Iconic Moments in Football No.52
This week’s ‘Iconic Moment’ comes from 11th February 1989 in a First Division match between Millwall and Arsenal.
An ITV documentary was covering the game, following the match officials and showing what they do during a match. The referee David Elleray and two linesmen were wired up with microphones and club officials from both Millwall and Arsenal both agreed to the recording.
There was a breakdown in communication and word wasn’t passed on to the Arsenal players them before the match. This was to have embarrassing consequences for the club and the club captain Tony Adams following a controversial incident in the second half.
The score was 1-1 in the second half Arsenal had a free kick out of the right wing. The ball was whipped into the box and Millwall goalkeeper Brian Horne came out to make a straight forward catch. He fumbled the ball and an Arsenal player prodded a shot against the post. A goalmouth scramble ensued and Tony Adams looked to have forced the ball over the line for a goal before Horne had dived in to grab the ball that he should have caught moments earlier.
David Elleray blew his whistle and signalled for the game to play on. He didn’t think that the ball had crossed the goal line and wanted the game to carry on. Arsenal’s Paul Merson and Kevin Richardson protested to Elleray that he had made the wrong decision and that the ball had gone in. Their efforts were all in vain as the referee was having none of it.
Tony Adams then came running over shouting “That was over the line! That was over the line! That’s my goal!” in a high-pitched screaming voice. All of this was picked up on the microphones!
It was clear that Elleray wasn’t going to change his mind and he had started to run up the field to run up the pitch, waiting for Brian Horne to resume the match.
As the referee started jogging out of the penalty area, Adams was close behind and shouted “Cheat!” at him. He got a telling off for his troubles and was made to look quite the fool a couple of weeks later when the documentary was aired a few weeks later.
All of the profanities used by the players on the pitch were bleeped out from the docmentary but the shrill protests of Tony Adams were kept on there, much to the delight of his team mates! You can see what they thought of the incident in the video below.
Arsenal ended up winning the game 2-1 thanks to a late winner from Alan Smith. They lifted the league championship at the end of the season, ending an 18 year wait.
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