By Tom Parsons
June 3 – It’s the end of the season and dreams have either come true or been broken, leaving football fans wanting for more from the football club’s they support. With ‘silly season’ approaching and transfer rumours spreading it’s not always easy for the football teams to generate relevant content on social media for their fans. Arsenal and Manchester City however have excited fans by recreating some of their biggest moments in history on their Twitter feeds.
On 26 May 1989 Arsenal beat Liverpool at Anfield to win their first league title in 18 years in one of the most dramatic conclusions to a football season ever. Arsenal celebrated this on the 25th anniversary of the event by live Tweeting the game as they would do for any current match the club was involved in.
Arsenal’s Twitter following is well over 3 million, and many of the fans enjoyed interacting with the Arsenal account during the 3 hour Twitter session. The club even waited for the exact minute the game kicked off after the original game in 1989 was delayed by traffic. The Arsenal account Tweeted “Hang on folks, we’ve got a delayed kick-off – lots of #Arsenal fans are stuck in traffic. However, the team news is in… #Anfield89”
The game, in which Arsenal needed to win by 2 clear goals, was won in the last minute of injury time by a Michael Thomas goal. The goal resulted in one of the most famous lines from commentator Brian Moore which Arsenal Tweeted: “THOMAS… IT’S UP FOR GRABS NOW! THOMAS! RIGHT AT THE END! #Anfield89 2-0 (90)”.
THOMAS… IT’S UP FOR GRABS NOW! THOMAS! RIGHT AT THE END! #Anfield89 2-0 (90)
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) May 26, 2014
The goal was Retweeted by 3700 people. Arsenal’s account posted pictures, reaction and fans views as they would during any other match for this special occasion.
A few days later, Manchester City ran a similar story for the 15th anniversary of one of their greatest moment’s in history – a moment that changed their fortunes to help them get to where they were today. On the 30 May 1999 City beat Gillingham in the League One (Division 2) play off final at Wembley.
City’s official Twitter account live Tweeted the game with build up to the game, reaction after and all the live action as it took place 15 years ago at that time of day.
Gillingham were 2-0 up going into injury time before Manchester City left it extremely late to draw level before winning on penalties – with the last few being individually Tweeted to add to the drama of the day as it was in 1999.
Like the Arsenal game, the support for the gimmick was huge with many followers retweeting and interacting with the official accounts. Some of the fans were even calling for former City manager Joe Royle to be sacked after the club went 2-0 in the 87th minute!
— Josh Ellingworth (@J_Ellingworth) May 30, 2014
The club asked fans to send in their photographs and memories on the day: “Share your memories and photos from that day using #wembley99 and we will feature the best on the #mcfc site later.”
The hashtag #anfield89 was individually Tweeted nearly 30,000 times and #wembley99 over 5,000 times during the live tweeting of the events.
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