May 7, 2006: The Highbury Farewell & the Tottenham Lasagne

May 7, 2006, 20 years ago: The rivalry between the professional soccer teams of North London takes its strangest turn ever.

Arsenal Football Club (a.k.a. "The Arsenal") and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (a.k.a. "Spurs") are separated by 4.7 miles in North London. To put that in perspective: Imagine that, in New York City, the Yankees and Mets played each other regularly, and that, while the Mets played in Flushing Meadow as they actually do, the Yankees played in Astoria, instead of the South Bronx.

The relationship is similar -- or it would be, if the Mets, instead of being the successors to the baseball version of the New York Giants, were a continuation of the same team: Great long ago, but only sporadically so since the Yankees first began winning, perennially getting humiliated by the more successful club, treating every win over the more successful club like you'd just won a world championship, and collapsing just as glory seems within your grasp.

But Met fans think the Yankees have unfair advantages: Money (true), getting the benefit of the doubt from the officials and the league office (don't make me laugh), favorable treatment by the media (don't take drugs). Tottenham fans think Arsenal have these advantages, and one more: Arsenal "bribed their way into the First Division in 1919." (It's been over 100 years: Not one shred of evidence has ever been found to back up this fact that "everybody knows is true.")

Therefore, both Met fans and Spurs fans claim a moral high ground over their local rivals. This results in a huge superiority complex and a huge inferiority complex at the same time.

Even the mottoes are similar: The Mets' is "Ya gotta believe!" while Spurs' is "To dare is to do."

I've mentioned before that the Mets are the Tottenham of New York, and that this might not be fair... to the Mets. Tottenham have not won their league since 1961, while the Mets, who started in 1962 as a replacement for the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers (who left for California in 1957), have now won their league 5 times. (The real "Tottenham of New York" is hockey's Rangers, complete with their idiot thug fans: They talk as much trash as Yankee and Arsenal fans do, but they don't get the results to back it up.)

Tottenham have won England's top division of soccer (or, as they say, "football") twice, both times clinching at their home ground of White Hart Lane: In 1951 and 1961. They beat the same opponent both times: Sheffield Wednesday.

Arsenal have also twice clinched England's top division of soccer (or, as they say, "football") at White Hart Lane: In 1971 and 2004. They beat the same opponent both times: Tottenham.

Arsenal have won the League 13 times, including 6 times since Spurs' last title: 1971, 1989, 1991, 1998, 2002 and 2004.

Tottenham have won the FA Cup, England's national tournament, 8 times. This is actually a very impressive total. But they haven't won it since 1991, when they beat Arsenal in a Semifinal. They haven't even been to a Final since, going 0-3 in Semifinals, including losing to Arsenal in 1993 and 2001. Arsenal have won the FA Cup 14 times, more than any other club, including 9 times since Spurs last did: 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2020.

Because of their association with the old Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, in what's now Southeast London, Arsenal have always had a cannon on their club crest, and are thus known as the Gunners. Their fans, known as Gooners, like to say that Tottenham Hotspur, named for early 15th Century English rebel Henry Percy, a.k.a. Lord Harry Hotspur, are "forever in our shadow."

But every so often -- currently, we are in one of those moments -- the lopsided advantage in honors that tilts toward Arsenal looks like it might be reversed, what Spurs fans call "a power shift in North London."

A decade ago, there was one of those moments. But it ended up getting flushed down the toilet. Almost literally.

In 2005-06, Arsenal had their best Champions League campaign ever, reaching the Final. That Final, still the closest Arsenal have ever come to winning the European Cup (the UEFA Champions League format kept the name for the trophy), turned out to be the last appearance in Arsenal's colors for Dutch forward Dennis Bergkamp, French winger Robert Pires, English centreback Sol Campbell (who controversially transferred from Spurs to Arsenal 5 years earlier), and, controversially, English left back Ashley Cole.

Cole had grown up as an Arsenal fan and in Arsenal's youth system, but had been "tapped up" by West London rivals Chelsea, and would go to them due to new owner Roman Abramovich's spending spree, which had gotten Chelsea the 2005 and '06 Premier League titles. Cole has been known as "Cashley" to Gooners fans ever since.

But the 2005-06 season was the end of an era for another reason: It was the last season for the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury. The new Emirates Stadium -- some call it The Emirates, some by the area's former name Ashburton Grove, some cheekily call it New Highbury -- was going up, 500 yards away, and would open in the summer, the product of the success Arsenal had enjoyed in its 1st 10 years of management by the Alsatian genius, Arsène Wenger.

Arsenal wanted very badly to end the last game at Highbury with a win. It was against Manchester area club Wigan Athletic, and was expected to not be hard, but Arsenal have a history of losing the occasional game that they really should win.

But it wasn't just sentiment: Arsenal went into the season's League finale in 5th place in the Premiership, with Tottenham in 4th. All Spurs had to do in their game, which was away to East London club West Ham United, was match Arsenal's performance on that final day of the Premiership season, and it would be Spurs in the 2006-07 Champions League, with Arsenal "relegated" to the UEFA Cup -- unless, of course, Arsenal could win the CL Final, as the defending champion is always invited back.

The night before, Tottenham manager Martin Jol had secluded his players at a hotel, the Marriott Canary Wharf, in London's financial district, a.k.a. The City. This is not unusual: Many managers do things like this, even before home games. American football head coaches, in both the professional and the collegiate ranks, also do this. The players would have a nice dinner the night before the game, and get a good night's sleep, and would have a nice short bus ride to the stadium, all away from the prying of fans and the media.

What did Scottish poet Robert Burns say? Translated into modern common English, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

In the middle of the night, 10 Spurs players woke up, vomiting, and/or having diarrhea: Robbie Keane, Edgar Davids, Michael Carrick, Aaron Lennon, Michael Dawson, Lee Barnard, Calum Davenport, Teemu Tainio, Lee Young-Pyo and Radek Cerny.

