1. Some physical

Roy Keane was 11 years old when it started. Patrick Vieira was six, the same age as Ruud van Nistelrooy. A couple of 19-year-olds, Nigel Winterburn and Brian McClair, were playing for Oxford and Motherwell. Alex Ferguson was Aberdeen manager; Arsene Wenger was in charge of the youth team at Strasbourg. The rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester United, which peaked after Wenger came to England, produced some of the most exhilarating, intense football ever seen. But there is a clear connection – let's call it six degrees of aggravation – with a series of barnstorming, spiteful matches in the 1980s.

The pharmaceutical-grade hatred at the turn of the century can be traced back to 8.14pm on Tuesday 15 February 1983: a tangle of legs on an icy pitch, a nasty injury and a grievance which, give or take the odd peaceful game, perpetuated itself for over 20 years.

Until then, even though they were among the aristocracy of English football, Arsenal and United had little to do with each other. Arsenal were dominant in the 1930s under Herbert Chapman and George Allison, Manchester United in the 1950s and 1960s under Matt Busby, when they replaced Arsenal as England's most glamorous team. The superior status of both clubs was demonstrated by the prevailing nomenclature. Arsenal were regularly called ‘the Arsenal’, even though there were no other Arsenals, while United – despite the existence of Leeds, Newcastle, Peterborough and the rest – were often mentioned without the Manchester prefix.

The fixture has had a certain romance ever since the second World War, and was even referenced in an episode of the American war comedy-drama M*A*S*H, but that was due to the grandeur of both clubs rather than any direct competition. They rarely troubled the engravers at the same time.

There was one infamous rumble in 1967, when Denis Law and Ian Ure were sent off after some unscripted windmilling at Old Trafford, and a couple of famous fixtures. United's 5-4 win at Highbury in 1958 was the last game played by the Busby Babes in England, five days before the Munich Air Disaster. The match embodies an innocent age of English football, when teams tried to score one more rather than conceding one fewer. “Let that game stand,” wrote Geoffrey Green, “as an epitaph for a side the gods loved too much.”

The FA Cup final of 1979 was a classic in any currency. Arsenal were heading for a routine, almost boring 2-0 victory when United scored out of nothing in the 86th and 88th minutes. With Arsenal’s players shattered, a United win in extra-time was inevitable. Before Arsenal kicked off, Steve Coppell, United’s electric right-winger, visualised the next day's papers: United had won 4-2, with Coppell getting their third goal.

Then somebody stopped the press. Twenty-two seconds after the kick off, Alan Sunderland stretched to score one of the most dramatic goals in English football history and give Arsenal the cup. United had been double-crossed by fate: teased with the prospect of a comeback for the ages, only to lose in a manner far more painful than the original 2-0 scoreline. Football, fucking hell.

For Arsenal, the opposite was true: numbing despair, then, almost instantly, unimaginable euphoria. The match became known as the Five-Minute Final, but it was a standalone classic rather than a symbol of a great or even burgeoning rivalry. It certainly didn’t spark a new age of excitement: five of the next seven games finished 0-0. When United travelled south for the first leg of a Milk Cup semi-final in 1983, that goallessness was one of two things highlighted in various previews. The other was that United were going to their bogey ground, Highbury, where they hadn't won for 15 years.

United kicked seven bells out of both statistics, producing their best performance for years to hammer Arsenal 4-2. It was a flattering scoreline – to Arsenal, whose keeper Pat Jennings was the Man of the Match. After 80 minutes, United were 4-0 up. United's manager Ron Atkinson later called it “one of the most devastating displays of power football I have ever witnessed”.

Not for the last time, it was the power rather than the football that irritated Arsenal. There was an unofficial quota system in English football in those days: every team had to include at least one player, ideally in central midfield, with a relaxed attitude towards inflicting pain. Arsenal had Peter Nicholas, an unsentimental Welsh midfielder. But United had several.

“Perhaps we've been concentrating too much on passing and technique,” said Don Howe, Arsenal’s head coach and assistant to the manager Terry Neill. “Against United we went out to strike the ball about instead of putting some meat into the game.” In the hyper-masculine world of English football in the 1980s, there was no place for veganism.

