My name's Roy
In my minds eye, the cup final existed on another planet. You drove in the vague direction of London or now Cardiff, and eventually a causeway would open and you’d drive to FA Cup Final Island passing as you did Bert Trautmann rubbing his broken neck, Ricky Villa weaving his way through the Man City defence, and Stanley Matthews waving from his very own Cup Final Condominium (with a Stan Mortensen looking grumpy behind him).
At the gate Ossie Ardiles’d greet you, and with the magic password “Tottingham” you’d go in.
The reality is not so far from the truth; Saturday was everything I hoped it would be and feared it wouldn’t. The colour and the noise, the perfect conditions (helped by the stadium roof), and the magical other worldly quality that only comes from 24,000 grown men in yellow and blue tinselly wigs made it the spectacle I needed it to be for me to retain a bit of boyhood delusion.
It was the Southampton fans that really made it; they filled their end an hour before kick off, the entire place bedecked in yellow and blue. Arsenal fans on the other hand arrived ten minutes before kick off, displaying the arrogance of success that made the day their consolation prize, not their dream. An arrogance which makes them forget that it’s teams like Southampton that makes their superiority mean something.
A Southampton goal would have made it, judging by they reception they got for coming out, the scenes if they had hit the back of the net would have been breathtaking. Arsenal demonstrated moments of guile, pace and creativity which is frightening to watch, let alone play against. At times they appear stuck, passing the ball around midfield, running crossfield, then all the cogs slip into place and they’re all moving, cutting their way through the Saints back four. It’s like each player splinters into five more and suddenly they’re a swarm. At Oxford, I know exactly what the players are doing; they just do it consistently better than me. Arsenal do things I can’t imagine trying to do, the faint, drag back, push and go, all in one fluid movement. Each section ending perfectly poised and balanced to move into the next. Southampton had no answer, their two dimensional attack nullified by Marsden’s poor crossing starved Beattie of service and failed to release the pace of Ormerod. They ran out of ideas and energy and Arsenal were the winners.
And then they lifted the cup and Seaman danced like your dad at a wedding. We clapped the dejected Saints players and made for the exit and back into the real world.
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