One-Nil to the Arsenal: Part 1 - The Gravity of Europe

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1:06Arsenal legend, Alan Smith It was a big thing for us, you know and people maybe look down on the Cotmaners' Cup now people of a younger generation don't quite know what it was all about but there was some very good sides in that year Real Madrid, PSG obviously so we were delighted to be in it and I think we felt probably we'd got a point to prove having got knocked out of the European Cup a couple of years before On May 4th, 1994 Arsenal travelled to Copenhagen undermanned and decidedly as underdogs to face Parma in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final a return to glory for Alan Smith and a performance that was familiar to Arsenal fans by the famous back four would seal a Gunners' win, the club's most significant European achievement in its history.

2:03Three decades later, for a legion of global fans and young fans alike yearning for European glory, that triumph has been largely forgotten or overlooked. But it remains one of the shining moments in Arsenal history. This is 1-0 to the Arsenal, the story of the 94 European Cup Winners' Cup victory. I'm your host, Kent Malmros. We're telling the story of that team in eight parts. Each episode will focus on a unique attribute of the squad, and we'll also move through the season and the European trail chronologically. Part 1, The Gravity of Europe.

2:51Before we tell the story of that team, that season, and that win, we have to set the stage. Why is it worth highlighting a distant 1994 victory and where it stands in the annals of the club's history? Arsenal are one of the most globally supported brands in football. The team's crest sits on the chest of fans all over the world, and its popularity eclipses all but the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, and Liverpool. That fandom is built on a long history of success in England. The FA Cup and league-winning Herbert Chapman teams of the early 30s and Tom Whitaker's post-World War II league winners helped create the mythology of a London club that, by 1952-53, was considered the most successful in English history.

3:48Bertie Mee led Arsenal to a League Cup final appearance in 1968 and 1969 and delivered silverware when his side beat Anderlecht in the 1970 Inner Cities Fairs Cup final. The Fairs Cup was, in its own right, among the biggest competitions in European football, having begun in 1955 by FIFA as a way to help promote cities holding fares, hence the name, After 1964, the teams invited to play qualified only based on league position. This shift made it the predecessor to the UEFA Cup initially and the Europa League eventually, which was why when Arsenal won in 1970, the year before the competition ended, it still carried some weight.

4:39You might think as a modern era fan that winning the equivalent of the Europa League isn't that big a deal. But it was then, and we'll explain why in a bit, when we unpack the history of the Cup Winners' Cup.

4:57Arsenal podcaster Clive Palmer. The European Cup at the time was the bigger trophy, and everyone knew that only the league champions would get there. so it's quite a small competition in some ways but obviously every game felt massive you know everything was a knockout so it felt massive and the other two cup competitions they felt on the par you know UEFA Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup to me it felt on a par other people may not disagree but it's much like the Premier League in 1993 it came in people don't hardly remember the winners of the Premier League or the league championship shall we say before the Premier League came along, it's been reformed in a digital age in our minds that this is what matters now.

5:41And if you think about what Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest did in the European Cup, they're major moments, and it's major moments for those clubs, and it is the senior competition, but it was before the Champions League per se. And so something that very much an Arsenal thing, it belongs in my heart massively because of the way we did it. We did it in an Arsenal way of the time. And that's key. We did it in identity of our manager and what he wanted to do. It fitted everything about us, the underdog mentality. It really did fit. And so it was a great experience.

6:22Two more manager-led periods cemented the team's status among England's elite. George Graham took over the Gunners in 1986 and delivered a League Cup within a year. Then Graham's squad won the league famously at Anfield in 1989 and two years later in 1991 before adding an FA Cup and League Cup double in 1993. Arsene Wenger's reign beginning in 1996 brought historic achievements, the likes of which have never been seen and have not since been matched. It wasn't just the results either. It was the gravity of the players that would define a new footballing aesthetic, connected football that brought a combined tactical discipline and creative flair that have become indelibly etched into the minds of fans.

