Daily Archives: 17/05/2014

Gooners’ last Cup win, 2005

Cup Final day and I’m relaxing by the balmy waters of the North Sea in beautiful, tropical Filey. Home cares and family worries are far away. The fridge is stocked with the chilled best of grain and grape and every other comfort and convenience (ensuite) is close by. Life is good.

So it should be too. The latest Leeds United season from hell is thankfully behind us and, internal strife notwithstanding, we can relax in the knowledge that our heroes’ turgid and tedious brand of football is in mothballs for a few weeks. Meanwhile we have the World Cup to look forward to, with the cream of English talent – as well as Wayne Rooney – poncing about ineffectually in Brazil and hoping to make it as far as another penalty shoot-out defeat to bleedin’ Germany.

But today is Cup Final day, and the eyes of the civilised world – and Humberside – are on Wembley, to see whether the Arse can beat Dull City and end their epoch-long trophy drought. I find myself not a neutral, for several reasons. Firstly, I’ve never been all that keen on Hull. They’re an upstart club with one of those horrible new breed of owners in Assem Allam – a man who wants to rebrand City as the Tigers. It’s a silly idea, the fans are against it – and yet Allam remains stubbornly convinced he knows best – like Vincent Tan at Cardiff, who suffered relegation for his presumption. The least I wish Hull is a Cup Final defeat – there’d be the bonus of the look on Steve Bruce’s face, too. Don’t get me started on him.

There are more positive, less vindictive reasons. I like Arsenal. They exude class as a club, from top to bottom. They play beautiful football, and they help me dislike Spurs. Manager Arsène Wenger is a class act too – the game would be the poorer for his loss, much as it is the richer for the passing of Alex “Taggart”Ferguson. It would be good to see the Gooners on the trophy trail again. My late father in law supported them, as does my daughter’s Significant Other.

Last but not least – I have a tenner riding on the outcome. I’m not a betting man, but when the semi finals came down to Arsenal and three nothing clubs, I thought even I couldn’t jinx them. I so nearly caught a cold against Wigan – so surely the Arse will now see me home happy and ten quid richer??

Come on you Gooners. Do it for yourselves and for lovers of the beautiful game. But most of all – with some brass at stake – do it for this admiring Leeds fan.