Frank Stapleton, who had left Arsenal for United 18 months earlier, was the subject of various chants: “greedy bastard”, “fucking Judas”, all the old favourites. He scored United’s second just before half-time, which gave him the perfect opportunity to inform the home fans, via an emphatic, stiff-fingered salute, how many goals had been scored at that point.

This time, Coppell didn’t visualise any back pages – but he did score the third goal in a 4-2 United win, and the fourth as well. Coppell’s second was a peach, rammed gleefully past Jennings after a superb turn and pass by Norman Whiteside.

With and without the ball, United overwhelmed Arsenal. Remi Moses, a midfield terrier who was starting to be compared to Nobby Stiles, had his name taken after a grisly tackle on Nicholas – studs over the ball, stabbing the top of the shin, after Nicholas had won a loose ball in midfield.

Nicholas got his own back soon after. A corner led to a goalmouth scramble, during which Moses looked set to score. Nicholas tried to distract Moses by forcibly applying his studs to the achilles. Moses somehow ignored the consequent surge of pain but then poked the ball wide from close range. A split second later he was booted up in the air by John Hollins, who was ostensibly trying to clear the ball. Hollins walked away from the impending melee with the relaxed air of somebody who had just posted a letter and was on the way back home.

When Moses landed on the icy pitch, Nicholas discreetly stood on his leg a second time before casually retrieving the ball from the crowd. Moses got to his feet, intent on raising one or two points of order, and was ushered away by the referee John Martin.

Moses had earlier been involved in an incident just before half-time that left David O’Leary screaming with pain. There was a tangle of legs as the two competed for a loose ball on the edge of the centre circle; O’Leary's left foot got stuck on the icy pitch, with the rest of his leg twisting as he fell while being scissored by the off-balance Moses. It looked phenomenally painful, and O’Leary was stretchered off with a suspected broken ankle. It turned out it was badly sprained and he was out for the next five and a half weeks.

It was a strong tackle from Moses – they all were – and to modern eyes it looks on the reckless side of clumsy. But back then, the recklessness threshold was stratospheric. By the standards of 1983, O'Leary's injury was caused by an accidental tangle of legs. The only deliberate foul came a second earlier, when Graham Rix had the ball pinched off him by Moses and responded by deliberately tripping him up. That meant Moses was off balance when he challenged O'Leary.

O’Leary publicly absolved Moses of any blame after the game but his view was not unanimous in the Arsenal dressing-room. In the absence of news channels and multiple replays – the only highlights were shown the following night, on Midweek Sports Special, along with a Joe Bugner heavyweight fight against John Dino Denis – their first impression of the incident was also their last. As far as they were concerned, their mate, captain and best player was out for almost six weeks because of Moses. They were in no mood to forgive or forget.

United finished the job by beating Arsenal 2-1 in the second leg. Arsenal were wearing a green away strip for one of the few times in their history. After being outfought at Highbury, they made a conscious effort to improve their give:take ratio. “I think their pride had been stung last week,” said Atkinson after game, “and they made up their mind they were gonna put some physical about.”

Hollins, the Arsenal defender and one of football's nicer guys, was lucky not to be sent off. United's captain Bryan Robson also suffered a badly sprained ankle when he fell awkwardly on another icy pitch after an aerial challenge with Brian Talbot. Robson gritted his teeth with such force that it looked like they might crack, so great was the pain. Most thought that, at the age of 26, he had broken his leg for the fourth time in his career. This time there was no blame attached to Talbot; even the most one-eyed United fan would have conceded he did nothing wrong.

Robson missed the final as a result, when United were unfortunate to lose 2-1 to all-conquering Liverpool, but returned in time for the FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal. He scored a typical equaliser just after half-time, a goal drenched in desire, as United came from behind to win 2-1 in another furious match.

These cup ties came at the start of a run of eight wins in nine games against Arsenal from 1983-85, the most dominant period that either side has ever enjoyed in this fixture. Arsenal did at least beat United to the signing of Celtic superstar Charlie Nicholas, who took an instant dislike to Atkinson when they met in the summer of 1983. The pair, along with the United chairman Martin Edwards, discussed a possible transfer over steak and chips. Nicholas’s mind was made up when Atkinson whipped a gold medallion out of his shirt, popped a button and pulled out a toothpick. “I thought ‘I cannot play for a man like you – that is absolutely ridiculous’,” said Nicholas. “I couldn’t wait to get away.”

