ball comes to me in deeper areas I’m supposed to hold it up and bring other players into the game, like Ronaldo. When the ball gets played out wide I have to head for the box and get on the end of crosses.
If we play well, Carrington is a happy place. After Fenerbahçe, The Manager allows us to enjoy our training. We watch videos of all the things we’ve done well in a game and he tells us to continue playing the way we are. He wants us to keep up our winning momentum. If we can do that, the canteen is a happier spot for everyone.
Arsenal, 24 October 2004.
Needle match.
It’s a needle match because Arsenal have been title rivals with United for over a decade. The two teams have had some pretty tasty games with one another in the past and there have been rucks, 20-man scraps and red cards.
The worst game took place the previous season when it kicked off between both sets of players. As I watched the game on the telly after playing for Everton, a row started between Ruud and some of the Arsenal lads – the type of fight fans always love watching. It began when striker Diego Forlan won a penalty; the Arsenal lot began complaining that he’d dived for it and when Ruud then spooned his spot-kick, a mob of their players crowded around him and got in his face, winding him up. They were angry because they thought he had got their skipper, Patrick Viera, sent off earlier in the game, but the reaction was horrible. Martin Keown was the worst; he screamed at Ruud and jumped up and down like a right head case. His eyes nearly popped out. He looked like a zombie from a horror film.
Now it’s my turn to be in the thick of one of the biggest battles in the Premier League.
In the build up there’s loads of talk about the atmosphere of the match around town; the papers are going on about the previous season’s clash and I can’t turn on the telly without seeing that scuffle between Ruud and Keown. It’s obviously bothering Ruud because he’s been quiet for days. There’s an atmosphere about him. He’s withdrawn and he doesn’t talk to the other lads in the dressing room at Carrington as much.
In the short time I’ve known Ruud he’s always looked focused, but this week there’s something else going on inside his head, something driving him on. No one asks him about the game or his mood, but I can tell that he wants to prove a point. I reckon that his penalty miss against Arsenal must have weighed on him for months.
When it comes to the match, both teams are up for it – the Arsenal players even hug one another before the game, like they’re getting ready to go into a battle – and once the footy gets underway the atmosphere at Old Trafford is horrible, moody, because the two sides are at one another’s throats. It’s my 19th birthday, but nobody’s dishing out any prezzies on the pitch.
The game is evenly matched, though. We’re at home and looking to kick-start our season again after those disappointing draws against Birmingham and Boro’; Arsenal are on a 49-game unbeaten streak and they’re a great team – Dennis Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira are all playing and they’re on top of their game, but the thing is they know it. All week they’ve been banging on about how great it will be to make it to 50 games undefeated at Old Trafford.
Big mistake. They’ve fired us up.
Fifty games unbeaten? No way. Not at our place.
Already I know that this is the way a footballer has to think if they’re to do well at United.
Nobody gets to believe that we’re a pushover.
The tackles fly in thick and fast from the start, every loose ball matters. After a tight first half, we go in at the break goalless, then in the second, Ruud gets a chance to make up for last year’s penalty miss when on 73 minutes I burst into the area. Sol Campbell makes a fair tackle and nicks the ball but his momentum brings me down. He decks me. I hear a whistle and I know straightaway that the ref is pointing to the spot because the crowd are going nuts and Ashley Cole and Sol are complaining, shouting that I’ve dived, that I’ve not been tripped. The funny thing is, they’re both right and wrong: I haven’t been fouled, but I haven’t dived either. Instead, there’s been a coming together and it’s given the ref a decision to make. Thankfully for us he gives the penalty.
Everyone starts looking to Ruud, who’s already got the ball in his hands. I know I’m not going to get a look-in when it comes to taking this pen because he wants it badly and everyone’s willing him on to score, like it’s payback time. It feels like the whole of Old Trafford is wishing the ball into the net, but as I watch, Ruud doesn’t seem to be setting himself up right. I’ve seen him practising pens in training every day and he always goes the same way. He hits his shot hard and the keeper usually has no chance. When he steps up to the spot this time, he changes his usual direction and strikes the ball poorly. Straightaway I know that if Arsenal’s goalie, Jens Lehmann, guesses right he’s going to save the shot because there’s not enough pace on it.
I think he’s fluffed it.
Ruud’s ’mare is going to get even worse. Everything seems to stop still. But then Lehmann reads it wrong. He throws himself in the opposite direction and as Ruud’s shot hits the back of the net the whole place erupts and he’s off, running to the fans. He’s not looking to his teammates or the bench or The Manager, but I can see there’s joy and relief all over his face. It’s probably the most genuine emotion I’ve ever seen in a footballer after scoring – it’s like Ruud has had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders.
I chase after him as he runs to the corner flag and drops to his knees, head back. He’s screaming, his fists are clenched. I think of Stuart Pearce when he scored for England against Spain in Euro 96 during a penalty shootout in the quarter-finals. He went mental, the memory of one blobbed penalty against West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semis wiped off with a single kick of the ball.
Now it’s the same for Ruud.
It’s pure emotion.
I want to celebrate too, but I can see by the way he’s looking up at the sky, soaking up the huge Old Trafford roar, that he needs this moment to himself. Fair play to him, he deserves it.
The Arsenal lot look absolutely gutted, and now we’re a goal to the good I know we’ll stop them from getting that 50th undefeated result. The thought of it pushes the team on for the last 15 minutes and we defend strongly while pressing for a second on the break. Then in the 90th minute I put the final nail into Arsenal’s coffin.
Our midfielder, Alan Smith – Yorkshire lad, bleached blond hair – gets the ball out wide; I make a run into the box when his pass comes over. As I leg it for the ball an Arsenal defender starts kicking at my heels. It’s Lauren, he’s trying to trip me, but I’m not going down. I want my first league goal for United so badly that I manage to keep my balance. It leaves me with a tap-in to score.
Ta, very much. 2–0.
My first Premier League strike for United.
‘Happy birthday to me.’
*****
When the final whistle blows shortly afterwards, I walk to the dressing room and strip off my kit. There’s only a few of us in here, everyone else is still coming down the tunnel. My shirt and shorts are off, my socks around my ankles. I’m thinking about getting a shower when all of a sudden I hear shouting, loads of it. I look out of the door and our lot are going toe to toe with Arsenal’s players, pushing, shoving, everyone getting in one another’s faces. It’s all scrappy stuff, no one’s lamping anyone, it just looks like one of those mass brawls that sometimes kick off in a game of football. It’s handbags stuff.
Arsenal obviously can’t handle it. They don’t like the unbeaten run coming to an end, especially at Old Trafford, and especially with all the history between the two teams. I think the fact that Ruud has scored today hacks them