Someone decided to blame the lasagne they'd eaten for dinner that night, and after the whole thing was over, some Spurs fans started a conspiracy theory (shades of their delusions about 1919) that the Marriott chef was an Arsenal fan, and had purposely poisoned the Spurs players! It became known as Lasagne-gate.

In the morning, several Spurs players were still, uh, indisposed. So club chairman Daniel Levy called the League office, and asked League chairman Richard Scudamore to postpone the game.

Nothing doing: With 1 League game to go, all teams were to play their games at the same time, 3:00 PM. This was a change from past policy, to avoid teams whose League place had already been decided from laying down on the job, thus giving gamblers some easy pickings and paying customers a less than honest performance.

Levy protested: We have sick players, so can't the game be postponed until tomorrow? Or even until tonight, just to give us a few more hours to recover? Scudamore asked if Spurs had 11 players who could play. Well, yes, but... Then the game would go on. If Spurs wanted to postpone, they could refuse to play, but an inquiry would be held, and Spurs would likely lose that appeal, and the penalty for refusing to play would be a deduction of points, which would make a win in the rescheduled match meaningless.

West Ham officials said they were willing to accept a postponement, so long as it wasn't too close to the following Saturday, when they were to play Liverpool in the FA Cup Final (which Liverpool went on to win). Unlike Spurs, West Ham were not threatened with a points deduction for going along with the postponement (which makes sense, since it wasn't their idea).

But the police were afraid of what additional time to drink that day would do, considering the reputation that both Spurs' and the Hammers' fans had for hooliganism, including against each other. (A fight between fictionalized versions of hooligan firms from those clubs opened the 2005 film Green Street.) So the cops said they would allow the game to start no later than 5:00 -- an extra 2 hours, not much of a help for the last 2 players who still needed rehydration, Carrick and Lennon.

Carrick and Lennon

In the end, the game kicked off on time, at the traditional English football starting time of 3:00 in the afternoon, and only one of the affected players, backup goalkeeper Cerny, did not make it into the game, although Carrick had to be subbed off after 63 minutes, Lee (for fellow affectee Barnard) in the 78th, and Tainio (for fellow affectee Davenport) in the 87th.

*

That season was Wigan's first-ever season in the Premiership, and they had achieved midtable respectability, finishing 10th. An Arsenal win shouldn't have been assumed, but it was well possible. West Ham were about Wigan's equal, finishing 9th, and were hosting Spurs -- hence the Canary Wharf hotel, not far from the Hammers' Boleyn Ground, a.k.a. Upton Park.

Pires scored the Highbury opener, and, for the last time at that ground, the song "One-nil to The Arsenal" was sung -- by both Arsenal fans at Highbury and West Ham fans, learning by radio and text message, at Upton Park.

But Wigan struck back, and led 2-1. Spurs fans, getting calls and messages on their mobile phones, found out, and were ecstatic. And when Jermaine Defoe scored in the 35th to match Darren Fletcher's goal for the Hammers in the 10th, meaning Spurs were looking at a draw while Arsenal were losing, it looked like it would be Spurs' day.

It wasn't. Arsenal's superstar French forward Thierry Henry scored a hat trick, tallying in the 35th, the 56th, and the 76th with a penalty that was the last goal ever scored in the ground's 93-year history. Feeling that history, after putting the ball in the net, instead of launching a ghastly celebration, he bent down and kissed the grass. The final score was Arsenal 4-2 Wigan Athletic.

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if Spurs had also won. But West Ham came from behind, and won 2-1 on a goal in the 80th minute by Yossi Benayoun, a midfielder from Israel.

Arsenal finished 4th, 2 points ahead of Tottenham, and qualified for the Champions League; Tottenham, finishing 5th, went to the UEFA Cup.

*

The remains of the supposedly offending lasagne were sent to a laboratory, and tested. As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with it, at least not medically. The virus that spread among the Spurs players was real, but it had nothing to do with food.

Still, Spurs fans blame that lasagne, and the chef that served it. Just like the Yankees-Red Sox "Curse of the Bambino," the lasagne contagion never really existed, but it has taken on a life of its own, because the afflicted team's fans believed it. And so, to spite them, ever since, Arsenal fans have sung, to "Volare":

Lasagne, whoa!
Lasagne, whoa!
We laughed ourselves to bits
when Tottenham got the shits!

Which matches another Arsenal chant. I don't know how far back it goes, but it was already in place in early 2007:

Q: What do you think of Tottenham?
A: Shit!
Q: What do you think of shit?
A: Tottenham!
Q: Thank you!
A: That's all right! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We are the Tottenham haters!

Indeed, Tottenham didn't finished higher than Arsenal in the League between 1995 and 2017. They then did it 4 times in a row, before Arsenal took over again in 2022.

For talk among their organization, and talk among their fans, and talk among the media, all combined, and then divided by results, Tottenham Hotspur are arguably the biggest joke franchise in sports on planet Earth, any sport, any country.

Lasagne-gate may have been the highest moment -- or the lowest, if you prefer.

Arsenal: So Close

The Premier League season has come to an end. Arsenal beat Everton, 2-1 at the Emirates Stadium in North London, but needed not only that, but for one of Manchester City's last 2 opponents to hold them to no more than a draw.

Arsenal's nearby arch-rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, played like garbage on Tuesday, and City beat them, 2-0. The "Spurs" fans cheered their own defeat, knowing it meant Arsenal wouldn't win the title, but also knowing it meant their own team would not qualify for the next season's UEFA Champions League.

