My kingdom for a horse!

A nervous time for all Gunners fans.

We’ve seen Man U come on strong in their last few games.

We’ve seen Arsenal stutter.

And we haven’t seen Oleg Luzhny at all!

Where has the steely Soviet gone?

Arsenal need his granite-shouldered assurance right now.

My pal Vespasian calls with some news. Vespasian is a mad gooner, who had a box at Highbury until he accidentally set fire to it.

He was trying to mount an impromptu halftime firework display for the fans, when a Catherine wheel became detached and span off, igniting the rack of BRANDY miniatures on the minibar.

Messrs Dein and Hill-wood were pretty unimpressed. Vespasian was banned from the ground, a helluva harsh punishment.

He also had to make an appearance at Highbury magistrates court.

But a group of players, led by Steve Bould, wrote to the JUDGE asking for leniency.

Vespasian got away with just a fine and an injunction banning him from going within 100 meters of Highbury.

Bouldy was an enormous fan of pyrotechnics. A student of ancient Chinese texts on the art of firework-making, he had written a series of well-respected pamphlets on the subject.

Each Christmas he would make a firework for each of the other players. He’d try and capture something of their characteristics in each one.

For little Anders Limpar he made a rocket with an uncertain fuse – you never knew if it would go off or not.

Smudger got a Roman candle – dependable and able to illuminate all around him. It was no coincidence that two strikers who played with big Al, Wrighty and Lineker, both won the Golden Boot.

Steve Morrow got a traffic light – boring, it changed colour and never moved around or did anything unexpected.

George Graham put a stop to the whole fireworks thing though, after an unfortunate accident involving supersub Perry Groves.

Perry was a rockabilly fan, the leader of a teddy boy faction from Colchester.

As befitted his status as top dog, he had grown an enormous ginger QUIFF which was fixed in place by a mixture of oil and hairspray.

During a training ground display, one of Bouldy’s home made fireworks deviated from its planned trajectory and lodged in Perry’s hair.

There was a huge fireball. When the smoke cleared, it revealed all of Perry’s hair gone.

All he was left with was a small orange tuft at the front!

Steve Bould and Perry never really spoke after that. Paul Davis and Steve Williams tried to get things patched up by inviting both guys over for FONDUE, but when Perry saw the boiling oil and naked flames he freaked out.

The only person who was happy about the whole incident was George. He had always figured that Perry’s hair was un-aerodynamic, and had wanted him to cut it off for ages.

GG was right. Without the barnet, Perry was a flier, but unfortunately his footwork often let him down.

He’d learnt all his ball skills whilst sporting a huge head of hair which had acted like a drag parachute, slowing him down.

Now he was cut loose everything was too fast and he couldn’t control the ball.

Vespasian tells me that Oleg has been on a secret mission in the Middle East.

He’s found out an amazing secret about the Ukrainian stopper.

Apparently the whirly bit of hair on the back of Luzhny’s head which sticks up is a miniature gun emplacement.

Within seconds a team of crack troops can have a piece of artillery strapped onto Oleg’s skull!

That’s incredible. I rush into the den to tell Digory this bombshell. But the kid amazes me with his cool!

He just says, yeah, Dad. I know.

It turns out that he saw Oleg on the news. He was hunkered down in a bunker on the banks of the Tigris, with rockets being fired from his head!

Digory reckons that thousands of other gooners will have seen the same footage.

Did you, readers?

I didn’t.

PS. Arsenal will beat Man U. 2-1, but Thierry will MISS a penalty.