Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

When I was nine or ten I started a collection of bubblegum football cards.  Sadly my enthusiasm soon waned for two reasons.

First, I didn’t like the bubblegum and wasn’t very good at blowing bubbles.  Second, every other packet I bought seemed to contain another Jimmy Rimmer!  In the end I had nine of them.  Nothing personal Jimmy, but demand wasn’t that high in the playground swap market!

I don’t remember what opinion I had of Jimmy the player at the time, but following Bob Wilson and preceding Pat Jennings is obviously a tough berth.

I’d been seduced by Bertie Mee’s double winning side and clung on through the sale of those stars and the grim Neill and Howe years.  We got to three FA cup finals but only won one.  We got to the final of the Cup Winners’ Cup but lost on penalties.  Then came George Graham, who slowly pulled us back to the right end of the league and finally rewarded the faithful.

This blog will generally be about Arsenal plus some other sport stuff along the way.  Please forgive the odd mistake, or occasional gibberish.  The posts are mainly written on the train using my iPhone and oversized thumbs as I travel in and out of London.

My first idea for the title was ‘Up For Grabs Now’.  But somebody else got there first.

Still, that’s a good excuse for people to watch my favourite sporting moment!

For those younger fans that don’t know, this is from the concluding match of the 1989 season.  The match was played after every other game had been played.  It had been postponed because of the Hillsborough disaster that April.  Arsenal went to Anfield needing to win by two clear goals to be champions, anything less and Liverpool would stay top.  After 52 minutes Alan Smith made it one-nil.  Then, two minutes into injury time………