A look back at Arsenal in the FA Cup final by @JonSpurling1
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Arsenal fans already know this, but unlike the other major red top sides – Liverpool and Manchester United, their team has never won the European Cup. There’s no stars on Gunners’ shirts (Nottingham Forest have 2) signifying that they’ve lifted the Cup with the big ears, and no replica trophies in the Arsenal museum for which the club can then charge fans an extortionate rate to pose with for official photos.
Unlike the clubs mentioned above, or European superpowers Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich, Arsenal history can’t be segmented into eras before and after the “ultimate” triumph in Europe, because it simply hasn’t happened. At least not yet.
Instead, the FA Cup has always been THE significant trophy from the Gunners’ perspective, and despite ongoing debate over whether the world’s oldest cup competition still possesses its lustre, reaching consecutive Finals in the merry month of May and singing lustily about yellow ribbons still resonates loudly for all Arsenal supporters. Or at least it should. Those fans who dismiss the FA Cup as an irrelevance (and judging from social media there’s a significant number of disgruntled supporters who claim that reaching the Final is merely a consolation prize) simply don’t know their club history.
Perhaps it’s a generational thing. Maybe for some, qualifying for the Champions League really is the bottom line. Supporters may have had their minds warped during the 9 year trophy drought and forgotten about previous sides’ heroic deeds on the bleached out Wembley turf (or the Millenium Stadium croquet lawn). But not this Arsenal fan. For me, Wembley finals are still where it’s at. There’s more to life than piling up prize money and forcing our way into a tournament we haven’t even come close to winning for the last 9 years.
Football is about glory and despair. Arsenal’s (to date) 18 FA Cup Final appearances have represented the dawning of a bright new era, or the passing of an old one. They have come to define one Arsenal team’s glorious epoch, and another side’s underachievement. They represent the salvation of some Arsenal bosses, and the beginning of the end of others. Some Arsenal managers, including Bertie Mee and Terry Neill experienced these conflicting feelings in fairly rapid succession.
The great Herbert Chapman experienced life at both ends of the spectrum. In 1927, he had the honour of leading Arsenal to their first FA Cup Final, and, led by the great Charlie Buchan, were hot favourites against Cardiff City, skippered by the legendary Fred Keenor. It was supposed to be the day that a rising force finally announced its arrival in football. Instead, Chapman’s Mark 1 Arsenal side froze on its big day against a Welsh side convinced that luck was on its side with the presence of a stray black cat, Trixie, whom the team had discovered on a golf day and adopted as their own. Nothing was quite right for Arsenal that day.
Charlie Buchan noted in his autobiography that the coach journey to Wembley was long and fraught, and he appeared mentally exhausted by the whole experience, like several of his team mates. Buchan and Jimmy Brain contrived to squander the Gunners’ best opportunity of the match, and Hugh Ferguson’s bizarre winning goal, which squirmed under the despairing Dan Lewis, was entirely befitting for a game which, frankly, never got out of first gear.
Chapman learnt some painful lessons that day, upgrading his squad in several key areas, introducing the rugged Herbie Roberts at centre half, and adding Cliff Bastin, Alex James and David Jack to the team. His classic Mark 2 team, master purveyors of the WM formation, was now in place, but by May 1930, the rumours were that if Arsenal didn’t win the FA Cup Final against Huddersfield, then either Chapman would dismantle the team, or he would leave the club. On a hugely significant day in football history, goals from Alex James and Jack Lambert gave Arsenal a 2-0 win in the “Zeppelin” Final, and Tom Parker had the honour of being the first Arsenal skipper to lift silverware.
It also provided Chapman with a springboard from which his team won the First Division Championship the following year, and went on to dominate ‘30s football. Alex James was up front about the counterfactual version – he reckoned that he’d likely have been sold if the team hadn’t won – and Arsenal’s future may well have panned out entirely differently.
The always straight talking Bertie Mee told me that the ’71 and ’72 FA Cup Finals “show how football can turn within 12 months.” When Charlie George delivered the perfect story book ending at Wembley against Liverpool in May ‘71 to complete the Double, Mee recalled that he was “certain that this Arsenal team – with a couple of strong additions to the squad, could go on to win more.”
Instead, that was as good as it got for Mee’s side, and 12 months later, in a turgid scarp with Leeds United, Arsenal came out 2nd best against Don Revie’s team, for whom Allan Clarke headed the winner. Arsenal looked slow, predictable, and cumbersome. The Gunners’ British record signing Alan Ball recalled: “Out there, on that massive Wembley pitch, we looked what we were – a team not sure of what style to play. Frank McLintock and Peter Simpson were still dropping long balls onto the head of the strikers, but I felt that never played to my strengths, and Bert appeared to struggle to grasp what was best for the team.”
Mee admitted: “Had we won the Leeds final, I think we’d have gone from strength to strength. It turned out to be the last final most of those players ever appeared in.”
Terry Neill had similar emotions in the late 1970s. After his team rallied themselves to win the “Three Minute Final” against Manchester United in 1979, Neill promised that Arsenal would invest in new players to ensure a realistic title challenge for Liverpool. Despite being linked with the likes of Bryan Robson and Mark Lawrenson, the Gunners board was reluctant to bolster the squad with top quality players, and by the time the Gunners faced West Ham at Wembley a year later, talisman Liam Brady had already informed the club he was leaving.
Arsenal’s shock defeat against Second Division West Ham United – followed days later to defeat by Valencia in the Cup Winners Cup Final – was the saddest of ends to Brady’s Arsenal career. Striker Frank Stapleton left a year later. Neill’s team should have won more than a solitary FA Cup Final. The fact they didn’t demonstrates how the club missed an incredible opportunity to create an era of success as gilded as any other in the Gunners’ history, and those 2 back to back Finals encapsulate that era perfectly.
Having led the club to 5 FA Cup wins, Arsene Wenger should know the value of the competition more than any other Arsenal manager. Victory in 1998 and 2002 was a showcase for his vibrant team’s stellar abilities; think Nicolas Anelka’s coruscating finish for Arsenal’s second goal against Newcastle, and Ray Parlour’s and Freddie Ljungberg’s stunning finishes to defeat Chelsea in 2002. After the “windfall” Final of 2005, in which the Gunners somehow defeated Manchester United on penalties despite being largely outplayed, Wenger sold leading lights like Cole, Vieira, Nasri and Fabregas.
At various points during the ensuing 9 year barren spell, the 2005 Final seemed set to be Wenger’s epitaph; the last time he would ever be truly happy – or successful – as Gunners manager.
Yet unlike any previous incumbent, the sheer longevity of his reign as boss presented him with a unique opportunity to buck all past Arsenal trends. The 3-2 victory at Wembley in the Cup Final against Hull City last year not only meant that he was able to end his own 9 year trophy hiatus, it gave Wenger the chance to use it as springboard for further glory.
Despite Arsenal’s improved league position this season, and the fact they’ve reached another FA Cup Final, it still remains to be seen whether or not Wenger really can bring more success to Arsenal after such a lengthy fallow period. Consecutive FA Cup wins would hopefully be the launch pad for another sustained era of Arsenal success like in 1930, and not a false dawn in our rich history, like the ’79 win over Manchester United proved to be.
As ever, time will tell, but the joyous scenes at Wembley a year ago, and the impromptu pitch invasion at the screening of the match at the Emirates should be a reminder that Arsenal’s raison d’etre must be winning on the grandest stage of all. And for this Arsenal fan at least, stages don’t come any bigger than the FA Cup Final.
It’s occasionally broken us, but more often than not thrilled us, defined us, and shaped us into the club we are.