7:13The Wenger years, fueled by a combination of technological innovation, including broadcast global television and social media, made the red and white Arsenal badge arguably more popular outside of England than it was domestically. As the Gunners' universe grew in scope, so did expectations. The Wenger years ended with a whimper. No European glory ever achieved by the Frenchmen, despite coming close. And if you listened to the dialogue or the online discourse, you'd believe that Arsenal have never sniffed the heights of European success in the modern era. But that's simply not true. The 94 European Cup Winners' Cup stands out as a shining moment in the club's history, and one that for fans of the time, ranks among the greatest days of their life.

8:13Longtime Arsenal fan, Tim Stillman. I think the other thing about the 94 Cup Winners' Cup, the other thing that means something has been lost is because I think people don't appreciate the context of it. First of all, because the tournament literally doesn't exist anymore. But also because of the growth of the Champions League and things like that. I think it's difficult for, shall we say, modern audiences to get their head around the fact that probably the UEFA Cup was a better competition than the European Cup for many years because now we recognise the Champions League as top five, top four of the big leagues, but it was really only the champions.

8:58So you put it in a modern context, this season just gone, Liverpool, Arsenal would have been in the UEFA Cup. It would have only been Manchester City in the European Cup and Arsenal and Liverpool would have been in the UEFA Cup. And then you multiply that across countries. You've got one of Real Madrid in the European Cup, a Barca or a Madrid in the European Cup, then the other's in the UEFA Cup. So you might have a UEFA Cup like Bayern. They would have been in the UEFA Cup because Bayer Leverkusen had won the league in 2024. So you'd be looking at a UEFA Cup with Arsenal, Liverpool, um i forget who won the league one of real madrid or barcelona i forget which one of those won the league in 2024 one of those would have been in it bayern munich would have been in it and the cup winners cup as well i mean the reason that went by the wayside was is not because it was considered a junior competition it is not the equivalent of the conference league the reason they did away with it is obviously because financially things started happening and usually the team that wins it was literally the team that won the domestic cup and it just started happening too often that the team that wins the domestic cup either also wins the league or qualifies for the uefa cup so it kind of became redundant probably like 98 i think they started accepting the second place teams so and you get like group stage and all of that kind of starts happening but at this point the Cup Winners' Cup would have featured many of the elite teams.

10:36And PSG and Parma, and it's difficult again in a modern context to think of Parma this way, Parma were probably the best team in Europe at that point. It just so happened they were in the Cup Winners' Cup rather than the European Cup. I think they finished second in Italy. But these were big, big teams that Arsenal were beating. So it's not like an equivalent of winning the Conference League. the kind of the financial uh playing field i mean we'd have been below siri arsa beating a rich siri arsa side um yeah torino um as well like so you know it's all of those contexts are different and so when you look back unless you have that immediate contemporary context of it it can be difficult to put in its place but this this was not a junior competition and these were not like teams that you'd expect Arsenal to be beating.

11:30Arsenal were underdogs for the semifinal and the final, and rightly so.

11:40There are two reasons the Cup Winners' Cup may have faded on the pages of the history books and not presented itself indelibly into the memories of modern Arsenal fans. The first reason that 94 win has faded into the shadows is that the competition no longer exists, since replaced by others that even overlapped with it at the time. In that regard, it's similar to the Fairs Cup. The second is that, like the Europa League today, it was the second-tier cup of the time. But both of those concepts, when taken together in context, shouldn't diminish the Gunners' victory. In fact, the unique nature of that time should amplify the significance of that silverware.

12:25Let's address the second point first. Today, we know the hierarchy of cups with ease. The Champions League is the top competition followed by Europa League and now Conference League. That reality puts an astonishing nine Premier League teams into European competition at the start of the 2025-26 season. In 1993, when Arsenal was set to begin its quest to win the Cup Winners' Cup, things were dramatically different. There was a second and theoretically more prestigious competition, the Champions League. But it wasn't the same Champions League we know today. Rather, it was the direct descendant of the European Cup, which was also known as the European Championship Club's Cup.

