember that much about the match, mainly my companion's reaction to the beauty of Highbury. There was the billiard green pitch floodlit below us like chessboard. Secondly we scored three, Wrighty 2 and Merson 1. Liege scored none.
It was the perfect display, and she was most impressed. I didn't have the heart to tell her that we had just seen 3 weeks' worth of goals, and that it was rarely that exciting.
A couple of weeks later it got even better and Arsenal beat Liege away 7-0. The old man was now in his last couple weeks, it was very cold and there was a light smattering of snow on the rooftops, he needed morphine and 24 hour nursing. The nurse was surprised to discover she was looking after an Arsenal fan in deepest Tottenham.
He was finding it hard to remember things, and the morphine made him light headed. He took to watching Red Dwarf and saying it was the best thing he had ever seen, he was probably in a minority of 79 year olds with such viewing tastes. True it was funny, but I am sure the morphine explains his laughter at some of the lamer gags.
As I already said we weren't playing well in the league, and the nurse teased him, "they are not doing that well this season are they". Quick as a flash he replied, "Yes they are in Europe". The ten nil aggregate thrashing of Standard Liege had made a deep impression on him.
He died before Arsenal played another game in Europe. Of course it's history that the team went on to win the European Cup Winners Cup that season, I just wish my father had lived a little longer to hear about it. Nonetheless I had the feeling that he knew it was going to be a great season in Europe.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:09:18:20:40:48 by Padre Pio.
Lets hope we win the Champions League for you this year, Padre!
who knows which team will turn up.
SL again.....and a die-hard and 79 year old Arsenal fan must sacrifice himself after Liege match.
Any member of our Board of Directors is 79 year old and balmeless?
I suppose the point is that the old man kept the faith even though it wasnt looking that good.
