The date - May 8th 2011, 40 years to the day from when I first saw Arsenal for the first time (live on tv), at the age of 6, fell in love and have been hitched ever since...

So as my girlfriend/mistress always asks me - how did the wife get on at the weekend? - I thought it only right to invite some football types round as an excuse to drink beer and show some moments of our marital bliss.

It still puzzles me how it is that I support Arsenal - back in 71 the only club football shown was the cup final, so that was when many families gathered to sit and watch football together, even Mothers & Grans that weren't much interested in it. So my Grandad asks me who I want to win - Arsenal or Liverpool? Being that my favourite colour was red I chose Arsenal, which seems fair enough (what else back then at 6 did you have to go on?), except as we all know, they played in yellow that day??? Being that I was from near Guildford had no bearing on it either as I hadn't the foggiest where either Liverpool or Arsenal actually were in the country. My only reasoning is Blue Peter.... as I believe they showed the Arsenal red shirts with white sleeves a few days before and that had me decided, but that is clutching at straws...

I have now lived in Denmark for 18 years, lucky enough to have seen them play over here 4 times now including 2 finals...... football here especially English football is followed intensely, with a live Saturday afternoon top flight game having been shown now since 1968 !! They carry on playing here basically until they die - I play for our (Naestved - Danish 1st Division) over 45's (Superveteran) and at 46 am thus one of the younger players, many over 60's and a few over 70's are still playing, including one who remembers sitting on the hill by the football club and watching us Brits bomb Kiel in the second world war who will be 81 in a few months, still plays almost every Saturday.......

So it was these guys (2 Leeds, 2 Arsenal, a Forest, WBA, Liverpool & Derby fan) I invited round for beer and a bit of educating/memory jogging - the lounge was decked out in Arsenal gear, Gunners ale - brewed by the Midtfyns brewery at 7.3% specially for the 5 or 6 dedicated Arsenal pubs around Denmark was served by the mistress and my 2 Arsenal daughters and I proceeded to show the important stuff:

The 71 final, which had added interest as Bob Wilson in goal who cocked up his positioning for the Liverpool goal, played 8 games for Næstved here in 1978 together with a few that are still playing now for us veterans. Jim Magill (former Arsenal player) was managing Næstved then and they were bottom of the table, he was good friends with Terry Niell and arranged for Bob to come over each weekend to try to keep Næstved in the top division - which in only conceding 1 goal in his 8 games, he succeeded in doing so. A certain other player at that time was Jesper Olsen, who went on to join the wrong team later, but did have 2 training games with Arsenal, but at the time didn't think he was ready.

This was followed by the 79 final, 89 on Merseyside and the best of DB10, the latter in an attempt to persuade the Danes that Dennis was (in my opinion) a very similar player to who they all rate the best Dane ever - Michael Laudrup. Both sensational players that never scored a boring goal, but could also unlock the tightest defence. Incidentally I would rate Senor Laudrup as a contender for managing The Arse should we ever be in need of a new one......

So 40 years of marital ups and downs completed, many orgasmic moments, along with sulks of I never wanna see you again.......but divorce ? Never!!!! So roll on another 40 more years and I can celebrate my Oak wedding anniversary!