The eyecatching signing of Nicholas, who was also wanted by Liverpool, didn't change much on the field. United, who had not done the league double over Arsenal since the sixties, did it in consecutive seasons from 1983-85.

Though the games were generally close, United were just a bit tougher and a bit more skilful – and deep down, both sides knew it. When United trailed at half-time in that FA Cup semi-final in April 1983, Atkinson was relaxed. “That was the easiest team-talk I've ever given,” he says. “We were one-down and I said, ‘Get your cup of tea drunk, go back out and keep playing exactly the same way, you'll beat 'em easy. They ain't good enough to stop you.’”

The relationship between the two sides in the early to mid-80s was summed up by a 43-second period in the second half of that game. First, Whiteside, a boy-mountain up front, gave the fit-again O'Leary a retaliatory hoof up the trousers after being fouled near the halfway line. A free-kick was given against Arsenal for the original foul by O'Leary, and moments later Whiteside applied similar force to a bouncing ball to score a spectacular winning goal. You can probably see it in your mind's eye: Arthur Albiston's volleyed lob in behind the defence, Whiteside moving on to it, jogging on the spot impatiently as he waits for it to drop, before detonating it past George Wood. As Whiteside received the adoration of tens of thousands, Albiston jumped into the arms of the physio Jim McGregor, cupped his cheeks and gave him an impromptu smacker.

That goal is one of the main exhibits of Whiteside's astonishing precociousness. What is less well remembered is that he had been the best player on the field. In a frantic game, which looks fast even by modern standards, his awareness, intelligence and touch stood out a mile. He was 17 years old.

In the space of two months and three cup semi-finals, the fading glamour of Arsenal v United had been replaced by a rapidly escalating animosity. At the end of the FA Cup semi-final, as Atkinson and the United midfielder Ashley Grimes were interviewed for television outside the ground, the Arsenal fans pelted them were pelted with bottles and rusty hinges.

All connected with Arsenal were developing quite a distaste for United, particularly Moses and Whiteside. Hatred is a mystery of human chemistry, same as love; for some reason – even though there were hard men in every First Division team – Arsenal and United’s came together like nitroglycerin and gunpowder.

Moses had completed a hat-trick of cautions in the semi-finals against Arsenal, quite an achievement at a time when having your name taken was still an event. The two teams had contrasting views as to where Moses sat on the hard/filthy scale. Moses tackled everything that moved, and was so fast that he usually got something on either the ball, the man or both. He was often described as a terrier; when a terrier only has eyes for the ball, there's always the danger that somebody will get a little nip. And Moses didn’t give a fuck who it was.

The fixture list soon gave Arsenal the chance for revenge of sorts. The teams met again on May Day, for the fourth time in less than three months, towards the end of the league season. Liverpool were 14 points clear and about to clinch the title. United, in third, were almost guaranteed to qualify for Europe in one competition; Arsenal, in 12th, had no realistic chance of doing so.

The attendance of 23,602 is the lowest since the war for an Arsenal/United match. Injuries meant that both sides fielded heavily weakened sides, but there was residue in the air from those cup semi-finals. Before the game, United's mild-mannered captain Ray Wilkins amiably informed the referee, Eric Read, that he might be in for a busy afternoon. He had no idea.

After a relatively quiet first half, Whiteside, still five days away from his 18th birthday, enlivened the match with vigorous assaults on Brian McDermott, Vladimir Petrovic and Kenny Sansom. “Whiteside,” wrote Peter Ball in his match report in the Times, “has the ability to start a brawl in a graveyard.”

Even Wilkins was swept along by it all – he was cautioned for a chest-high tackle on O’Leary, and that’s a generous description: those who were there usually describe it as a kung-fu kick.

Arsenal won 3-0 thanks to a goal from O’Leary and two from Talbot, who had also scored a hat-trick against Manchester City in Arsenal’s previous home game. But the game isn’t remembered for the scoreline. With a few minutes remaining, months of resentment came to the boil. The referee Read was following the play when something happened behind his back. “I heard a commotion from the crowd and a few players,” he says. “I turned round and Peter Nicholas was on the floor.”

