Brian Clough, on Arsenal’s breaking his Nottingham Forest team’s record of 42 games without defeat with a 3-0 victory over Blackburn Rovers:
“There is a tinge of sadness on my behalf because nobody likes to see themselves overtaken in the record books. But sadness will soon be replaced with sheer pleasure that it has taken such a brilliant and beautiful team to beat us. What more can I say about Arsenal? Well, even as an old codger, they take me back to my younger days. They caress a football the way I dreamed of caressing Marilyn Monroe. They treat a ball not only with respect but with reverence. They don’t try to knock the leather off it. Everything they do is as if they are trying to do the ball a favour.”
One thing the Premiership definitely has over the NFL is a unique sense of the game’s poetic significance. Then again, there is something endearing about Mike Tice’s guttural “huh huh huh”.