Paul Merson Testimonial 08/05/96

Arsenal vs International XI

Paul Merson Testimonial Match

Highbury, Wednesday May 8th 1996

The teams at the start were 

  Arsenal              International XI

  Seaman               Miklosko        
  Dixon                Wilkins
  Winterburn           Rix
  Hoddle               Gullit
  Linighan             Bilic
  Adams                O Leary
  Platt                Kanchelskis
  Merson               Le Tissier
  Bergkamp             Nicholas
  Gascoigne            Jess
  Wright               Waddle

Final score:
Arsenal (4) 8 - 5 (0) International XI
(Merson 2,              (Jess, 
Gascoigne 4,            Le Tissier 2, 
Bergkamp,               Rix, 
Shaw)                   Kanchelskis)

McGoldrick and Morrow came on as subs for the opposition. Make of that what you will, but I can say that there were no indications that they'd be coming back to terrorise us if anyone should ever want to actually buy them.

Arsenal made quite a few substitutions, mostly youngsters like Shaw Rose etc, but also Bouldy came on sometime in the second half which was nice to see. Adams stayed on for the full 90 as did Gazza & Merse. Wright was one of the substituted players and reacted by falling to his knees banging the ground in a nice bit of self-mockery. Earlier on he'd done another bit of fooling around when he'd crashed over the advertising hoardings and disappeared. The physio rushed over and just when you were starting to think he might really have damaged himself Ian popped up like a jack-in-the-box. Another feature of Wright's play was his unselfishness. At times he looked frustrated when he'd been in a great position and the man on the ball had failed to pick him out (he does like scoring, after all). But when he actually got the ball he was very noticably trying to bring Merse into things, and at one point gave Bergkamp a bit of a look after Dennis had failed to pass to Merse. Wright set up Merse's opening goal superbly after taking the ball to the goal line and cutting it back. As someone else mentioned, he later said in an interview that he'd be staying at Arsenal. If you ask me, that's the best signing we'll make all summer.

What of the guests? All the (ex-)Spurs players were booed rather a lot particularly early on (and quite right too). Hoddle in particular seemed to deserve it since he spent most of the first half passing to his team-mates. His Chelsea team-mates, that is. Gullit saw a lot less of the ball when Hoddle went off. Hoddle did show some excellent touches and passing and had one first time shot come off the bar. But that's not going to win us the World Cup, now is it? Waddle was shite, nuff said. Gazza was booed every time he got the ball early on, but seemed to enjoy it anyway, and after his 2nd goal went in the crowd seemed to warm to him. 3 of his 4 goals were really quite good indeed, despite his fatb*st*rdscum-ness. There was one reminiscent of the goal he scored against Turkey for England where he held the ball in the box taking it one way then the other till all the defenders fell over, and another superb volley at at stretch from a fantastic whipped in cross from Merse. Of the other goals, Bergkamp's was particularly nicely taken, slotting the ball between a couple of defenders (he'd spent the first half trying to nutmeg people at every possible opportunity), and Rix's was a 20 yard screamer greeted by the song "we all agree, Rix's still better than Hoddle". Shaw scored with a nice cushioned header only a minute or so after coming on.

Nicholas got a tremendous reception, and we in the Clock End were imploring him to score for the last stages of the match. His team-mates did what they could to oblige but in the end he only managed to net from an offside position. At one point he indicated, to the ClockEnders delight, that he'd missed a chance only because of a poor cross from Waddle. There were some O Leary chants too but not nearly as many and I can't help thinking that Dave would have been a bit disappointed by that.

When Seaman let in his first the "dodgy keeper" chant went up, followed by "Let's all do the Seaman" and "Nayim from the half-way line". At which point he picked up some dirt and hurled it at us.

At half-time the double winners came on and the cheer that GG got was pretty big, leaving little doubt that the fans are still hugely appreciative of what he did for the club.

Adams finished the match, and although I don't suppose it was the toughest work out he could have had he did make some great runs forward to make sure his knee got tested a bit.

Not exactly a highly competitive match, but it was unusually entertaining for this kind of event. It's such a shame that the Adams testimonial was f***ed up so badly.

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