Tony Adams drops Steve Morrow

Apologies – this article first appeared with the wrong date up.  March 27th was not the date of the League Cup Final, but was the date when Steve Morrow was transferred to QPR in 1997

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1992/3 was Arsenal’s Cup Double Year.  The first ever team in England to win the FA Cup and the League Cup at the same time.   The press sneered, when they even bothered to notice.

In the FA Cup final we drew 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday and then in the replay beat them 2-1.    Ian Wright scored in the original game, and the replay.  The winning goal in the replay came from Andy Linighan.

In the League Cup Final, played five weeks before the FA Cup Final, we played… Sheffield Wednesday.

Paul Merson scored the first and set up Steve Morrow to score the winner.  But what we most remember was the fact that Tony Adams then picked up Steve Morrow, slipped, dropped Morrow, who broke his arm and was rushed to hospital.  As a result he missed the FA Cup final, but got his League Cup Winners’ medal before the FA Cup kicked off.

Arsenal’s team for the League Cup Final was

  •  Seaman
  • O’Leary
  • Adams (captain)
  • Linighan
  • Winterburn
  • Parlour
  • Morrow
  • Davis
  • Merson
  • Wright
  • Campbell

So what of Stephen Morrow?

He was born 2 July 1970 and joined Arsenal just after his 17th birthday in July 1987.  He went out on loan to Reading, Watford and Barnet, playing his first Arsenal game proper on 8 April 1992.

The goal he scored in the League Cup final was his first for the club.  He never became a fully regular member of the first team although he did play in the 1994 Cup Winners’ Cup victory over Parma, playing next to Ian Selley in midfield.  He also played in the same competition final the following season when Arsenal lost.  In all he only scored three goals for the club

Rioch dropped Morrow (from the team not in an Adamsian fashion) and he went to QPR after Arsène Wenger arrived in 1996 having played 85 games.

After being released from QPR he went to play for Dallas Burn (FC Dallas) for two seasons  before retiring.   He also won 39 caps for Northern Ireland.

In 2004 he was assistant coach at FC Dallas and ultimately became head coach until 2008 at which point he returned to Arsenal as International Partnerships – Performance Supervisor, which meant managing liaison with  Colorado Rapids, BEC Tero of Thailand and Hoang Anh Gia Lai of Vietnam, while also working with Arsenal academies in Egypt and Ghana.  He works in an advisory role aimed to improve the quality of their elite football teams with preparation and recuperation through to training sessions and tactics.

Indeed this takes us into all sorts of areas of work that Arsenal now undertake but which is simply hardly ever reported in the UK.

For example Arsenal have an initiative with Nike and the Richmond Strikers.  The initiative, which is offered to a select group of young players in central Virginia, incorporates an Arsenal technical program created with input from Steve Morrow.   Another former player Danny Karbassiyoon is involved with Steve as the coaches in charge of implementing the programme of technical training that includes practicing 5 and 6 days per week.

Knowing that Steve is with the club still, I wonder if he gives Tony Adam’s statue a wide birth.

The books…

Some other sites from the same team…

 

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The main series on this web site

Arsenal manager by manager.

Arsenal’s anniversaries.

 

7 Replies to “Tony Adams drops Steve Morrow”

  1. Tony !!!

    The League Cup Final in 1993 was on April 18th … it sticks in my mind because it was my 26th birthday …

    Carry on with mistakes like that and we’ll have to ask Mike Riley to give you a job …

    Chris

  2. Yes, I realise. I have put an apology on the site and Billy is taking over all control of this site.

    Tony

  3. On the more serious side, some of the antics in celebration of a goal ask for trouble.
    This silly slide on the knees is a case in point and I well recall Vieira’s longterm injury from such a pointless exercise.

  4. I didn’t know there existed a Tony Adam statue.
    Puts me in mind of that error-strewn Paul Joseph book When Football Was Football:Arsenal.

  5. I have good reason for remembering that League Cup Final and the fact that Tony dropped Steve who had scored the winning goal for Arsenal.
    I won first prize in a BBC World Service Sports competition.

    The question was: Who scored the winning goal in a cup final and was dropped by his captain?

    For a life long Arsenal supporter there is only one answer. Thank you Tony, thank you Steve.

    My prize was ‘ The official history of Arsenal 1886-1995’

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