At least West Ham United, the pride of London's East End, showed up at Man City's home, the Etihad Stadium, yesterday. They did their best, closed to within 2-1, and for a moment seemed to have closed to within 3-2. But it was not to be.

I guess it was too much to ask a team managed by David Moyes to match a team backed by billions of dollars from a corrupt slaveholding oil-based monarchy, already known to have committed 115 rule violations, and may yet end up having this league title stripped from them.

Certainly, it was too much to ask Tottenham, the biggest joke franchise in sports, any sport, any country, to show up. Their idiot fans call their team "The Pride of North London," but neither the team nor the fans showed any pride.

Arsenal have come so far from the brief dark period, from the sacrificing of manager Arsène Wenger on the altar of "It's the title or failure" erected by a few loud and stupid man-boys, to the firing of Unai Emery and his replacement by Mikel Arteta. We have won the 2020 FA Cup, once again qualified for the Champions League, gotten to its Quarterfinals, and now have back-to-back 2nd-place finishes behind "the best team in the world."

Arsenal won 28 League games this season, more than in any season except the 1971 "Double" team, which won 29 -- but that was in a 22-team Football League Division One, with 42 League games instead of the current 38. Even "The Invincibles" of 2004 won "only" 26. They finished with 89 points, 1 off the Invincibles' team record, and 2 more than the 2002 Double team.

(The 1998 Double team won the League with just 78 points. The 1971 Double came at a time when a win was still 2 points instead of 3, and they finished with 65; under the current system, they would have finished with 94.)

Several times since the founding of the Premier League in 1992, the title has still not been decided going into the final day. But the last time the team going into the final day in 2nd place finished 1st was in 1989, under the old Division One, when Arsenal famously had to not only beat Liverpool at Anfield, but do it by 2 goals, in order to tie them on points (76), at which point the tiebreaker favored them. And they did win, with Michael Thomas scoring the winner in the 92nd minute, what would have been, had he not scored it, the last minute of the season.

Under Mikel Arteta, Arsenal have restored their place in the PL's elite that they had before Chelsea (which can no longer afford to do so), and later Man City, began spending gobs of energy money on star players (and possibly bribes for referees), breaking the hammerlock that Arsenal and Manchester United had had on the title between them for a few years.

From 1989 to 2004, the League Champion was either Arsenal or Manchester United in 13 out of 16 seasons -- and, in 5 of those 13 seasons, the other finished 2nd. Chelsea began spending the big bucks in 2003, and, from 2005 to 2011, they and Man United were the only League winners. Man City began spending the big bucks in 2010, and they've won 8 of the last 13 League titles, including the last 4, something never done before. (Doing 3 in a row had been done a few times, including Arsenal in 1933-35, and Man United in 2007-09.)

Arsenal have paid off the debt from building the Emirates Stadium in 2006. They have reorganized, with Arteta managing in the method of his former manager, Wenger. Equally importantly, changes in ownership have led to United and Chelsea dropping off. And, with the departure of manager Jürgen Klopp leaving Liverpool with a big question mark, it appears that Arsenal and Man City are now prepared to duel for the League title for years to come.

Unless the Football Association, or UEFA, or FIFA decide to actually punish City for their rule violations. In which case, it will be Arsenal against the world.

As it always is: Many admire Arsenal, but refuse to admit it.

Well, let it be a lesson to all who do not support this team. It took one hundred and fifteen rule violations, and a couple of referees who refused to accept what VAR told them, to beat us, and we never cheered when our own team lost.

We are The Arsenal. We are Herbert Chapman's team, which won 5 League titles and 2 FA Cups in 9 seasons from 1930 to 1938, despite Chapman's death in the middle of it. We Tom Whittaker's team, winning the 1948 and 1953 League titles and the 1950 FA Cup.

We are Bertie Mee's and Don Howe's team, as Howe assisted Mee in building the team that won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup (which is now the UEFA Europa League) in 1970 and the Football League and the FA Cup in 1971. We are Terry Neill's and Don Howe's team, as Howe returned after a few years away, and helped Neill manage the 1979 FA Cup winners.

We are George Graham's team, which, over 8 seasons from 1987 to 1994, won 2 League titles, an FA Cup, 2 League Cups and a European Cup Winners' Cup (a tournament now defunct). We are Arsène Wenger's team, which won 2 Doubles, 2 other FA Cups, became the only team to go through a Premier League season as unbeaten Champions, and reached a Champions League Final; then, after a few years of coming close to trophies, won 3 FA Cups in 4 years. And we are Mikel Arteta's team.

Talent and class are not the same thing, but we are the only team in the Premier League that truly embraces both. Unlike the Manchester teams and Chelsea -- and, let's face it, Liverpool and Leicester City would not have won their lone PL titles had it not been for the diving of Mohamed Salah and Jamie Vardy, respectively -- we don't want to win in the worst way, we want to win in the best way.

Arteta himself said, after yesterday's game, "Don’t be satisfied. We want much more than that, and we are gonna get it."

The bastards who smeared Wenger don't know what to make of this. Mikel is showing the "ambition" they demanded, but he's one of Wenger's men, playing Wenger's way, which they can't stand.

Go get it, Mikel.

April 28, 1923: Wembley Stadium Opens

April 28, 1923, 100 years ago: The Empire Stadium opens, in Wembley, West London. It was renamed Wembley Stadium in 1927. The 1st event is the Football Association (FA) Cup Final. West Ham United, from the East End of London, crosses town to face Manchester-area team Bolton Wanderers.

The official capacity of the stadium was 125,000, making it the largest in the world at the time. But so many people came in that many were standing on the field -- or, as they say in Britain, the pitch -- thus threatening to make it impossible to play the game. Some sources have the total at 300,000 -- probably an exaggeration, but it may still have been the most people who ever attempted to attend a sporting event on planet Earth.