13:09That tournament was established in 1955, inspired by the South American Championship of Champions, also a tournament for club teams. It could also be seen as an expanded version of the Metropa Cup, which had existed in Europe for a long time, but only included clubs from the central and eastern part of Europe. By 1993, the Champions League followed the European Cup model, including winners of national domestic leagues from all over the continent, literally all over Europe, 42 teams from 42 countries to be exact. These clubs would compete in a knockout tournament with two-legged home and away ties, and in 1993-94, Manchester United was the lone representative from England, having won the Premier League title the previous year.

13:58The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, also referred to as the European Cup Winners' Cup, was a competition reserved for the domestic cup winners from leagues around Europe. It was similar to the European Cup in scope, though. A regular August preliminary round was added to reduce the number of entrants, to 32 after the influx of new UEFA member nations during the 1990s. That meant that despite being a second-tier cup of the time, it still boasted Europe's elite teams, and in many cases, depending how quality ebbed and flowed from season to season, it might actually feel the better competition overall during a given season as compared to the European Cup.

14:45Arsenal left back Nigel Winterburn.

15:15These teams have qualified on their own right, but there's that little bit of, actually, we don't really know much about them. So unless they're a really, really huge name, you're right in terms of, as scouting would be, would probably send somebody over to watch them three times. You'd get a detailed written report. you might get the odd back there, you might be able to get the odd video of watching them. So you're looking for anything that will just give you that bit of edge over the team that you're playing. But for me, going into the European competitions was another challenge. It was another big challenge.

16:10on the back of something you've achieved domestically and you want to quit yourself very well.

16:23That was arguably the case in the 93-94 season when Arsenal won the competition. One of the reasons that forgotten moment should be remembered. Consider that by the first week in November, United bombed out of the 93-94 European Cup to Turkish giant Galatasaray after finishing 3-3 in aggregate over two legs, but conceding three away goals at Old Trafford in the first game. That competition was ultimately won by AC Milan, who beat Barcelona 4-0 in the final. The same season, Arsenal had to overcome two Italian giants of their own, both considered at a similar level to Milan's squad that year. George Graham's team also had to outlast PSG in a tournament that included Real Madrid, Benfica, Ajax, and Bayer Leverkusen.

17:14In other words, any given season, the Cup Winners' Cup may have been the better of the two competitions. And the year Arsenal won it, it was a common belief. While Milan won the bigger tournament, Arsenal beat Parma, their Serie A competitor, who had the superior attacking prowess and had destroyed teams throughout Italy. Those concepts are all muddied now, and in large part, based on timing. The Cup Winners' Cup somewhat disappeared. The growing success of UEFA Champions League urged the inclusion of more teams, the forebearer to what we see now. That caused the status of the Cup Winners' Cup to steadily and then rapidly decline.

17:57And after the 98-99 season, it ceased to exist at all. The concept of including domestic cup winners in European tournaments became part of the UEFA Cup, now the Europa League. It's that comparison, how teams enter into Europe now, and what that means, as well as the confusing history of convergence, cancellation, and name change that have potentially taken the shine off of one shining Arsenal moment. But as part of the modern English football landscape, the 94 Cup Winners' Cup triumph should hold cachet. It's silverware that has never tarnished and that now we're trying to polish.

18:45Tim Stillman. Yeah, so for me, this is probably my favorite Cup win. um there's there's a slightly separate more personal context when we win the fa cup in 2020 because my daughter's born on the same day um well actually the day after um so i watched that in very different circumstances but of all our cup wins like all the fa cup wins in particular i've seen i think that i think this trumps them all um i think it trumps them all because obviously it's the only european trophy i've seen but like how it felt at the time and ultimately Arsenal it it wasn't the start of something it really was yeah George Graham gets sacked the next season um actually we go to the final in the next year and that's probably the lowest point actually I've I've ever had as an Arsenal fan so it's not really the start of anything like you say it's really the end I think of of that era it's the last trophy George Graham wins but it but it is a like a George Graham masterclass um like I said like the quality of the teams we beat from the quarterfinal onwards are really really strong and like I said I just think there's something that's very Arsenal about there's something very pre-Wenger Arsenal about it because once Wenger comes in Arsenal probably win trophies in more aesthetically pleasing ways um but that that was complete anathema to us at that stage this was how arsenal won trophies um you know in like the the 70s we don't win that much in the in the 80s but you know this is generally how arsenal did things and so there's something really arsenal about it the fact that like no neutrals delighted in this whatsoever not just because it was an arsenal thing but because of like the way we did it and it felt very um you know it felt very we know you yeah and it was almost like we know you how much you all of you hate this and that actually adds an extra dimension of pleasure and it's probably the last trophy of that era that arsenal win that way because by the time they win the trophy again it's 1998 they win the double under arson wenger their centre-backs are popping up and scoring volleys from the edge of the box.

