פורום השדים האדומים

For a match to be really, truly memorable, the kind of game that sends you home buzzing inside with the fulfilment of it all, you require as many of the following features as possible:

(l) Goals: As many as possible. There is an argument which says that goals begin to lose their value in particularly easy victories, but I have never found this to be a problem. (I enjoyed the last goal in Arsenal's 7-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday as much as I enjoyed the first.) If the goals are to be shared, then it is best if the other team get theirs first: I have a particular penchant for the 3-2 home victory, with a late winner after losing 2-0 at half-time.

(2) Outrageously bad refereeing decisions: I prefer Arsenal to be the victim, rather than the recipient, of these, as long as they don't cost us the match. Indignation is a crucial ingredient of the perfect footballing experience; I cannot therefore agree with match commentators who argue that a referee has had a good game if he isn't noticed (although like everybody else, I don't like the game stopped every few seconds). I prefer to notice them, and howl at them, and feel cheated by them.

(3) A noisy crowd: In my experience, crowds are at their best when their team is losing but playing well, which is one of the reasons why coming back for a 3-2 win is my favourite kind of score.

(4) Rain, a greasy surface, etc: Football in August, on a perfect grassy-green pitch, is aesthetically more appealing, although I do like a bit of slithery chaos in the goalmouth. Too much mud and the teams can't play at all, but you can't beat the sight of players sliding ten or fifteen yards for a tackle or in an attempt to get a touch to a cross. There's something intensifying about peering through driving rain, too.

(5) Opposition misses a penalty: Arsenal's goalkeeper John Lukic was the penalty king, so I have seen a fair few of these; Brian McClair's last-minute horror in the fifth-round FA Cup-tie in 1988 - so wild that it nearly cleared the North Bank roof - remains my favourite. However, I retain a residual fondness for Nigel Clough's efforts, also in the last minute, during a League game in 1990, when he missed; the referee ordered the kick to be retaken, and he missed again.

(6) Member of opposition team receives a red card: `It's disappointing to hear the reaction of the crowd,' remarked Barry Davies during the Portsmouth-Forest FA Cup quarter-final in 1992, when Forest's Brian Laws was sent off and the Portsmouth supporters went mad; but what does he expect? For fans, a sending-off is always a magic moment, although it is crucial that this doesn't happen too early. First-half dismissals frequently result either in boringly easy victories for the team with eleven men (c.f., Forest v West Ham, FA Cup semi-final, 1991), or in an impenetrable defensive reorganisation which kills the game dead; second-half sendings-off in a tight game are impossibly gratifying. If I had to plump for just one dismissal to take on to a desert island with me, it would have to be Bob Hazell of Wolves, sent off in the last minute of a fourth-round cup-tie at Highbury in 1978, when the score was 1-1. As I remember it, he took a swing at Rix, who was trying to get the ball off him so that we could take a corner quickly; from said corner, Macdonald, freed of his disgraced marker for the first time in the game and thus completely unmarked, headed us into a winning lead. I also enjoyed, enormously, Tony Coton's long and lonely march at Highbury in 1986 - there is something special about seeing a goalkeeper go - and Massing's murderous assault on Caniggia, followed by his valedictory wave to the crowd, during the opening game of the 1990 World Cup.

(7) Some kind of `disgraceful incident' (aka `silliness', aka ,nonsense', aka `unpleasantness'): We are entering doubtful moral territory here - obviously players have a responsibility not to provoke a highly flammable crowd. A brawl between Coventry and Wimbledon on a wet November afternoon in front of a stupefied crowd of ten thousand is one thing, but a brawl between Celtic and Rangers players, given the barely controllable sectarian bitterness on the terraces, is quite another. Yet one has to conclude, regretfully and with a not inconsiderable degree of Corinthian sadness, that there is noth¬ing like a punch-up to enliven an otherwise dull game. The side-effects are invariably beneficent - the players and the crowd become more committed, the plot thickens, the pulse quickens - and as long as the match doesn't degenerate as a consequence into some kind of sour grudge-match, brawls strike me as being a pretty desirable feature, like a roof terrace or a fireplace. If I were a sportswriter or a representative of the football authorities, then no doubt I would purse my lips, make disapproving noises, insist that the transgressors be brought to justice - argy-barey, like soft drugs, would be no fun if it were officially sanctioned. Luckily, however, I have no such res¬ponsibility: I am a fan, with no duty to toe the moral line whatsoever.

(Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch)