By Myles Palmer
I wanted to see the Man United-Arsenal FA Cup tie but the demo was more important.
There are a few moments in life where you have to stand up and be counted. Saturday was one of them.
Jan was taping the match and we would watch it when we came home.
We meet up at West Hampstead tube station. Me and a lovely bunch of bright, larky 17 and 18-year olds. I know Neela, Rowenna, Alex, Tom, Cara, Keirra, Abby and Melita quite well, some others I’ve met.
Keirra has painted her own placard about starvation.
At school, in free periods, they’ve made a huge banner, HANDS UP FOR PEACE. They carry it down the station stairs rolled up like a carpet. They fold it and put into a baby buggy.
Rowenna ties the poster to the buggy with string.
“This baby WILL be warm!” she says, laughing.
We get on the tube and go to Green Park and Warren Street and hoof it to Gower Steet.
The drummers are great, a gang of percussionists that we can hear, but hardly see amid the throng, with an unseen saxophonist blowing beautiful melody lines.We boogie down Gower street, thousands of us, with the congas pounding, the shrill whistles shrieking, the helicopters overhead going churra-churra-churra.
The whole world is here: teenagers,Muslim families, Mr and Mrs Middle England , white rastas,grannies with mobile phones,students, people with canes,cyclists pushing their bikes, two guys in magenta wigs.
And placards everywhere; NOT IN MY NAME and DON’T ATTACK IRAQ and FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE and BUSH & BLAIR ARE WAR CRIMINALS.
Best placard has a picture of Tony Blair with an AK-47 and a white teapot upside down on his head.The black lettering says,MAKE TEA NOT WAR.
That was my favourite. I wish you could have seen it.
To prevent crushing the police stop us at several intersections on Shaftesbury Avenue. They have the helicopters and the experience of massive crowds, especially at the Notting Hill Carnival.The atmosphere is friendly and marvellous.
It is hard to keep 21 people together amid such a multitude, but Keirra’s placard is a beacon, being different to all others, so you can see it 15 yards away.
I glimpse my reflection in a coffee bar window. I look like an old Greenwich Village beatnik with tufts of grey hair sticking out from under my cap.
Caroline tells me that Alex has been interviewed and photographed by The Sunday Mirror. Then she switches on her mobile and looks at text messages from our pal Stewart at the match.
Thierry starts on the bench.Dennis is in London. Seaman;Lauren Keown Sol Cole; Parlour Vieira Edu Pires; Wiltord Jeffers. Subs TH14 Warmuz vanB Cygan Toure.Time 12.18
Are you on the march?If you are I’ll txt you news from Old Trafford? Time 12.21
Scholes booked after 3 min.VanN booked in the 5th for clattering into Keown.VanN then floors Lauren.No red.PV4 yellow after 7 for dissent.No football yet.Time 12.31
One nil to the Arsenal.Edu free-kick.Massive deflection.
Good old Stewart! Only Stewart would get the semi-colons in the right places.
So United are trying to kick Arsenal off the field. What else is new?
Along Piccadilly we walk behind a guy with a home-made placard: PROUD TO BE A CHEESE-EATING SURRENDER MONKEY, a reference to an American insult about the French.
At the entrance to Hyde Park six small kids are singing in squeaky voices and Caroline gives them some Hands Up For Peace leaflets.
We stop to and see a fiftyish guy sing a protest song acapella into a mike.The song is called United States and he says it was the most requested song on Radio 3 until the BBC banned it last Tuesday. It’s heartfelt, very moving.
Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North, is talking on a videoscreen and we walk on past towards the main stage.
The speeches by union officials and a Palestinian barrister are short and passionate. Maverick George Galloway says this war will break the Labour Party, but he is willing to rebuild the party from the rubble.
We are sorry to have missed Tony Benn’s speech. But we know Tony well from his summer parties at the House of Commons.
After about eight speeches Caroline says she is feeling the cold, so we don’t wait for Jesse Jackson. By now we know that Arsenal have won 2-0.
We exit via Park Lane, where many coaches are parked, coaches from Kettering, and Oxford, and Bristol and everywhere else and we soon luck into a No.16 bus to Kilburn and then catch a tube and get home in 40 minutes. We have a cup of tea and warm up and relax and eat some spaghetti bolognese and then watch a remarkable match video.
