By HC
May 20 2006

Clock End Bank of Friendship Posse reports in at last. This is to say thanks for all the good wishes, text and phone messages, and emails about the European Cup Final.

Being there was a wonderful experience, the 40,000 or so Arsenal fans that travelled fairly took over the city for a couple of days. I went over with my friend Kieran, who I've sat next to for the past eleven seasons, and we reached Paris on the afternoon of the match, the sun shining and thousands of Arsenal fans lining the cafes and bars around the Gare de Nord. Familiar faces from the Clock End, the Bank of Friendship, the Gunners Bar, and Cannons were all over, people I've been seeing around the Arsenal for the past 29 years. Many had travelled without tickets just to be part of the biggest game we've ever played, and those of us with tickets knew how lucky we were.

We had tickets, but nowhere to stay, as every hotel room in the city was taken. We trusted to luck that something would turn up, and it did, a chance in a million, as just before we went into the ground I bumped into Alan from Cork, formerly from my home town and the man who took me to my first game in 1977. He'd got his tickets an hour before kick off, which meant he'd been to every final Arsenal have played at home or abroad since 1972, about 18 in all I think. He was with a bunch of guys from Sussex and Ireland, and we arranged to meet after the game and head back with them to Pere Lachaise where they were staying.

All day the atmosphere was brilliant, not a hint of trouble. We shared beers with the Barca fans and swapped scarves and pennants. The French police though, armed to the teeth and clearly thinking we were about to riot at any minute, policed the game with predictable heavy handedness. (I was in Paris in 1995 for the game against Zaragoza when we were tear-gassed as we tried to get out of the ground after the match, so I knew what to expect). We had travelled
out to the Stade de France from the centre of Paris, and decided to get into the ground an hour before kick off to soak up the atmosphere.

At our entrance we found a huge crush of Gooners being funnelled into just one gate. The police surrounded the fans, pressing us in to an even worse crush, and as people shouted to be let into the ground, or for the police to open more gates, they simply called up more police, some on horseback. The situation was getting extremely dangerous, as there were now hundreds of fans being crushed and no progress being made into the ground. The fans, though angry, behaved brilliantly, realising that we were being provoked by the police, many of whom were threatening and laughing at us, and knowing that any response by us would result in the riot the police clearly wanted.

This was the biggest game of our lives, and we weren't going to let the police spoil it. After about forty minutes we finally got through and into the ground, and got to our seats behind the goal
just in time for kick off. It was a wonderful sight; the Arsenal had set out commemorative yellow t-shirts on each seat so our end was a sea of yellow, with banners and flags with name places from all over the world on them. We roared the boys on from the start, and when Jens was sent off there was just this pocket of quiet before the sound from the fans somehow got louder.

Everybody saw the game. There's no complaints about the result, the ref, the sending off, their first goal or anything else. I thought we played brilliantly with ten men against the best team in the world, with Kolo Toure and Freddie Ljungberg in particular outstanding, and Titi Henry had the chance to win the cup with 20 minutes left. Once he'd missed, it was a question of holding on to the lead Sol had given us, but it wasn't to be, and as the rain fell and fell Barca took the cup and our dreams with those two late goals.

After the game we managed somehow to meet up with Alan and his friends, and we all travelled back across Paris to Pere Lachaise, where by half past midnight most bars were closed. The fellas had scoped out two places that were open late, and we met up with more Gooners who had the same info. The beers flowed and all the songs were sung until about 6 in the morning, and after a few hours sleep on the floor of Alan's room we set out for a slap up lunch of steak et frites before catching the train home.

I'll remember Sol's thumping header, Thierry's miss when clean through right in front of us, Kolo's tackle on Ronaldinho in the penalty area in the first half, that was fully the equal of Bobby
Moore's on Pele in 1970, all the text messages on my phone the next day and all the emails, but mostly I'll remember the craic, the feeling of belonging; and the French girl with the nose ring who asked us at 5 in the morning why were we still singing even though we'd lost.

'Because we're the Arsenal.'