Tensions were already high between Arsenal and Lazio’s players when they were forced to meet for a post-match meal in 1970.
They’d just spent 90 minutes kicking lumps out of each other in an Inter City Fairs Cup game and now they had to play nice. That didn’t last long.
A mass fight, which included players and Lazio fans, followed in a nice little Rome restaurant.
A number of stories about what sparked the brawl are around, from Arsenal players being annoyed at the leather purses their opponents gave them as gifts to the scaps of food the north Londoners are said to have been given compared to the banquet Lazio enjoyed.
However, talkSPORT is going with Frank McLintock’s account, which saw Ray Kennedy, who recently died after a battle with Parkinsons Disease, at the heart of it all.
The former captain begun by labelling the event a ‘ridiculous obligation’. McLintock said: “The fact that there’d been so much argy-bargy in the game meant that the atmosphere in the restaurant was positively hateful.
“Peter Storey was still seething from Lazio’s rough-house approach and he was chuntering away: ‘We’ll f***ing get them back, we’ll f***ing do them,” noting the temperature in the Italian capital added to the edginess.
“Eventually Ray Kennedy and Sammy Nelson went outside to grab some fresh air and they encountered Lazio’s centre-half. I’ve said it before that Ray was very stoical when it came to punishment on the pitch. He took kicks and never rose to provocation.
“Off-field he would have fought his granny, so when words were exchanged between him and the big Roman and his opponent attempted to knee him in the ball, Ray twatted him.
“Consequently, a huge brawl erupted, involving not only Ray and the Lazio player but also some Lazio supporters outside the restaurant who quickly piled in to help their centre half.”
McLintock even said manager Bertie Mee got involved until the police broke it up.
Battered, bloodied and there was Kennedy – likened to Rocky Marciano by Liverpool legend Bill Shankly – at the heart of it with the black eye to go with it. Lazio, meanwhile, were beaten 2-0 in the return leg.
It clearly had a lasting effect on the players because by the end of the season Arsenal were league and cup double winners, with Kennedy scoring at White Hart Lane to clinch the title in front of sobbing Tottenham fans.
Everyone at Arsenal is greatly saddened to hear of the passing of Ray Kennedy.
One of the giants of 71′, Ray will be sorely missed by his friends, family and everybody at the club.
Rest in peace, Ray
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) November 30, 2021
