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Date	Time	C	Opponent	F	A	R	S
14 Mar	3:00 PM	P	Blackburn Rovers (H)	4	0	Win

It's all down to me, you know. No, really.

I'm sitting here in Bromley, at Jo's new desk, having received text updates from Rachid and my auntie Susan and I'm thinking, "My God, I can actually watch Match of the Day and enjoy it tonight". That being said, we'll probably be last on, so maybe I should make use of this evening's Football First where we apparently are the match choice - and this on a day where Liverpool destroyed the champions of England, champions of Europe and league leaders Manchester United at Old Trafford. Didn't see that one coming. Did you?

Anyway, I said it was all down to me, didn't I? Let me tell you why. Let's go back to September 1995 and the time I left home to go to University in Leeds. Arsenal were playing Southampton that day and a certain Dennis Bergkamp hadn't scored in the six weeks since making his debut for us at home to Middlesbrough - a game that I was at and if you look closely you can see me at the bottom left of the screen on the replays of Ian Wright's headed equaliser. Anyway, the Iceman hadn't scored, leading to headlines like "Hartlefool" after he didn't score in a League Cup game against Hartlepool. All that changed on a sunny September day as we made our way north on the M1, listening to radio commentary as Dennis, quite frankly, tore the Saints a new one in a 4-2 win.

Flash forward 7 years, almost to the day. An older, wiser (though not by much) version of me takes in the Leeds Arsenal game with my oldest friend, and fellow Gooner, Harry. We watch in the Skyrack in Headingley. Many beers have been drunk in those intervening years, copious spliffs smoked and hearts broken. And more heartbreak is to follow for Leeds fans who aren't quite aware of it yet as Kanu, Wiltord, Touré and Thierry smash Leeds United to bits. This is particularly sweet for me as this day marks the end of my Leeds oddysey. Harry has rented a van and has come to bring me home. We even, mistakenly, pass Elland Road on the way home. London may not be down the other end of the M62, but at least I got a last two fingered salute to the place in before I left...

The first weekend of the new year 2004, Arsenal are a couple of months away from something incredible on the weekend I move in with my mate Gabs. Yet again, we are playing Leeds United at Elland Road. This time in the FA Cup. A howler from Jens Lehmann presents Mark Viduka with the opening goal of the tie and cues much foul foul mouthed invective from myself. At least until the soon to be Invincibles take over, Thierry scoring a beautiful volley from a Ljungberg cross and again, we run out 4-1 winners.

So to today. Andrey Arshavin has shown flashes of genius in his fledgling Arsenal career, but hadn't made it as far as the scoresheet yet. That changed in the second minute of the Blackburn match today, as he converted a Theo Walcott cross - a super early goal! Good to have you back, Theo. He went even better with a goal described as "genius" seemingly everywhere I've read it this evening to put us 2-0 up. And then ... and then, Emmanuel Eboue ... I can hardly bring myself to type these words because I can barely believe it, scored twice in the last three minutes to put an incredible icing on a delicious slice of cake.

Okay, so one was a penalty, but so what? At this rate, I'll be declaring undying love for the Ivorian before Spring is out. To top it all off, by the time we play Manchester City on April the 4th, the day my brother gets married, we should have Cesc and Adebayor fit and available to play. Now, I ask you, could today have happened as it has, if I hadn't have been moving home?

I just hope my uncle avoided his predilection for leaving early this afternoon, my little cousin James will have been very disappointed to have missed out on not one, but two Eboue goals...

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