It's Saturday 23rd April in the year of our lord 1994.
Barely a month has gone by since Aston Villa's glorious defeat of Alec Ferguson's mighty Manchester United at Wembley Stadium and the Holte End is still buzzing. These are the very last days of the famous massive terrace and we are making the most of them.
The League Cup victory means that there is far less tension concerning results. With a trophy in the cabinet and European football assured, it's just a matter of wallowing in the glory until the end of season.
George Graham's Arsenal are in town and on a bit of a high having reached the final of the European Cup Winner's Cup. Well, most of the team are on a high, one player not so much.
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| The fateful challenge that kills Ian Wright's cup final dream |
Wrighty was always one to wear his heart on his sleeve and sank to his knees sobbing as the enormity of the booking's consequences hit home. The North Londoners' talismanic striker would be suspended for the final.
Wrighty has had eleven days to get used to the idea that he is going to miss a cup final by the time he arrives at Villa Park, but a gleeful, glowing Holte End is in end-of-term mood and in no frame of mind to let the England star off the hook lightly.
“Ian Wright, where's your final gone?” becomes the song of the day and even people not given to joining in with some of the more robust Holte End classics are singing along. This is the grand old terrace in full party mode and not hiding it's collective delight at Ian Wright's despair.
Ian Wright doesn't like it.
Now back in these highly adversarial days, giving a player “a lashing” isn't at all rare, is considered part of the game and supporters know full well that full-on verbal volleys can have an effect on the form of even the most seasoned of players.
However, we've picked the wrong man in Ian Wright. His reaction is to play brilliantly.
He is buzzing and a thorn in Villa's side all afternoon. Quite a few Villa fans get annoyed - the sort to get aggressive if you have the temerity to applaud a high quality opposition goal – but others, myself included, are in admiration at the way he's taken a negative and turned it into a proper positive, using the banter as the spur to boost his performance.
He might be wearing an Arsenal shirt and terrorising the defence of my beloved Aston Villa, but he is showing that he is a man's man. One of the lads. He's letting his football do his talking and it's the perfect response.
Despite Wrighty's man of the match style performance, Arsenal seem intent on winning via a penalty and have three appeals dismissed out of hand by referee Keith A. Cooper, all of which probably have more merit than the fourth one which he puzzlingly succumbs to, Neil Cox harshly adjudged to have fouled Wright in what seems to my lager glazed eyes to be a perfectly fair challenge. Wright smashes the penalty home with venom.
To say he milks his celebration is an understatement
Now, despite this game being all about the Arsenal man, Villa aren't playing that badly at all. This will be one of those games that make us think that Graham Fenton is going to turn out to be a special player and he's impressing in Deano's absence. Ray Houghton grabs a Villa equaliser with a lovely lob while Dalian Atkinson could easily have bagged two if David Seaman wasn't being so heroic.
It is always going to be Wright's day though. Kevin Campbell puts him through and he finishes clinically to ram our song back down our throats.
You're not supposed to enjoy defeats are you? Sorry, but I still smile when I remember this one. This was a classic Holte End afternoon and there'd only ever be one more to savour. Then the terrace would be brought to rubble and going to Villa Park would never be quite the same again.
The last word should go to the man himself though, "I'm choked enough about missing the final, so I didn't need all that. I showed them in the end. I love it when people have a go. It fired me up."
The Wrightless Arsenal go onto win the Cup Winners Cup by a single Alan Smith goal, but the final's not half as much fun as it would have been had he played.
Villa: Nigel Spink, Neil Cox, Earl Barrett, Shaun Teale, Ugo Ehiogu, Ray Houghton, Dave Farrell, Kevin Richardson, Andy Townsend, Dalian Atkinson, Graham Fenton
Wrighty has had eleven days to get used to the idea that he is going to miss a cup final by the time he arrives at Villa Park, but a gleeful, glowing Holte End is in end-of-term mood and in no frame of mind to let the England star off the hook lightly.
“Ian Wright, where's your final gone?” becomes the song of the day and even people not given to joining in with some of the more robust Holte End classics are singing along. This is the grand old terrace in full party mode and not hiding it's collective delight at Ian Wright's despair.
Ian Wright doesn't like it.
Now back in these highly adversarial days, giving a player “a lashing” isn't at all rare, is considered part of the game and supporters know full well that full-on verbal volleys can have an effect on the form of even the most seasoned of players.
However, we've picked the wrong man in Ian Wright. His reaction is to play brilliantly.
He is buzzing and a thorn in Villa's side all afternoon. Quite a few Villa fans get annoyed - the sort to get aggressive if you have the temerity to applaud a high quality opposition goal – but others, myself included, are in admiration at the way he's taken a negative and turned it into a proper positive, using the banter as the spur to boost his performance.
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| Ugo gets stuck in |
He might be wearing an Arsenal shirt and terrorising the defence of my beloved Aston Villa, but he is showing that he is a man's man. One of the lads. He's letting his football do his talking and it's the perfect response.
Despite Wrighty's man of the match style performance, Arsenal seem intent on winning via a penalty and have three appeals dismissed out of hand by referee Keith A. Cooper, all of which probably have more merit than the fourth one which he puzzlingly succumbs to, Neil Cox harshly adjudged to have fouled Wright in what seems to my lager glazed eyes to be a perfectly fair challenge. Wright smashes the penalty home with venom.
 |
| Milking it |
Now, despite this game being all about the Arsenal man, Villa aren't playing that badly at all. This will be one of those games that make us think that Graham Fenton is going to turn out to be a special player and he's impressing in Deano's absence. Ray Houghton grabs a Villa equaliser with a lovely lob while Dalian Atkinson could easily have bagged two if David Seaman wasn't being so heroic.
It is always going to be Wright's day though. Kevin Campbell puts him through and he finishes clinically to ram our song back down our throats.
You're not supposed to enjoy defeats are you? Sorry, but I still smile when I remember this one. This was a classic Holte End afternoon and there'd only ever be one more to savour. Then the terrace would be brought to rubble and going to Villa Park would never be quite the same again.
The last word should go to the man himself though, "I'm choked enough about missing the final, so I didn't need all that. I showed them in the end. I love it when people have a go. It fired me up."
The Wrightless Arsenal go onto win the Cup Winners Cup by a single Alan Smith goal, but the final's not half as much fun as it would have been had he played.
Aston Villa 1 - 2 Arsenal
Goals: Ian Wright 29, 30 Ray Houghton 57
Goals: Ian Wright 29, 30 Ray Houghton 57
Arsenal: David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Steve Bould, Andy Linighan, Martin Keown, Steve Morrow, Paul Davis, Mark Flatts, Alan Smith,Kevin Campbell,Ian Wright
Referee: Keith A Cooper
Competition: Premier League
Venue: Villa Park
Attendance: 31,580
Competition: Premier League
Venue: Villa Park
Attendance: 31,580
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