Poll: The truth behind the battle of
Highbury
It was the 'unrefereeable' game and both Manchester United and
Arsenal wanted me to take charge. Not for the first, or last, time
I used some advice from my friend, the Italian referee Pierluigi
Collina, who always refused to speak to coaches or players before a
game because it might suggest a lack of confidence, a
weakness.
When I pressed the bell for the teams to leave their dressing-rooms
on February 1, 2005, neither team emerged; neither wanted to be
first. Each wanted to leave the other standing about in the
corridor. I pressed the bell a second time. Again nothing happened.
Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson were keeping watch by their
dressing-room doors, each waiting for the other to blink first in
this stand-off.
I then decided on a personal approach. I walked to the Arsenal
dressing-room. As I passed United's room, Sir Alex let me know in
three chilling words what he expected of the game. He looked me in
the eyes and said: 'Good luck tonight.' I asked Arsene, politely,
to let his team out and he did. I walked along the tunnel, next to
Arsenal's Patrick Vieira and tried to lighten the atmosphere. I
said to Patrick: 'Remember this fixture last year when we made Roy
Keane laugh as we waited to go out on to the pitch?' Patrick
replied: 'That will not happen tonight.' I asked Sir Alex to send
out his team. He answered: 'Roy's not ready.' I said: 'OK. No
problem. He can join us in a minute.'
So the Arsenal line of players and the four match officials made
their way towards the end of the Highbury tunnel. I then heard
raised voices further back in the tunnel. Patrick and Gary Neville
were in each other's faces. Patrick was saying that he wanted to
break the England defender's legs. At that moment, Roy arrived. He
said: 'Pick on someone your own size.' Patrick said: 'I'll break
your legs as well.' Roy replied: 'If you were that good, you'd be
playing for Real Madrid.'
It was a clever riposte Patrick had been courted by Real the
previous summer. I could have 'sent them off', some disciplinarians
will tell you that is what I should have done. But I needed them on
the pitch. I knew if I could manage them during the game and I
felt sure I could the two influential captains could help me
control a volatile match. So I split them up and we went out on to
the Highbury pitch. When the time came for the toss of the coin
they refused to shake hands and neither was willing to call 'heads'
or 'tails' so I assigned the sides of the coin for them.
The testosterone was still coursing through the players' veins when
they kicked off. Tackles went flying in. I awarded six free-kicks
in the opening two minutes as I stuck to my game plan of keeping a
lid on everything at the start. Ashley Cole claimed an early
penalty after going down with what looked to me like a comically
unconvincing dive. I clamped down on anything looking like a foul
and Roy came over and said: 'You're making it worse.' I replied:
'Give me two more minutes and the game's yours.' I hoped that my
rigorous opening gambit would tell the players I was in charge and
after that they would have confidence in me and not try to settle
their own feuds. And it worked. The 'unrefereeable' game was an
absolute epic, with some magnificent, hightempo football.
I handed out six cautions and one red card to Mikael Silvestre for
headbutting Freddie Ljungberg. As Silvestre left the field, Sir
Alex, who had not seen the off-the-ball incident, asked him what
had happened. Mikael replied: 'He pissed me off so I butted him.'
The other contentious issue was the outburst of profanities from
Wayne Rooney. I can't remember precisely what caused it but someone
worked out that he used the f-word 27 times, mostly at me. It was,
apparently, an impressive demonstration of rapid-fire swearing.
Despite what so-called experts keep writing and broadcasting, using
'foul language' is no longer an offence, because people swear all
the time.
In Rooney's case there were also other considerations. If I had
sent him off, a volatile game might well have exploded. So I called
Keane, Rooney's captain, over to us as a witness and told Rooney:
'There will be no more of this or else you will be sent off.'
Whether Sir Alex reinforced my message at half-time, I do not know,
but Rooney gave me no more trouble and kept his mouth more or less
under control.
From my point of view, I had successfully man-managed him and had
helped the game. If I had let the game explode it could have done
terrible damage to the image of football and the English
Premiership. Instead, we had a fixture which enhanced the
reputation of both.