21:05The world changes, I think, in the ensuing few years and the context of football changes and European competition. This really feels like, you know, obviously you'd put 92, 93 as the line in the sand of when football really changed. Sky Sports come in, the Premier League comes in. But this, obviously, eras don't have a very clean hacksaw end to them. This feels to me more like the end.

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23:19As we explore themes of the season, we'll also dive into the events that defined it. With the context of Europe in the background, the season got underway as it still does in August, with both domestic and European aspirations in the balance. The preseason was defined by change. George Graham continued to tweak the roster, specifically with Europe in mind. The club's longest-serving player, 34-year-old defender David O 'Leary, signed for Leeds, and out-of-favor defender Colin Pates joined Brighton. Irish winger Eddie McGoldrick was brought in from Crystal Palace, an indication of the continued change with an eye towards the Cups.

24:01Graham and his side would get to see where they stacked up, domestically at least, right away. The season began with the 71st FA Charity Shield, against rival Manchester United, widely favored to win the league once again. It was Arsenal's 12th Charity Shield appearance and Manchester United's 17th. It took place at Wembley Stadium on August 7th, 1993, in front of 66 ,519 fans.

24:48you there blocked by Dixon, Irwin who had such a consistent season last season for Manchester United it's over Linegan's head Cantona clips it back, Hughes with the volley, Mark Hughes with a goal for Manchester United

25:10that's a strange one by Giggs Ian Wright how does he do it

25:21Schmeichel doesn't know it a goal to take your breath away barely a chance an instinctive reaction as to where the goal was and he found it. The game finished tied 1-1, and then the Red Devils won the Shield 5-4 on penalties. It was just the second time the Charity Shield was decided on pens. The first came in 1974 when Liverpool beat Leeds United. A week later, the hangover from the Charity Shield defeat lingered, and the club lost its league and home opener 3-0 to Coventry City. Here's John Williams, taking Linnigan with him. Clever back here. Dixon on a loud penalty.

26:08Well, the crowd trying to put off Mickey Quinn. But Coventry have their first goal of the season.

26:23Well, I wonder if there are shades of last season here when Arsenal started so badly on the opening day against Norwich City. Here's Wengerle giving them a problem. And Quinn is there again. That's a terrific goal.

26:45And it's hesitated. Quinn bearing down on Seaman and the goal. And he's got a hat-trick. What a way to start the season. But that was the first and worst of five games in August. Arsenal would go on to win its next four. August 16th brought a 1-0 win away against Tottenham.

27:34Andy Linnigan, the cup final hero, played a part. And right comes the lector, the bitch in celebration. The second header was the scoring header.

27:51Agony for Tottenham, delight for Arsenal. and another away win against Sheffield Wednesday by the same score five days later. Importantly, Ian Wright's incredible season started with a bang in those two contests. Against Spurs, he scored the winner in the 87th minute and against Sheffield Wednesday, his strike came in the ninth minute. Two home games then brought two more home wins. The Gunners beat Leeds 2-1 on August 24th and then Wrighty added two more goals and a 2-0 win over Everton on August 28th.

28:46Europe had yet to begin, but key characteristics of the season to come were being well-defined. The defense, other than the Coventry game, was establishing its dominance, allowing just one goal and four other August matches, and Wright was already firing on all cylinders. September would bring domestic inconsistency, but also the start of the Cup Winners' Cup. We'll cover that in part two.