The Battle of the Buffet: 20 years on

Step into the passenger seat of Football Daily’s DeLorean, pull shut the gullwing door and watch as we go from nought to 88 in as long as it takes to generate the 1.21 gigawatts required for our trusty flux capacitor to send us hurtling through the mists of time on a journey to exactly 20 years ago on 24 October 2004. The very fiercest of rivals whose contempt for each other could not have been more mutual, Manchester United had just beaten Arsenal at Old Trafford, ending a record run of 49 matches unbeaten for Arsène Wenger’s side in the Premier League. Ruud van Nistelrooy’s cathartic, hotly disputed penalty and a goal for birthday boy Wayne Rooney, 19, had secured the points in a bruising encounter that, were it played today, would almost certainly prompt the kind of highly strung and overwrought football fanboys you find on social media abominations to swoon like Victorian ladies while vigorously clutching their pearls.

Famously displeased by the sight of northern-based footballing ruffians daring to tackle his far more sophisticated players as they attempted to walk the ball from one end of the pitch to the other and into the opposition net, Wenger was given plenty to think about that afternoon. Enraged by the sight of Rio Ferdinand avoiding an early red card despite hacking down Freddie Ljungberg when he was clean through, the Arsenal manager could scarcely contain his fury as Robert Pires and the late José Antonio Reyes were booted up and down the pitch with more frequency and vigour than the actual match ball. Elsewhere, a brutal studs-up Van Nistelrooy challenge on Ashley Cole went unseen by Mike Riley, the match referee.

It should be noted United didn’t have it all their own way, with Arsenal perpetrating 24 fouls against various United players, each of them meticulously logged by Sir Alex Ferguson in a “dossier” the club would subsequently submit to the FA. And they’re only the ones that were punished. Thierry Henry was also accused of deliberately trying to knack United left-back Gabriel Heinze while the Argentinian was lying helpless on the floor, while Arsenal defender Edu tackled Paul Scholes with a challenge Ferg would later describe as “a potential leg-breaker”. Of course, what happened on the pitch wasn’t the half of it. Because the real fun and games didn’t start until the final whistle was blown and the players of both sides had left the field and were on their way back to their respective dressing rooms.

To cut a long story short: there was a massive stramash involving the players, managers and backroom staff of both teams in a very narrow stretch of tunnel between the home and away dressing rooms. And during scenes that resembled a cross between a saloon brawl in the Wild West and a cartoon dust-up in which numerous feet, fists and swearwords can be seen emerging from a cloud of dust, somebody chucked a pizza from the Arsenal dressing room and scored a direct hit into Ferg’s famously empurpled coupon, prompting further scenes of pandemonium. When a very fragile peace eventually broke out, officials from both clubs attempted a cover-up, in a bid to avoid FA sanctions for their bottleneck brawl and to spare Ferg’s blushes.

Needless to say, this attempted omertà ended in complete failure and in the days, weeks, months and years since, increasingly detailed information about the stramash has been fed to the general public in a manner not dissimilar to a coagulated gloop of melted cheese suffused with pepperoni sausage, jalapeños and olives slowly dripping from the face of an apoplectic Scottish senior citizen on to his blazer, pristine white shirt and red club tie. While both teams eventually escaped punishment due to a lack of evidence and all involved sensibly adopting the Wengerian approach of not having seen the incident, the identity of the mystery pizza-chucker remained a mystery, even if one name kept popping into the frame.

It would take another 18 years for Arsenal’s Cesc Fàbregas, who was a mere whelp of 17 at the time, to confirm that it had indeed been him who’d frisbee-ed the savoury projectile across the corridor, although he claimed he hadn’t been aiming for anyone in particular and hitting Ferg had just been a bonus. Well, sort of. “I was just very small, very tiny, and I didn’t know what to do,” he told The Athletic (£). “I wanted to bring something to the table to defend my teammates and that’s what I did. I didn’t aim at anyone. You know when you throw something into a crowd just to see if you hit someone? And then I hit the big guy, Sir Alex, unfortunately.” And so the famous legend of the Battle of the Buffet was born.

It’s Big Vase all the way. Join Scott Murray at 8pm BST for hot MBM coverage of Fenerbahce 2-3 Manchester United, while Will Unwin will be on deck at the same time for Tottenham 2-0 AZ.

“The Premier League and its clubs really need to listen to this message – clubs must cherish and reward supporter loyalty rather than exploit it” – the Football Supporters Association’s Tom Greatrex on planned protests against ticket price rises from top-flight fans over the next two weekends. Speaking of which, fire up the Warren G and Nate Dogg.