Finally, mounted policemen were brought in, to clear the crowd from the pitch. George Scorey, a London policeman, was not on duty that day, but answered a call for emergency assistance at the stadium. He mounted his horse, Billy, and drove the crowd back. Although Billy was gray, this event became known as "The White Horse Final," as most people in the British Empire saw the newsreel in black and white, and saw Scorey on Billy as a heroic "man on a white horse."

The game began 45 minutes late, with fans standing around the pitch, kept back by the mounted cops and a string fence. Bolton forward David Jack scored the stadium's 1st goal just 2 minutes into the game, and Jack Smith added another in the 53rd minute, giving the Wanderers a 2-0 win.

After the game, a tradition was born: The Bolton players climbed the 39 steps from the pitch to the royal box, and their Captain, forward Joe Smith, received the FA Cup from none other than King George V, father of the eventual King Edward VIII and King George VI, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth II, and great-grandfather of King Charles III.

The original Wembley opened 10 days after the original Yankee Stadium opened in New York, and 3 days before the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum opened. The Twin Towers at its front gate became iconic long before anyone thought to design New York's World Trade Center that way, and its roof was extended around the ends in 1963.

It hosted the FA Cup Final every year until it closed in 2000. It was the main stadium for the 1948 Summer Olympic Games. It hosted the Finals of:

* The 1963 European Cup: AC Milan of Italy defeated Benfica of Lisbon, Portugal.

* The 1966 World Cup: England won on home soil over West Germany.

* The 1968 European Cup: Manchester United defeated Benfica.

* The 1971 European Cup: Ajax Amsterdam of the Netherlands beat Panathinaikos of Athens, Greece.

* The 1978 European Cup Final: Liverpool beat Brugge of Belgium.

* The 1992 European Cup Final: FC Barcelona beat Sampdoria of Genoa, Italy. And...

* The 1996 European Championship: Germany beat the Czech Republic.

It also hosted 9 NFL preseason exhibitions between 1983 and 1993, the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football in 1991 and '92, and home games in the UEFA Champions League of soccer team Arsenal in the 1998-99 and 1999-2000 seasons, due to their North London home field, Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, seating only 38,000.

The last event was a match between the national soccer teams of England and Germany, a Group Stage match for qualification for the 2002 World Cup, and a restaging of the stadium's most famous event, the 1966 World Cup Final (when Germany was still West Germany). This time, the Germans emerged victorious, 1-0.

The stadium was soon demolished. A new, 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium suffered serious construction delays, finally opening on March 9, 2007.

May 1, 1982: It's Only a Game

May 1, 1982, 40 years ago: We've all heard the expression, "It's only a game." Or, "It's just a game." Or, "It's not life and death." And no sport, no competition, no individual game should be treated as a life-and-death matter.

On this day, it was.

Two of London's Football League Division One soccer teams played each other. Arsenal, at their Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its North London neighborhood, hosted West Ham United. Despite their name, West Ham play in London's East End -- then at the Boleyn Ground in Upton Park, now at the London Stadium in Stratford.

The two teams have a rivalry, but neither is the other's most hated rival. Arsenal's are Tottenham Hotspur, less than 5 miles to the north. West Ham's are Millwall, across the River Thames in South London. So there is little reason for aggression -- or "aggro," in English slang -- between the fans.

But this was the dark age of hooliganism in English football. And West Ham had the most feared group of hooligans in the country, the Inter-City Firm, or the ICF. They were known for winning fights both inside and outside stadiums, often "taking" the section of a stadium with the most passionate home fans. At Highbury, this would be the North Bank. In 1968, the ICF took the North Bank, and, when Highbury closed down after the 2006 season, to make way for the nearby Emirates Stadium, this would go down in history as the only time the North Bank was taken by an opposing firm.

Arsenal were not known for having a hard-fighting firm, although they did have The Herd. The Herd would never start anything, but defended hard, and had earned the ICF's respect.

Arsenal were in a tough stretch. They had reached 4 cup finals in 3 seasons, 1977-78 to 1979-80, but won only 1 of them, the 1979 FA Cup Final. West Ham had beaten them in the 1980 FA Cup Final, and that still stung.

As the 1981-82 season wound down, Arsenal were fighting to finish high enough in Division One to qualify for the UEFA Cup, Europe's secondary tournament after the European Cup. (Today, those competitions are known as the UEFA Europa League and the UEFA Champions League, respectively.) They were helped by the fact that Tottenham had won the FA Cup, and Swansea City, winners of the Welsh Cup, were high enough in the table (standings) that a team might only need to finish 7th to qualify for Europe. West Ham were not going to qualify, but could still finish in the top half of the League.

The game was a good one for Arsenal. Graham Rix and Alan Sunderland scored, and Arsenal won, 2-0. But there was trouble in the stands, well before kickoff. Hammers fans got onto the North Bank early, and there was a lot of fighting, and even a smoke bomb. The takeover of 1968 was not repeated, and, perhaps for the 1st time, the ICF needed a police escort out of a visiting stadium.

But once out of the stadium, the fighting resumed. Little skirmishes broke out on Highbury Hill, behind the West Stand, en route to the Arsenal station on the London Underground. All together, the fighting was as bad as Highbury has ever seen.

The entrance to the Arsenal station includes a long tunnel to the escalator and the tracks, and if a firm is big enough, it can easily trap opposing fans there. One such Arsenal fan was John Dickinson, 24, and he was stabbed to death. His killer was never identified, although a rumor got around that he was killed himself, in a later hooligan "off." (Not with Arsenal fans.)

