By Myles Palmer
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Arsenal won 5-4 on penalties after losing a 0-0 draw.
Manchester United played the football, Arsenal won the cup.
I’d written 3 pieces here predicting that Arsenal would win the FA Cup, but not like that
Like many people, I was dumbfounded by the way Arsene played.
Bergkamp was never Vialli, so how could he play as a lone striker at the age of 36 ?
And he didn’t change it.
Bergkamp behind van Persie would have made it a game, rather than a siege.
Caroline came home from uni to watch with me.
Brother Paddy came round
Best friend Doug came round.
Caroline asked Doug who he was supporting.
Doug said, “I’m an honorary Gooner for today. Ever since Mourinho came out for Man United, I had to support Arsenal after that.”
Every time Rooney didn’t score, Doug said, “It’s not your day,Wayne!”
All through the game Paddy kept saying, “It’s still 0-0. It’s a game of poker, it’s rope-a-dope. He’ll bring Ljungberg on and nick one.”
I said, “Rope-a-dope is OK if you can land one big punch. We can’t land any punch. We haven’t had a shot yet!”
97 minutes, Arsenal’s first shot on target, a van Persie free-kick.
Two hours of football, no goals, the 4 stars of the game are Lehmann, Ronaldo, Rooney and referee Rob Styles.
When have Arsenal ever scored five immaculate penalties in a shoot-out?
In Copenhagen, Hill-Wood shook the hand of the Galatasary chairman before the shoot-out.
“Why are you congratulating me now?” asked the Turk.
“We never win penalty shoot-outs, ” said the Etonian.
Arsene Wenger has won 3 titles, 4 FA Cups, including two doubles.
So Arsene has one more trophy than George Graham, who won six in eight seasons.
LET’S FACE IT, few FA Cup Finals are memorable.
1979 was an 85-minute bore with a five-minute thriller tagged on the end, when Alan Sunderland scored.
As a fan, I thought the FA Cup Final was rarely a good game.
As a journalist, I continued to believe that Cup Finals were dull.
As a football journalist, I went to every England game but was not interested in FA Cup Finals.
I started by accident in 1983, going to a replay when Man United beat Brighton 4-0.
After that I went to every Wembley FA Cup Final, and other finals, and FA Cup semi-finals, but few were memorable.
Three memories stand out.
Chatting to Don Howe with two other reporters in stairwell off the dressing room tunnel after Wimbledon beat Liverpool by 1-0.
Don told us that they’d improvised the tactics in ONE training session on the Friday night, with (if memory serves) Dennis Wise marking John Barnes.
Talking to Cyrille Regis in the dressing room after Coventry beat Spurs 3-2.
Only two other reporters in there, Steve Curry and a French guy.
That was good fun. To be with a bunch of footballers who were having the greatest day of their lives.
Spurs had never lost at Wembley before that day and Coventry had never won anything before that day.
So I will always remember drinking champagne from a paper cup with John Sillett, George Curtis and Adrian Moorcroft, the athlete, with the riotous sound of players singing, laughing and shouting from the bath next door.
Cyrille Regis had been immense in extra time, holding Coventry together, so it was nice to shake his hand and say,”We’ll played, you deserved it.”
Then there was the Roberto Di Matteo final in 1997. I had an intuition before the game.
The last thing I said to Jan before leaving the house at 2pm was, “I think this will be the Di Matteo Cup Final.”
I was saying the same thing to a guy from the Foreign Office, who was looking after overseas reporters, as we sat down together in the press overspill as the game kicked off and the words were hardly out of my mouth when…BANG !
A Di Matteo shot rocketed into the net after 42 seconds.
Loads of finals with Arsenal, not many great memories, really.
An exciting goal by Anelka. What a goal that was !
SO SATURDAY’S clash of the giants did not work out as I had planned.
I thought Arsenal would play, pass the ball, win 2-1.
But I did say that Man United were not scoring goals.
On Monday May 16th I wrote on ANR :
“ARSENAL will beat Man United in the FA Cup Final.
United have the bulldog genius but Rooney is not scoring because van Nistelrooy is the wrong partner for him.
United have not scored so many goals this season.
Their defence has put them third and got them to this final.”
May 24th 2005