If the independent regulatory commission pores over the footage of Big Vange’s spit (yesterday’s Football Daily) closely enough, they may discover that there was a second spitter, likely behind the bushes on the gravelly road. The immutable laws of physics contradict their whole single-spitter premise. There had to have been a second spitter! But who was it? Who had the motive? The sad thing is we may never know the truth” – Dan Davis.

Can I be one of 1,057 pedants to point out to Daniel Farke (yesterday’s Quote of the Day) that, while it is debatable whether You Only Live Twice is ‘one of the best Bond films’, it’s undeniable that Tiger Tanaka works for the Japanese Secret Service and, far from being a villain, is Bond’s ally. With this attention to detail, etc and so forth” – Paul Lakin (and 1,056 others).

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Dan Davis, who lands a Football Weekly scarf. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

The new David Squires book, Chaos in the Box, is out on 5 December and you can order your copy now, now, now.

Darwin Núñez got Liverpool’s winner in their game at RB Leipzig – meaning the Reds join Aston Villa and Manchester City in a Milner-tastic top three. Just as Erling Haaland reached 270 minutes without a goal, the Manchester City behemoth sent a spinning backheel into the net to set up a 5-0 win over Sparta Prague. Elsewhere, Raphinha scored a hat-trick as Barcelona thumped Bayern Munich – meaning that, amusingly, Bayern are now below Dinamo Zagreb, the team they beat 9-2, in the standings. And Atalanta 0-0 Celtic has given us a few more words with which to meet today’s count.

If you’re wondering what Juan Román Riquelme is up to these days, he’s the president of Boca Juniors. And on Wednesday night, he had to climb into the stands to try and calm clashes between fans during their Copa Argentina quarter-final against Gimnasia. Much like one of his trademark defence-splitting passes, Riquelme got between the two sets of fans and managed to carve out enough space to defuse the tension. Boca went on to win the game on penalties, with keeper Leandro Brey saving four spot-kicks.

The new football governance bill is being introduced in the House of Lords, but plans for government foreign policy to be a factor in club takeovers have been ditched, after Uefa warned that it could amount to political interference.

Brian Riemer is the new head coach of Denmark, replacing Kasper Hjulmand who stepped down after the team’s Euro 2024 exit. Riemer, a former assistant to Thomas Frank at Brentford, was sacked by Anderlecht in September.

Sarina Wiegman would like to move on from England’s Euro 2022 triumph, as Germany return to Wembley on Friday night. “We will always cherish that – it’s one of the big moments in my career but now is now, moving forward it’s a totally different team,” Wiegman cheered.

NYC FC manager Nick Cushing is among the shortlisted candidates to be the next Arsenal women’s head coach.

Liverpool’s Kostas Tsimikas has admitted the FA Cup defeat at Manchester United “destroyed everything” in Jürgen Klopp’s farewell season – and the team “want to win everything” under new gaffer Arne Slot.

Sunderland are three points clear at the top of the Championship after winning 2-1 at Luton, while Middlesbrough saw off Sheffield United 1-0.

And Big Phil Neville’s Portland Timbers are out of the MLS playoffs, despite getting home advantage for their wildcard game because Vancouver’s stadium was unavailable. Ryan Gauld hit a hat-trick for the visiting Whitecaps, who ran out 5-0 winners. Oh Fizzer!

In the fourth tier of Sweden’s women’s league, Ängelholm went unbeaten and did not concede a single goal ... but still missed out on the title. Tom Garry catches up with them.

“When you get named Fifa’s best goalkeeper, people expect more from you.” Mary Earps gets her chat on with Suzanne Wrack, talking PSG, Manchester United and the challenges of her early career.

Northern Ireland boss Tanya Oxtoby has also got her chat on with Suzy.

English football’s regulator is coming … but will it be able to regulate the biggest clubs, wonders Jonathan Wilson.

Send in the clown emojis! Max Rushden on the dangers of discussing an Arsenal red card.

Golden Goal time! Steven Pye looks back at a memorable long-range header from Liverpool’s Steve Nicol back in August 1987.

And John Brewin gets his Big Cup review on.

To the Den in February 1957 and the FA Cup fifth-round meeting between Millwall and Birmingham. Pictured are the Millwall Lion (Harry Ansell) and a Gainsborough Lady (Ada Harwick) … plus someone dressed as, we hope, Charlie Chaplin. City ran out 4-1 winners that day, their run only coming to an end in the semi-final against Manchester United.