This wasn't the first time that an ICF man had killed an opposing fan. In 1976, Millwall fan Ian Pratt grabbed a scarf off a West Ham fan, then got chased into New Cross station by the ICF. He landed on the tracks, and it became a situation of, "Did he fall, or was he pushed?" Whichever was the truth, he was chased into that position, and was hit by a train, and killed.

After Dickinson's death, security was ramped up at Highbury. Word got around Europe that Arsenal fans fought back, and so, as Arsenal played in the 1982-83 UEFA Cup after a 5th-place finish in 1981-82, there were few incidents. Violence at Arsenal home games has been rare since.

Hooliganism seemed to bottom out in 1985, with incidents all over England, especially in an FA Cup Quarterfinal match when Millwall went to Luton Town, and the European Cup Final, in Brussels, Belgium, where Liverpool fans were seen as having caused the deaths of 39 fans of Turin, Italy team Juventus in an accident.

Eventually, security procedures improved to the point where such fights could be prevented, or at least broken up quickly. It also helped that many of the classic "hoolies" grew out of it, and, as would be said in baseball, the farm system dried up.

By the dawn of the 21st Century, "hoolie lit" developed, as former hooligans, from firms up and down the island of Great Britain, wrote memoirs of their exploits. Most of the West Ham fans who wrote such books, whether they were at Highbury in 1982 or not, expressed regret for Dickinson's death. But few mentioned his name, or Pratt's name. Like the Mafia, firms had a code of silence, never ratting out each other, or even their opponents.

On May 1, 2022, 40 years later to the day, Arsenal and West Ham played again, this time at the London Stadium. There were no incidents, inside the stadium or out. But neither was there a moment of silence in memory of John Dickinson. There were, for the victims of the Ukrainian War, and for Black Lives Matter, as there have been for each of those movements since they began. But not in memory of those who suffered as a result of English football hooliganism. Arsenal won the match, 2-1.

Martin Peters, 1943-2019

We now think of American football as being dangerous, due to head trauma. But it affects football, as in soccer, too.

Martin Stanford Peters was born on November 8, 1943 in Plaistow, East London. He grew up further east in London, in Dagenham, known as Britain's Detroit for the car assembly plants there. A centre-half, as positions in English soccer were then set, he played for England Schoolboys, before being signed to the biggest nearby team, West Ham United of the East End, at age 15.

Known as the Irons for their origin as a "works side" -- in America, we would say a "company team" -- called Thames Ironworks, and as the Hammers for the crossed hammers on their badge, West Ham are, as they were then, the most popular team in England east of North London, drawing fans not just from the East End, but from suburban areas like Kent and Essex.

But their support has far exceeded their results, as they have traditionally been a fringe team. When they have been in the Football League Division One, now called the Premier League, they have usually been in danger of being relegated to Football League Division Two, now called the Championships. When they've been in that, they've usually been a threat to gain promotion back to the top flight.

They have never won the top flight, their best finish ever being 3rd place in 1986. Harry Redknapp, who played for them in the 1960s and '70s and managed them in the 1990s, has noted that, early in his career, they had Peters, a man eventually known as "the complete midfielder"; Geoff Hurst, a fine forward; and Bobby Moore, one of the best centrebacks the sport has ever known; yet, in a top-flight run from 1959 to 1978, they only finished in the top half 5 times in 20 years. This led Redknapp to say, "Which should tell you how bad the rest of us were."

Prior to the arrival of Peters, Hurst and Moore in the late 1950s, West Ham's best achievement was reaching the 1923 FA Cup Final, the 1st match ever played at the original Wembley Stadium, England's national stadium. They lost it to Bolton Wanderers of Lancashire. In essence, West Ham were a joke, the team of poor "Cockneys."

Peters made his debut late in the 1962 season. Manager Ron Greenwood did not play him in any of the games of West Ham's run to the 1964 FA Cup, when they beat Lancashire team Preston North End in the Final.

But things turned up for him after that. He married Kathleen, whom he met at a Dagenham bowling alley. They had a daughter, Leeann; and a son, Grant. and then Greenwood gave him a full chance in the 1964-65 season, in which their Cup win qualified them for the European Cup Winners' Cup. With Peters moved up to midfield, they got to the Final, which had been scheduled for Wembley, and beat German team 1860 Munich. (But they only finished 9th in the League, and they wouldn't finish so high again until 1973.)

Left to right: Hurst, Moore, Peters in West Ham's Claret & Blue

Moore (as Captain), Hurst and Peters were all selected by manager Alf Ramsey for the England team in the 1966 World Cup, which was to be played on home soil. A bad 0-0 draw against Uruguay in the opener led to Ramsey changing his lineup, putting Peters in. Not originally intended as a starting player, he was given what was then considered a high uniform number, 16.

Peters proved to be an ideal player in Ramsey's 4-1-3-2 setup, known as the Wingless Wonders. In the Quarterfinal, he assist Hurst for the only goal in a rough game against Argentina. They beat Portugal in the Semifinal. Peters was earning the nickname "The Ghost," because he seemed to appear out of nowhere to help his team score.

Then came the Final against West Germany -- the 3rd Final at Wembley in which Moore, Hurst and Peters had played in as many seasons. Peters scored late in the game to give England a 2-1 lead, and nearly made himself the man who won the World Cup. But the Germans equalized in stoppage time. Hurst, who had scored England's 1st goal, scored twice in extra time to give the home team a 4-2 win.

Captain Moore led the team in climbing the 39 steps to the royal box, where Queen Elizabeth II herself handed him the Jules Rimet Trophy. Years later, a statue would be dedicated outside West Ham's stadium, Upton Park, with their 3 players and Everton's Ray Wilson, the men shown in the most famous photograph of the celebration of the win.

