The Last Waltz

In 1978 Martin Scorcese filmed The Band as they gave their last ever concert. Joined by luminaries such as Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell, the film, entitled “The Last Waltz”, showcased the exceptional talents of one of America’s most talented musical collectives. The Band made music that came from the very soul of America; the soundtrack to the movie Peckinpah never made. Apologies for coming over all Leopoldish here. The Band were special because they were all brilliant musicians in their own right, but were also friends, lived and recorded together in an unpretentious mountain cabin, and were greater than the sum of their parts. Just like Arsenal, in fact (maybe without the mountain cabin bit). Scorcese filmed them saying goodbye to their fans in the most moving way; great artists signing off a last great work.

On Sunday when (somewhat prosaically) Wigan are guests at the last ever game at Highbury, there will be a party. The Who are rumoured to be playing; well known trout-tickler Roger Daltrey is a Gooner and has written a special song, so I’m told. His and Peter “assuredly not a kiddie-fiddler in any way” Townsend’s outfit may treat those lucky fans who stay behind to a real celebration and quite frankly one of England's finest bands will be paying tribute to, really, England's finest football stadium. As you watch Rog singing “Highbury High” into the mike, on the nearest thing to baize that any football ground has to offer, think about how we dodged a bullet. The Godfathers of Mod may not make the best dance music, it’s true, but when casting around for a musical tribute, how we could so easily have had M People doesn’t bear thinking about. Thank your stars you won’t be being exhorted on Sunday to “search for the hero inside yourself”.

Highbury is one of the few grounds in the football league that tolerates fans standing in the seating area. So I wouldn’t mind betting that a fair few of you will be boogying in the aisles on Sunday. Well shake a tail feather, baby. Throw some shapes.

The merry dance Arsenal have led their fans on this season is actually quite fitting. The tempo of the Football league is usually a lively polka compared to the more sedate passé doble of European football. And usually too Arsenal’s quick feet and quicker minds have meant they have prospered when the BPM’s went up. The new team that has emerged this term, however, have less of an innate relationship with one another, and are learning now how to co-ordinate their efforts, but too slowly to catch the big boys as yet. The fact that our closest rivals are Spurs though still owes more to the dramatic improvement up the road than to any serious decline in our own standards though. Still, now it’s drawing to a close, it’s fair to say it’s been a bit of a curates egg.

Being so used to challenging for the league, the last two years haven’t been gracious to the old lady. Highbury had to witness a league defeat to West Ham at home and a few other inglorious moments home and away. It’s hard to know what the cause of this malaise was. The prominent thesis was that we’ve taken our eye off the ball in celebrating a gala final season at Highbury. Sundays planned festivities are the culmination of a spate of “fan days” designed to help us give the old girl a send off. We’ve not worn red and white all season but we have worn orange, “redcurrant” and dressed like chimney sweeps. I can’t help thinking all we did was make visiting teams think we weren’t taking the match terribly seriously.

Maybe we’re suffering from some displacement anxiety about the precariousness of moving house. Anyone who has ever been unable to make a cup of tea - after an exhausting day following a gigantic rental lorry round the M25 - because they have packed the kettle in the deepest box and the water board haven’t connected them up yet and can’t until next Thursday, will probably understand the stress. Now multiply it by a few hundred million quid of debt, face the rumoured loss of your most treasured possession in the process, and imagine a protest group have been convened to harass you outside you’re new semi-detached, and you may start to get a real feeling of what the club have been facing.

Maybe this was down to ennui brought about by the robotic monotony of watching Chelsea buy the league. I have never seen a league title claimed with so little...acclaim. Frankly it was 4th news item on the day, well behind Rooney’s foot. And not a single man jack of us thought that treatment unjust. The race for fourth still grips the nation far more than the stroll to first.

Or maybe it’s just, as we swore it wouldn’t be, the dreaded “T” word: transition. We have seen some stellar talent emerge this last year, but it had to get out from under a shadow of spectacular overachievement and had to suffer some cynical treatment and not a few indignities along the way. Now that talent is just starting to garner some serious respect.

That we might actually come away from the season, though, with the most prestigious trophy in world club football to install in pride of place at The Grove, seemed impossible to imagine a mere two months ago. And now it’s hard to think of this season as success or failure until that little bit of business is completed in 11 days time. There is a faint hope - a dare to dream an apparently impossible dream - that colours this final day in THOF’s glorious history. Much as I want to celebrate the end of this great era for it’s own sake, I have such an eye on May 17th that La Stade de France is, for me, a more important venue than either Highbury or The Grove.

The Champions League has always been a stormy coastline on which Arsenal dreams annually foundered. This season it was suddenly, mysteriously becalmed; the rocks and reefs now visible, our young pilot Fabregas guided the team to a safe berth in the final. A team who shipped goals just (astonishingly) went past AC Milan as the best defence in the competitions history. The stripling Senderos, the titanic Lehmann and the incomparable Kolo Toure just kept out all comers. We played some absolute shit and still never looked like really losing. Now we have a tricky first tango in Paris. Our opponents are probably the only team in European football who can dance as well as we can. And Ronaldinho may well be able to get a whole rosebush in those teeth of his, but his is the Cadencia to watch - look one way and float an exquisite pass the other. We’ll have our work cut out next week, but we have genuinely earned the right to be in Paris. The wait we had to get there was 93 years long.

Trophyless seasons at Highbury are now a rarity and for that we have Arsene Wenger to thank. He has a deep affection for the old place. He was astonished, on his first day at work, not to be able to see the ground until he was 50 yards away. The old lady made probably the same impression on our chief as she has made on so many of us. Now he admits to not a little sadness that we are no longer going to be so intimate with each other as we were. But the modernisation of Arsenal started with Wenger, so he can’t be sentimental for too long. The training ground was the first step (copied so often since as are so many things our club does). Knowing him as we do by now, the plans don’t even stop at Ashburton Grove. The man is an architect and the club have never stinted on providing him with the materials and the drive to build his vision. For that, all of the staff are to be thanked profusely on Sunday. There are a thousand reasons why Arsenal is special but the very first if the people who run the club with so much class and panache. Whilst Wembley flounders down the road, they have unfussily built a new home for Football that we can all be proud of.

At the final whistle on Sunday you will undoubtedly turn at some point and look at your red seat and see how your arse has worn it away. You may even think about how your dad’s hobnails wore out the terracing that used to be underneath it. Or you’ll inspect that little brass name then look out onto the greensward and think about the sight you will never see again - that pitch in it’s absolute pomp. Or you’ll look at the net woven between the posts and think about the times it has billowed, and the men who made it do so, and the joy your heart felt then, and how it overwhelmed you, and how you barely contained it. Or you’ll covet a certain bit of the turf (or in my case a few of the bathroom tiles for my porch). You’ll know that you’re leaving a small part of yourself behind in that noble building and taking away with you something more important than a corner flag or a reserved parking sign. You’ll be taking away a stock of memories that you will never be able to add to. Yes, we fully expect to continue as one of the worlds most successful football teams in our new home, with more fans, more cash, better food and better views. Arsenal as a club, as a team, and as group of supporters, are all greater than each of us as individuals and greater than even the bricks and mortars of or old home and our new one. But there will never ever be any more Highbury highs.

If you do shed a tear on Sunday, don’t let it be because you mourn the old lady. She isn’t dead. She’s simply kicked off her dancing shoes and retired gracefully.