Cup finals
Two-nil down at Wembley
Nine years without a trophy, eight minutes into a cup final, and already losing by two. The last Nike home shirt saw the comeback that ended the wait.
2013–14 · The Emirates Age · 6 minute read
The weight of nine years
By May 2014 Arsenal had not won a trophy since the FA Cup of 2005. The move to the Emirates Stadium had been paid for with years of careful budgets, and supporters had grown used to finishing in the top four without lifting anything. The FA Cup final against Hull City on 17 May was meant to be the end of that. Arsenal were heavy favourites. Everyone knew it, including, probably, the players.
Eight minutes of disaster
Within eight minutes Hull led 2–0, through James Chester and Curtis Davies. Arsenal's supporters, who had filled their half of Wembley with red, fell quiet. It is hard to describe the specific dread of that moment: not just losing a final, but losing it in a way that would confirm every joke about the club's recent years. Kieran Gibbs then cleared a header off the line that could have made it three.
Cazorla, Koscielny, Ramsey
Santi Cazorla started the recovery with a curling free kick into the top corner. Laurent Koscielny equalised in the second half, scrambling the ball in from close range. The match went to extra time, and in the 109th minute Olivier Giroud backheeled the ball into the path of Aaron Ramsey, who struck it first time into the net. Ramsey ran away with his shirt half pulled off, a picture that has hung on bedroom walls ever since. The drought was over.
The end of an era of kits
This was also the last season of Arsenal's long partnership with Nike, which had started in 1994. The 2013–14 home shirt, with its navy trim, has therefore become a kind of farewell object. It closed a twenty-year chapter in the wardrobe at exactly the moment the club ended a nine-year wait on the pitch.
Collecting the comeback
Shirts from the final itself carry special match details that ordinary replicas do not, and they are rare and expensive. A standard 2013–14 home shirt is far easier to find. If you want the story without the price, a Ramsey 16 or Cazorla 19 printing from that season is the collector's shorthand for Wembley 2014.