England finished 3rd at Euro 68, and Peters continued to excel. Ramsey said he was "ten years ahead of his time." In the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, he again scored against West Germany in the 2nd half, this time in the Quarterfinal, giving England a 2-0 lead. But Ramsey made a mistake from which the England team has never recovered: He subbed Peters off for Manchester City's Colin Bell, and Manchester United's Bobby Charlton off for Leeds United's Norman Hunter, and the Germans tied it up, and, this time, extra time was on their side, as England were eliminated 3-2.

By that point, Peters had moved on to a new club. In March 1970, Tottenham Hotspur of North London paid £200,000, a record at the time, for him. He scored on his debut for them, and in 1971 and 1973, he helped them win the League Cup. In 1972, he helped them win the UEFA Cup (now known as the UEFA Europa League).

In 1975, he moved to Norfolk team Norwich City, managed by his former West Ham teammate John Bond. He played the 1980-81 season with Sheffield United, and retired to become their manager, unable to save them from relegation. He came out of retirement in 1982-83 to play for Norfolk team Gorleston.

He went into the insurance business until retiring in 2001. He worked for both West Ham and Tottenham as a club ambassador, welcoming people in the hospitality suites. In 2006, on the 40th Anniversary of the World Cup win, he published a memoir, The Ghost of '66.

With the Jules Rimet Trophy, at a 50th Anniversary celebration, 2016

But just as helmet-to-helmet hits have caused brain damage and dementia in players of American football, so, too, did the heavier soccer balls of the 1960s cause trauma to players of that time and before.

So far, 5 members of the 1966 England team have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or another form of dementia: Peters, Ray Wilson, Nobby Stiles, Jack Charlton, Gerry Byrne. Their numbers do not include Jeff Astle, perhaps the best-known English footballer to have died from football-related dementia. He starred as a forward for West Midlands club West Bromwich Albion, and played for England in the 1970 World Cup. Nor do they include Gerd Müller, the German star who did not make that World Cup, but would eliminate England from the 1970 edition and win it in 1974, and was diagnosed in 2015.

Martin Peters died on December 21, 2019, at the age of 76. With his death, there are 6 players who played for England in the 1966 World Cup Final who are still alive: Bobby and Jack Charlton, George Cohen, Nobby Stiles, Geoff Hurst and Roger Hunt. Jimmy Greaves, Peter Bonetti, Ron Flowers, Norman Hunter, Terry Paine, Ian Callaghan and George Eastham did not play in the Final, but were on the team and are still alive, for a total of 13.

Basics for the MLB London Series

Saturday, 1:00 PM New York time, on Fox. Actually, first pitch is set for 1:10, but they need a few minutes for a preview. That's 6:10 PM, London time. Announcers: Joe Buck and John Smoltz.

Sunday, 10:00 AM New York time, on ESPN. Announcers: Matt Vasgersian, Jessica Mendoza, and "Yankee Legend" Alex Rodriguez.

The games will be played at the London Stadium, the main venue for the 2012 Olympics, and now the home of East End soccer team West Ham United. (I know, it confused me at first, too, but West Ham is part of East London.)

Not Wembley, the Home of Football. Not Twickenham, the Home of Rugby. And certainly not Wimbledon, the Home of Tennis.

You'd think it would be Lord's, the Home of Cricket, which has enough space. But it only seats 28,000. Add the capacity of the other major cricket venue in the London area, 25,500, and it still wouldn't be enough.

But the London Stadium has the capacity, 60,000 seats, and almost enough space. Center field will be a little short, about 385 feet from home plate, so there will be a higher fence there, about 17 feet. The foul poles will be a reasonable 330 feet.

Unfortunately, the games will be on artificial turf. But the Red Sox will be the official home team, so that's 2 fewer games we have to play at Fenway Park this season. Despite being the visiting team, the Yankees will wear their home Pinstriped uniforms.

Each team has been allowed to bring 28 players, with 26 being eligible, 1 more than usual, in case of emergency. Hey, you never know: A player could get jet-lagged, or, if they stay at the Canary Wharf Marriott, food poisoning. (Oh shit, he went there!) Damn right I did. I'm not only a Yankee Fan, but an Arsenal fan.

The Yankees have brought Reggie Jackson, Hideki Matsui, Andy Pettitte, Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher on the trip. I can't find a list of "honored" guests for the Red Sox.

Somebody asked if Neville Chamberlain was going to throw out the ceremonial first ball. I said no, because Bud Selig has already appeased the Red Sox for many years. Prince Harry will be on hand, as the member of the royal family who has spent the most time in America, and I suspect he will throw out the first ball.

Major League Baseball is so confident, they're doing it again next year. Same venue. On June 13 and 14, 2020, it will be 1 of the 2 big National league rivalries, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals. I was sure they were going to select the other big NL rivalry: The Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Francisco Giants. Maybe that will be for 2021.

May 7, 2006: Arsenal, Tottenham, and Lasagne

Imagine that tomorrow is Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, and the Yankees and the Red Sox are playing for the Pennant.

Or that it's Conference Championship Sunday, and the Washington Redskins are playing the Dallas Cowboys; the Chicago Bears are playing the Green Bay Packers; or the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Cleveland Browns.

Or that it's Thanksgiving Saturday, and college football conference titles are on the line: Michigan vs. Ohio State, USC vs. UCLA, Alabama vs. Auburn.

Or that it's Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament, and North Carolina and Duke are playing the ACC Tournament Final.

Or that it's Game 7 of an NBA Playoff series, Boston Celtics vs. Philadelphia 76ers, or Chicago Bulls vs. Detroit Pistons.

Or that it's Game 7 of a Stanley Cup Playoff series, Montreal Canadiens vs. Toronto Maple Leafs, Chicago Blackhawks vs. Detroit Red Wings, or, perhaps most to the point due to the distance involved, New York Rangers vs. New York Islanders.