Arsenal's players had rounded on Remi Moses, and Read went over to consult one of his linesmen. “Clear headbutt,” he was told. “He got him.”

Moses was sent off, which meant he would miss the FA Cup final. That was a huge deal in those days, with the FA Cup in its imperial phase, and United’s players vainly implored Read to show some leniency.

On the touchline, Atkinson's permatan turned puce. He had seen the incident and was certain Nicholas had faked the extent of the contact when the two players went head to head. Atkinson had been at Wembley the previous week to watch England play Hungary when he got chatting to Talbot, the Arsenal midfielder. Atkinson’s memory is that Talbot told him, without specifying the methodology, that Arsenal were going to “get Moses”.

Atkinson laughed it off at the time; not so much five days later. “Remi was stitched up,” he says now. “We'd ruined their season, and Remi had sorted a few of their boys out. They didn't like it.”

His frustration was compounded by his feeling that Read had taken the advice of the wrong linesman, and that the other one – who had been next to Atkinson when it happened – had a better view. After a few minutes of being harassed by Atkinson, the linesman on that side called the referee over.

“He said, ‘Eric, Atkinson's giving me a helluva lot of stick’,” remembers Read, who then ran over to address the United manager.

“Mr Atkinson!”

“Hang on a minute, even my company's sergeant major didn't shout at me like that!"

As a testy exchange continued, Atkinson reached for the kind of language not traditionally deployed when speaking to a superior. “I told him not to treat me as though I was in the Army,” said Atkinson after the game. “I may have used an expletive.”

It was out of character for Atkinson, who was sent off for the first time in his career. He and the team drowned their frustrations in London that night. They were in the middle of a fixture pile-up, with their last six leagues games squashed into a two-week period. But within that there was a five-day window before the next game, so Atkinson did the decent thing and scheduled a trip to Majorca. They left the following morning, although some of the players didn’t feel like what they oughta.

“The lads are flying off to Spain tomorrow and I went with them to the Hilton at Gatwick and, for no particular reason, got absolutely plastered,” wrote Coppell, who was struggling with the knee injury that would end his career later in the year, in his diary. “The manager came down to complain about the noise at around 3.30am, but after he had gone back to bed our behaviour grew progressively worse. I vaguely remember trying to toss Ray Wilkins’s shoes onto a huge model aeroplane that was suspended from the ceiling in the foyer before finally crawling into bed at around 6am … I suffered all the usual regrets when, after an hour’s deep sleep, I crawled out of bed to go back to Manchester on the empty team bus.”

The story blew up while the United players were away. After the game Atkinson had accused Howe, the Arsenal coach, of trying to get Whiteside and Moses sent off. Howe said it was “complete nonsense” and threatened to take the matter to the FA. That row faded away, but the story of the FA Cup final dragged on. For a while it looked like Atkinson, who was charged with bringing the game into disrepute, would be banned from the touchline – and from leading the team out at Wembley, a highlight of any young manager's career.

Eventually he was charged with bringing the game into disrepute but allowed to be on the bench at Wembley. There was no such reprieve for Moses, so he missed the final against Brighton – and, as it turned out, the replay as well. After an almighty scare in the first game, which finished 2-2, United hammered Brighton 4-0 to win their first trophy in six years.

There was no footage of the Arsenal game, so the incident was one team’s word against the other. It still is, over 40 years later. Nicholas and the Arsenal players said it was a full headbutt and that, even though he appeared after the game without any marks of his face, he had needed an ice pack on his face in the dressing-room.

“I don't remember meeting Ron Atkinson at the England game,” says Talbot now. “He must have a better memory than me! I don't believe there was ever a plan at all – and it's difficult for any player to suggest how a game might develop and that they would purposely try to get another player sent off.”

Nicholas and Moses were 23 and 22 years old, yet they only ever shared a football field once more in their careers. Nicholas moved to second division Crystal Palace that summer, where he was later managed by Coppell, who had been at United in 1983. One day, he casually asked Nicholas what had happened with Moses that day. Nicholas burst out laughing and walked off.