Man United admit their inferiority in the first ten minutes.
Scholes jabs his knee into Vieira’s calf, then Scholes retaliates after a mild obstruction by Vieira, whacking him wildly to trigger a melee, then Van Nistelrooy makes a rough late challenge on Keown, then Van Nistelrooy slams his arm into the forehead of Lauren.
How is he still on the field? Only Jeff Winter knows.
Vieira is furious. He is booked for dissent. Who would NOT express dissent after these assaults?
It’s a bit weird to see United saying,We are not as good as you, so we will foul you. Just admitting: we are inferior, we can’t live with you.
Arsenal have a lot of Englishmen in the side today. Jeffers and Parlour are not bothered by the rough stuff.
When Edu evades Keane, Wes Brown crashes into him from the side.Keane gets a yellow for tripping Pires.
Then comes the turning point.
Beckham hits a 40 yard ball and Keown misses it and Giggs goes round Seaman just outside the box and round Sol Campbell, and then, right foot, blazes just over the bar.
Giggs could have rolled it in from there.He did the hard bit when he beat the three defenders.
It was an open goal. He could have rolled it in from the edge of the box. Or taken another touch. Or walked it into the net.
Then Keane kicks the back of Vieira’s leg just outside the D.
Edu clips the free-kick towards the right corner, the wall jumps, the ball hits Beckham’s shoulder and wrongfoots Barthez for 1-0.
After 52 minutes,a superb 12-pass move, a nice quick ball from Pires to Edu, who was gliding into a Pires position just outside the box, and Edu plays a sweet, unusually-angled pass to Wiltord, cruises sideways, swerves past Wes Brown, sidefoots past Barthez,who gambles, going early to his right.
It’s one touch and shoot. Like Dennis, but not like Dennis.
Because Wiltord being Wiltord, it wasn’t like Dennis. It was untidier than that. But a fine goal. Wiltord is very strong and agile and he needed to be to get past Wes Brown and score.
After 57, Giggs misses again.Beckham finds him at the far post but he volleys waywardly into the ground.
After 63, Man Utd are leading 15-7 in the foul count.
Arsenal look fitter and stronger. I’m not surprised that the best team in England can beat the second best team 2-0.
But I thought United would put together a 20-minute spell where they played some football.Instead, they were made to look pedestrian.
The midfield battle was won by Edu, Vieira and Parlour.
And as the game opened out, Pires pulled the strings, made it look easy.
Seaman did not have one shot to save in the whole game.
The Solskjaer shot that hit the post, he had covered. Apart from that all United’s shots were wide.
Edu had a blinder in Manchester when Arsenal won the title last May.
And United started that match very aggressively as well.
Twice in ten months they have tried to kick Arsenal off the field at Old Trafford.
It’s always a mistake to read too much into one result.But this might have been a huge moment in English football history.
The moment the all-conquering, we-want-our-title- back Man United admitted : we know we are not as good as you, we know we can’t beat you by playing football.
Their fouling didn’t work. Van Nistelrooy can’t intimidate Campbell or Keown. Ashley Cole is as hard as nails. Pat Viera, you can foul him, but you can’t get the ball off him. And so on.
So Saturday 15th of February, 2003, was a good day.
A superb victory in the FA Cup and loads of fun at the biggest political demonstration ever held in Britain.
A demo which was an inspiring testament to the English sense of decency, the English sense of conscience, the English sense of humour.
I didn’t see or hear one moment of bad temper or impatience all day.
If you’re gonna spend a day with a million people, spend it with these people. Because these are the nicest million people in England.
It was fantastic. And it was a one-off. I should have gone with the parents but I went with the kids – that made it more fun. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
Later my pal Pat phoned.
He says,”Were you there? Wasn’t it incredible? Did you see Harold Pinter? He said, ‘Blair, you’re a thug!’”
Today’s papers?
The Sunday Times must have been offered hundreds of march photos for their front page. But they go with one showing people with the MAKE TEA, NOT WAR placards.
Alex is quoted in The Sunday Mirror.
She says,”I don’t believe America is acting in anyone’s interests except its own. Saddam doesn’t pose any kind of a significant threat to the UK or the US.”