Arsenal legend Martin Keown has revealed how police once wanted to arrest two Arsenal players at half-time in their Premier League clash with Coventry City.
Arsene Wenger's side welcomed Ron Atkinson's side to Highbury in October 1996 with an influx of stars in their ranks. David Seaman joined Lee Dixon, Martin Keown, Tony Adams, Steve Bould and Nigel Warburton in defence with Patrick Vieira, David Platt and Paul Merson sitting in midfield and Ian Wright partnering John Hartson in attack.
The two sides played out a 0-0 draw in front of 38.140 spectators in north London, but it was off-the-pitch where the drama unfolded.
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Former Coventry City defender Liam Daish revealed how events took a turn in the tunnel to Coventry Telegraph: “I caught John Hartson trying to lay one on Gary McAllister. Then there was obviously a reaction from me and then from their players, and the likes of Keown got involved and there was a bit of a scuffle. But it was nothing different to what happened in a lot of tunnels on a Saturday. There were no cameras and all that so that was where it was all sorted out in those days.
“The tunnel at Arsenal was quite tight so there wasn’t a lot of room in there. There wasn’t room to move about so it was literally like having a fight in a telephone box really.”
“I remember Hartson starting it but I don’t think they expected it to escalate in the way it did because he was trying to do it quite sneakily,” said Daish, “and it was only because I looked round and saw it, and from there I think it escalated quite big. It came to a head very quickly and then people were pulled away and dispersed, and then we still had the second half to play.”
Now, speaking on talkSPORT, Keown has revealed how the incident was viewed in the home dressing room 27 years ago. "It was one of those when at half-time, Ken Friar came in and said 'there's a problem. The police want to arrest two Arsenal players.'
"So the boss said, 'Ken, sort it out, ridiculous.' I think a couple of our players got involved in a few squirms with the Coventry players. I think Ian Wright was involved and McAllister.
"We ended up with that 'get the kettle on' shout because Wrighty was always in trouble so I came up with this saying where we just got close to him."
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