Mike Francis
Everyone at Gooner Towers was incredibly sad to learn on Monday that long-time Gooner contributor, Alister Campbell, passed away at the weekend. Our sincere condolences to his wife Sophie and their children. Alister’s loss will leave a massive hole in all their lives.
Alister was first and foremost a Glasgow Rangers fan and a proud Scot, but after arriving in London in the late 80s he became a staunch Arsenal supporter and whilst I know some people will question whether you can be fanatical about two clubs, let me leave you in no doubt that Alister proved you could be.
I have many good memories of time spent with Alister - Subbuteo tournaments at his place, watching European away games at mine, trips to Copenhagen in 1994 and 2000, an unplanned meeting in Rome (above) to witness Thierry’s magnificent hat-trick and the journey to Old Trafford in May 2002 for the championship clinching victory in his petrol-guzzling classic Mercedes. Great times.
He had a birthday meal in Islington last week at which I’m sure he was showing off his exceptional ability to recall games, goals and players whilst recounting stories of his trips watching Rangers, Scotland and Arsenal. It will be my eternal regret that I wasn’t able to attend, but I’m delighted he was still making the most of life right to the end. That sums him up.
Alister’s funeral will take place at 1pm on Thursday 27th June at St Giles Christian Mission, 62 Bride Street, London N7 8AZ. All are welcome and there will be tea after the service. Afterwards, there will be a chance to celebrate Alister’s life at The Hemingford Arms, 158 Hemingford Road, London N1 1DF where a room has been booked for 5pm and anyone unable to be at the church is welcome to come along.
Flowers are to be from the family only and friends are therefore asked to consider making a donation to the NSPCC instead. Cheques made out to the charity (no cash please) may be sent by post or given on the day to the funeral directors, who will collate them and send them on to the NSPCC: W G Miller, 93-95 Essex Rd, Islington, N1 2SJ.
He wrote many articles for The Gooner over the years and, by way of a small tribute, we thought it would be appropriate to re-publish this Gooner Gold piece from issue 106 which explains how he became one of us. RIP mate.
13th August 1988 - Arsenal 4 Spurs 0. A quite glorious scoreline, which we’d all like to see repeated on a regular basis. But it means much more to me, as it was the day I became an Arsenal fan, although I could have ended up supporting Spurs. Aargh! Let me explain.
I had just moved to London, intending to keep my footballing allegiances solely for Rangers (Glasgow, not QPR). I did, however, notice that London's top two clubs were in a tournament at Wem-ber-Iee, along with Bayern Munich and AC Milan.
Ah, AC Milan. With the three wonderful Dutchmen, Marco Van Basten, Ruud Gullit and Frank Rijkaard, winners of European Championship medals that very summer. Throw in Franco Baresi, the world's best defender, Paolo Maldini and many other Italian internationals and we had the recipe for a couple of days of a la carte football before I returned to the more bread-and-butter affair of Scottish football. Although at least Scottish teams still had European football!
I didn't have a ticket, but assumed, correctly, that it would be a doddIe to lay my hands on a reasonably priced brief on the day. I was chatting on the tube to some Spurs fans who had a spare ticket on them, but it was right at the front so I turned it down, wanting a better seat. What an astute move that was in retrospect!
I blagged one from a tout for only a couple of quid over the odds, which turned out to be in the Arsenal end. Fine, and first up on stage were the London boys. Spurs, with their new multi-million pound signings which would push them towards the title - the Pauls, Gascoigne and Stewart, and er, Bobby Mimms. Arsenal had signed a couple of squad type players to boost the defence, Lee Dixon and Steve Bould who between them cost less than half Stewart's transfer fee. So what?
The Merse bagged two, Brian Marwood and Alan Smith chipped in a goal apiece and 4-0 was the final score. Throw in some suitably abusive chants at the tubby Geordie and the financial advice chanted at the retreating Totts: "What a waste of money!" Best of all, I got chatting to two splendid chaps in red and white, Dermot and Baso (the legend) and was tempted into coming along to see the Arse again.
I missed the opening match of the season, a 5-1 demoltion of Wimbledon, because I was watching the same scoreline at Ibrox as Rangers shafted Celtic, but I made the Arsenal 3-2 win at Tottenham which was fun. Seeing local rivals humbled on a regular basis, great! That was the last piece of the jigsaw. I was hooked, and it was Arsenal for me in London from then on.
By the way, back at the Wembley tournament, AC Milan played some saucy stuff as they showed their class beating Bayern 2-1 and leaving us in awe at their perfection of the offside trap. It obviously had the same effect on George Graham and the new Arsenal defence. It was not only the start of a new love affair for me, but the beginning of a new era as George introduced us to the Back Four for the first time.
This for me, and Arsenal, would run and run...