Now, imagine that you support one of the teams involved. And imagine that the team is sequestered in its hotel, and they're all having dinner together.

Now, imagine that some of the players wake up in the middle of the night, violently ill, and it looks like they may not be able to play.

You'd be furious, wouldn't you? Damn right you would be. Why, if your team lost this key game, you might go so far as to suggest that the players in question were poisoned by a fan of the other team.

But such a scenario would never actually happen, right?

It wasn't exactly the same thing, but it did happen.

*

Arsenal Football Club (a.k.a. "The Arsenal") and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club (a.k.a. "Spurs") are separated by 4.7 miles in North London. To put that in perspective: Imagine that the Yankees and Mets played each other regularly, and that, while the Mets played in Flushing Meadow as they actually do, the Yankees played in Astoria, instead of the South Bronx.

The relationship is similar -- or it would be, if the Mets, instead of being the successors to the baseball version of the New York Giants, were a continuation of the same team: Great long ago, but only sporadically so since the Yankees first began winning, perennially getting humiliated by the more successful club, treating every win over the more successful club like you'd just won a world championship, and collapsing just as glory seems within your grasp.

But Met fans think the Yankees have unfair advantages: Money (true), getting the benefit of the doubt from the officials and the league office (don't make me laugh), favorable treatment by the media (don't take drugs). Tottenham fans think Arsenal have these advantages, and one more: Arsenal "bribed their way into the First Division in 1919." (It's been almost 100 years: Not one shred of evidence has ever been found to back this up.)

Therefore, both Met fans and Spurs fans claim a moral high ground over their local rivals. This results in a huge superiority complex and a huge inferiority complex at the same time.

Even the mottoes are similar: The Mets' is "Ya gotta believe!" while Spurs' is "To dare is to do."

I've mentioned before that the Mets are the Tottenham of New York, and that this might not be fair... to the Mets. Tottenham have not won their league since 1961, while the Mets, who started in 1962 as a replacement for the Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers (who left for California in 1957), have now won their league 5 times. (The real "Tottenham of New York" is hockey's Rangers, complete with their idiot thug fans: They talk as much trash as Yankee and Arsenal fans do, but they don't get the results to back it up.)

Tottenham have won England's top division of soccer (or, as they say, "football") twice, both times clinching at their home ground of White Hart Lane: In 1951 and 1961. They beat the same opponent both times: Sheffield Wednesday.

Arsenal have also twice clinched England's top division of soccer (or, as they say, "football") at White Hart Lane: In 1971 and 2004. They beat the same opponent both times: Tottenham.

Arsenal have won the League 13 times, including 6 times since Spurs' last title: 1971, 1989, 1991, 1998, 2002 and 2004.

Tottenham have won the FA Cup, England's national tournament, 8 times. This is actually a very impressive total. But they haven't won it since 1991, when they beat Arsenal in a Semifinal. They haven't even been to a Final since, going 0-3 in Semifinals, including losing to Arsenal in 1993 and 2001. Arsenal have won the FA Cup 12 times, more than any other club, including 7 times since Spurs last did: 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2014 and 2015.

Arsenal have qualified for the UEFA Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup, 21 times, including (counting this season, for next season's tournament) 19 seasons in a row. Spurs? In the tournament's 61-year history, they have qualified only 3 times: For 1961-62, 2010-11, and for next season, 2016-17.

Because of their association with the old Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, in what's now Southeast London, Arsenal have always had a cannon on their club crest, and are thus known as the Gunners. Their fans, known as Gooners, like to say that Tottenham Hotspur, named for early 15th Century English rebel Henry Percy, a.k.a. Lord Harry Hotspur, are "forever in our shadow."

But every so often -- currently, we are in one of those moments -- the lopsided advantage in honors that tilts toward Arsenal looks like it might be reversed, what Spurs fans call "a power shift in North London."

A decade ago, there was one of those moments. But it ended up getting flushed down the toilet. Almost literally.

*

May 7, 2006, 10 years ago today: Arsenal had their best Champions League campaign ever, reaching the Final. That Final, still the closest Arsenal have ever come to winning the European Cup (the Champions League format kept the name for the trophy), turned out to be the last appearance in Arsenal's colours for Dutch forward Dennis Bergkamp, French winger Robert Pires, English centreback Sol Campbell (who controversially transferred from Spurs to Arsenal 5 years earlier), and, controversially, English left back Ashley Cole.

Cole had grown up as an Arsenal fan and in Arsenal's youth system, but had been "tapped up" by West London rivals Chelsea, and would go to them due to new owner Roman Abramovich's spending spree, which had gotten Chelsea the 2005 and '06 Premier League titles. Cole has been known as "Cashley" to Gooners fans ever since.

But the 2005-06 season was the end of an era for another reason: It was the last season for the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury. The new Emirates Stadium -- some call it The Emirates, some by the area's former name Ashburton Grove, some cheekily call it New Highbury -- was going up, 500 yards away, and would open in the summer, the product of the success Arsenal had enjoyed in its 1st 10 years of management by the Alsatian genius, Arsène Wenger.

Arsenal wanted very badly to end the last game at Highbury with a win. It was against Manchester area club Wigan Athletic, and was expected to not be hard, but Arsenal have a history of losing the occasional game that they really should win.

But it wasn't just sentiment: Arsenal went into the season's League finale in 5th place in the Premiership, with Tottenham in 4th. All Spurs had to do in their game, which was away to East London club West Ham United, was match Arsenal's performance on that final day of the Premiership season, and it would be Spurs in the 2006-07 Champions League, with Arsenal "relegated" to the UEFA Cup -- unless, of course, Arsenal could win the CL Final, as the defending champion is always invited back.

