LeeDixon

Arsenal versus Manchester United has been one of the fiercest rivalries in football for a while now and was a match that I always looked forward to playing in. It somehow meant more than most of the other matches we played over the course of a season. And it wasn't just because we were often competing for the title that it was a little bit different. I played against Sir Alex Ferguson's men on numerous occasions and there were two matches that really stood out and which I remember best.

Old Trafford October 1990

Many people believe this was the match that really sparked the rivalry between the two clubs. Even before kick-off there was just something in the air that felt like this wasn't going to be an ordinary game of football. There was a definite tension when we were in the tunnel waiting to get out on the pitch.

The first thing to say about it was that it was actually a really good game of football which we ended up winning 1-0 courtesy of an Anders Limpar goal. But most people won't even remember the score line. What they will remember was the 20-man brawl. It all started when Nigel Winterburn made a big tackle on Dennis Irwin. Brian McClair took offence to it and just started kicking Nigel whilst he was still on the floor. Limpar was the Arsenal player closest to all this and went in to help out his mate. It's funny because he would be the last player in the world you'd expect to get involved in something like that but good on him that he saw what was going on and went in to try to stop McClair from kicking lumps out of our Nigel.

In a matter of seconds everyone was involved: pushing, shoving, shouting, from what I remember there were even a couple of punches thrown. Everyone except David Seaman and I that was! I was on the opposite side of the pitch to all this and David was never the quickest so by the time we'd got there it was pretty much all over.

The FA actually deducted two points from us and one from United because of it but we ended up winning the league anyway. All's well that ends well!


Old Trafford March 1998

United had a 13 point lead over us going into this match, though I seem to remember we did have a couple of games in hand. They also had a few injuries to key players at the time and that gave us belief that if we somehow managed to win this match we were still very much in the title race.

And win it we did. Marc Overmars scored with a neat finish about 10 minutes from time and we hung on for a priceless win. That started a run of 13 straight wins, something that seems unthinkable these days. We ended up winning the title with two games to go, even though I recall we actually lost those last two. We also won the FA Cup of course but that was definitely the match that turned our whole season around.

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