Gunpowder, treason and plot: Part 1

• Rooney9

  11 Dec 10, 21:30

  

  When Alex Ferguson made the long journey south to take up his new post at Manchester United in November 1986, he would already have been aware of the long-standing rivalries enjoyed by his new club.
  
  He will have looked at the fixture list and made a mental note of the Boxing Day fixture against champions Liverpool at Anfield, barely six weeks away. He'd have been glad of the breathing space before his first game against City – not due until March – and the home game with Howard Kendall’s newly formidable Everton at the end of February. But he had barely begun to warm the managerial hotseat when he found an unexpected new name joining the ranks of significant United adversaries.

  As a meeting between two of the most famous and successful names of English football, Manchester United v Arsenal had always been a big game, but before Ferguson’s arrival there had only been flickers of real enmity. In October 1967 Denis Law and the Gunners’ Ian Ure were both sent off and banned for six weeks for fighting at Old Trafford, but it didn’t create lasting bad blood. The only time the clubs had properly fallen out was over United’s bid to buy Frank Stapleton in 1981, which went to a tribunal and resulted in the Highbury directors refusing to dine with their United counterparts before the two clubs’ next fixture. Arsenal’s first visit to OT during Ferguson’s reign, however, lit the blue touch paper to spark a rivalry that has smouldered and intermittently been ignited ever since.

  On that day in January 1987, the Gunners were top of the league under new boss George Graham, and had gone 22 games unbeaten. United didn’t need much of an invitation to get stuck in. “It was one of those games when big Norman [Whiteside] did about 45 fouls and never got booked,” Sir Alex later recalled. “How he got away with it, I’ll never know.” Arsenal’s David Rocastle eventually retaliated and was sent off, and there were six other bookings. A year later, revenge was clearly on Arsenal minds at Highbury in the FA Cup fifth round. United, having been 2-0 down, had the chance to equalise from the spot, but Brian McClair blazed over and Arsenal full-back Nigel Winterburn followed Choccy back up the pitch to rub salt in the wounds.

  It was plain there were still ‘issues’ at stake during a 1-0 win for Arsenal at our place in October 1990. Winterburn’s late tackle on Denis Irwin provoked McClair to come to the rescue with boots flying, followed by most of the other 21 players on the pitch. The resulting brawl – later dubbed ‘The Battle of Old Trafford’ – saw United docked one point and Arsenal two.

  United avenged that infamous scene in more positive style by thumping Graham’s men 6-2 at Highbury in the Rumbelows Cup that season, but Arsenal took the return league fixture 3-1 in May 1991 on a galling occasion for the Reds: Liverpool’s defeat in an earlier kick-off meant Arsenal were champions, requiring the visitors to form a guard of honour. A period of United dominance followed, in which we were beaten only once in the 12 league meetings between May 1991 and November 1997, highlights including Eric Cantona’s thunderbolt free-kick in a 1-0 home win in September 1993 and his glorious, looping volley over David Seaman to win the corresponding fixture by the same scoreline in 1995/96.