The night before, Tottenham manager Martin Jol had secluded his players at a hotel, the Marriott Canary Wharf, in London's financial district, a.k.a. The City. This is not unusual: Many managers do things like this, even before home games. American football head coaches, in both the professional and the collegiate ranks, also do this. The players would have a nice dinner the night before the game, and get a good night's sleep, and would have a nice short bus ride to the stadium, all away from the prying of fans and the media.

What did Scottish poet Robert Burns say? Translated into modern common English, "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

In the middle of the night, 10 Spurs players woke up, vomiting, and/or having diarrhea (or "diarrhoea," as it would be "spelt" in England): Robbie Keane, Edgar Davids, Michael Carrick, Aaron Lennon, Michael Dawson, Lee Barnard, Calum Davenport, Teemu Tainio, Lee Young-Pyo and Radek Cerny.

Someone decided to blame the lasagne they'd eaten for dinner that night, and after the whole thing was over, some Spurs fans started a conspiracy theory (shades of their delusions about 1919) that the Marriott chef was an Arsenal fan, and had purposely poisoned the Spurs players! It became known as Lasagne-gate.

In the morning, several Spurs players were still, uh, indisposed. So club chairman Daniel Levy called the League office, and asked League chairman Richard Scudamore to postpone the game.

Nothing doing: With 1 League game to go, all teams were to play their games at the same time, 3:00 PM. This was a change from past policy, to avoid teams whose League place had already been decided from laying down on the job, thus giving gamblers some easy pickings and paying customers a less than honest performance.

Levy protested: We have sick players, so can't the game be postponed until tomorrow? Or even until tonight, just to give us a few more hours to recover? Scudamore asked if Spurs had 11 players who could play. Well, yes, but... Then the game would go on. If Spurs wanted to postpone, they could refuse to play, but an inquiry would be held, and Spurs would likely lose that appeal, and the penalty for refusing to play would be a deduction of points, which would make a win in the rescheduled match meaningless.

West Ham officials said they were willing to accept a postponement, so long as it wasn't too close to the following Saturday, when they were to play Liverpool in the FA Cup Final (which Liverpool went on to win). Unlike Spurs, West Ham were not threatened with a points deduction for going along with the postponement (which makes sense, since it wasn't their idea).

But the police were afraid of what additional time to drink that day would do, considering the reputation that both Spurs' and the Hammers' fans had for hooliganism, including against each other. (A fight between fictionalized versions of hooligan firms from those clubs opened the 2005 film Green Street.) So the cops said they would allow the game to start no later than 5:00 -- an extra 2 hours, not much of a help for the last 2 players who still needed rehydration, Carrick and Lennon.

Carrick and Lennon

In the end, the game kicked off on time, at the traditional English football starting time of 3:00 in the afternoon, and only one of the affected players, backup goalkeeper Cerny, did not make it into the game, although Carrick had to be subbed off after 63 minutes, Lee (for fellow affectee Barnard) in the 78th, and Tainio (for fellow affectee Davenport) in the 87th.

*

That season was Wigan's first-ever season in the Premiership, and they had achieved midtable respectability, finishing 10th. An Arsenal win shouldn't have been assumed, but it was well possible. West Ham were about Wigan's equal, finishing 9th, and were hosting Spurs -- hence the Canary Wharf hotel, not far from the Hammers' Boleyn Ground, a.k.a. Upton Park.

Pires scored the Highbury opener, and, for the last time at that ground, the song "One-nil to The Arsenal" was sung -- by both Arsenal fans at Highbury and West Ham fans, learning by radio and text message, at Upton Park.

But Wigan struck back, and led 2-1. Spurs fans, getting calls and messages on their mobile phones, found out, and were ecstatic. And when Jermaine Defoe scored in the 35th to match Darren Fletcher's goal for the Hammers in the 10th, meaning Spurs were looking at a draw while Arsenal were losing, it looked like it would be Spurs' day.

It wasn't. Arsenal's superstar French forward Thierry Henry scored a hat trick, tallying in the 35th, the 56th, and the 76th with a penalty that was the last goal ever scored in the ground's 93-year history. Feeling that history, after putting the ball in the net, instead of launching a ghastly celebration, he bent down and kissed the grass. The final score was Arsenal 4-2 Wigan Athletic.

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if Spurs had also won. But West Ham came from behind, and won 2-1 on a goal in the 80th minute by Yossi Benayoun, a midfielder from Israel.

Arsenal finished 4th, 2 points ahead of Tottenham, and qualified for the Champions League; Tottenham, finishing 5th, went to the UEFA Cup.

*

The remains of the supposedly offending lasagne were sent to a laboratory, and tested. As it turned out, there was nothing wrong with it, at least not medically. The virus that spread among the Spurs players was real, but it had nothing to do with food.

Still, Spurs fans blame that lasagne, and the chef that served it. Just like the Yankees-Red Sox "Curse of the Bambino," the lasagne contagion never really existed, but it has taken on a life of its own, because the afflicted team's fans believed it. And so, to spite them, ever since, Arsenal fans have sung, to "Volare":

Lasagne, whoa!
Lasagne, whoa!
We laughed ourselves to bits
when Tottenham got the shits!

Which matches another Arsenal chant. I don't know how far back it goes, but it was already in place in early 2007:

Q: What do you think of Tottenham?
A: Shit!
Q: What do you think of shit?
A: Tottenham!
Q: Thank you!
A: That's all right! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We hate Tottenham and we hate Tottenham! We are the Tottenham haters!

Indeed, Tottenham haven't finished higher than Arsenal in the League since 1995. No other pair of local rivals in English football have so long a gap. It nearly happened in 2012 and 2013, going to the last game of the season again.

This year, with 2 games to go, Spurs could finish ahead of Arsenal. But knowing the histories of the teams, don't be surprised if they find a way to "Spurs it up."