EVER THROWN SOMETHING ON TO A pitch? Just nailed someone. A dodgy ref? A hated opponent? Graham Roberts? No, me neither. Why would you? Would you do it if you could get away with it, unseen? No, me neither.
I’ve seen some things that have wound me up. Graham Roberts springs to mind. You’ll never be entirely even-tempered and rational once you’ve taken sides but I’ve yet to dig around in my pocket for a cigarette lighter or coin to chuck at the ref.
When Arsenal played at the Olympic Stadium in Rome against Lazio four years ago, our seats were incredibly isolated. We must have been 50 yards from the nearest off-duty Roman. It was as if we were contagious. Why were we so far away? We had soldier types next to us with rifles and then a no-man’s land of hundreds of blue seats before the mob of locals in the distance. Then, right at the end, Bobby Pires scored his first Arsenal goal and we drew 1-1. I was on the end of our row and danced through the rifle cordon into the wilderness. I danced back again immediately to avoid being shot and as I crossed into our bit a bottle of water landed behind me. Bottle after bottle crashed down just short of our little party. It was a beverage barrage.
Bear in mind this was the ninetieth minute. A surprising number of Lazio fans had hardly touched their drinks for the whole game. Surely they hadn’t stocked up on refreshments so as to have something handy to chuck in the event of conceding a goal? Yes they had. As our players went off the pitch at the end of the game, Lazio’s racist nutter Sinisa Mihailovic was in full flow dishing out abuse and a kick in the shins to peacemaking Arsenal physio Gary Lewin and there was commotion around the dug-outs. Scores of Romans surged down to the front of the stand and began chucking stuff at M. Wenger, Vieira, the ref and anyone else in range. A great deal of duck and cover ensued before everyone reached safety.
That’s why we were that distance from the rival support, we were just out of throwing range.
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No surprise then that Swedish porno-ref Anders Frisk had his head split open by a missile in Rome last week after sending off Mexes, of Roma, for creeping up behind an opponent and kicking him. It was bound to happen. They live in a missile culture. Maybe it wasn’t a lighter, maybe it was a bottle of fake tan, thrown at Frisk for a laugh. Maybe not.
I saw Ian Wright hit by a coin at Millwall once and in the return game at Highbury the idea had caught hold and Nigel Winterburn was hit by the proverbial fist-full of coins. He had about nine quid in change in his head. If it had been Fabregas they’d have missed — the Force is strong in that one. But Nige? He took a few hits.
I used to stand right by the touchline at Highbury as a kid and I remember someone once throwing a hot dog bun at Graham Rix. He picked it up and pretended to eat it. We laughed. Happy days. In that moment Rixy was nearly the first Arsenal player to adopt a high carb match-day diet. He had a sense of humour about it and humour is certainly not a part of any Champions League match day I’ve had the misfortune to endure.
If you’re of a mind to launch a projectile you may be taking things too seriously. You need an antidote. If you were stupid enough not to go to Athens for some part of this year’s Olympics, where throwing something at a participant was literally unthinkable, there is still humour available here in Britain, in Leyton to be precise.
I’ve been a football junkie this season, yet to miss an Arsenal game and also in attendance at three of Orient’s home matches.
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A couple of weeks ago, Rochdale came to Brisbane Road. We were behind the goal, there was a collision in the box and some squaring up. Glenn Morris, the Orient ‘keeper, was down and the ref was charging over. Glenn had his arm over his face as if dazed or even unconscious. As we looked down at him with concern he lifted his arm and raised his eyebrows at us as if to say “Don’t let on but I’m all right as it goes”.
“Stay down Glenn” shouted an Os fan and Glenn covered up and lay still again. We were really laughing. It was hilarious. No one, not even Glenn’s team-mates, knew he was faking it. Priceless. On Sky of course he’d have been caught by goal-cam and got into trouble but at the Os it was our little secret.
Much more fun than the miserable Champions League that’s now up and running. I bet Pat Vieira wishes he’d joined Real Madrid. That must have been a fun night out in Leverkusen on the Siemens/Adidas ego bus. Two vast German companies piss millions up the wall sponsoring a Spanish “team” who get thrashed in Germany. You’ve got to laugh.
I was pleased to get back to The Premiership on Saturday. “I want an honest write-up,” said the total stranger in my after-match drinking hole/fashionable Islington eaterie.
“When have I been dishonest?” I said.
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He smiled and said “No, no” which I took to be backtracking and then said: “Why,why,why,why,why,why?” “Why what?” I said.
“Why do you always cheat?” I assumed he meant Arsenal this time and not me personally.
“What’s your name?”
“Dave.”
“Where are you from?” I admit that this was facetious. He was wearing an abomination of a football shirt. Red, white and blue stripes. Frankly it was all a bit US Ryder Cup team but it had BWFC on it.
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“Bolton” he said.
“It has been a great day though antit?” he said, and the mysterious, unexplained cheating allegation evaporated, consigned to its own X-File. He was made up with his team’s hard-won point at Highbury and I was hoping that the dropped points wouldn’t cost us in May.
We didn’t discuss the offside law as I’m not sure either of us understand it as well as Big Samantha. It’s obviously fine for Sir Les to stand offside for a free kick and then head it down for a team-mate to shoot. That goal should stand. Of course it should. That’ll be Bolton being cheated then. But they deserved their point and we’re still unbeaten and no one chucked anything at the ref. Everyone happy. It’s like Athens. Or Leyton.