Arsenal wins the FA Cup in its yellow away-kit...in 1979

It was a glorious game, as Arsenal went up on the 12th minute after a brilliant exchange: Stapleton worked his way down the right flank and threaded a pass into the box to Brady, who drew out Manchester United‘s keeper before putting the back across the goal for Talbot to finish.

The second was just as exquisite, as Brady, who eviscerated the United defense all day, dribbled past two or three defenders, shrugging off several fouls in the process, and lofted a lovely little cross towards Stapleton just outside the 6, who coolly nodded it home. This might have been an era dominated by hoof-and-hope football, but we can almost see the genesis of Arsenal soccer in these goals—intelligent movement, insightful passing, befuddled defenses. If only that were it.

United managed to pull two back, and I don’t think I’m too churlish in suggesting that each was the product of a bit of blind luck—the first involved a set-piece received outside the opposite side of the box, blindly sent back in and poked home, and the second involved a blindly lofted ball (kicked forward without looking to see who’s making a run) and some sloppy defending.

At any rate, a match that looked all but decided since before halftime was knotted up, and all of the momentum was going United’s way: two goals in two minutes, both in the last five minutes of regulation. Even if Arsenal could hold on, it seemed like all of the confidence on the Arsenal side was fading while, on United’s side, it was surging. As the announcer called it, Arsenal was “gobstruck”.

The ensuing kick-off, however, put things right again.

Even as United’s fans continued to cheer and the announcers continued to extol the goal, Arsenal reloaded. As the announcer continued to explain the comeback by saying, ‘The despair on the face of Don Howard, Terry Neill…”, he had to shift gears abruptly as Brady collected the ball and pressed through the middle, finding Graham Rix on the left-flank, and Rix floated a beauty of a cross to the far-post, beating Gary Bailey who had come off his line, and finding Sunderland waiting to send it home.

Mere seconds after commenting on Neill’s despair, the announcer followed by saying, “but wait moment! It’s there by Sunderland!” 3-2 Arsenal. Pandemonium ensued. The 89th-minute goal stood, and seconds later, it was over.

Sadly, I missed it. ESPN, the station on which I first discovered Arsenal, didn’t come into existence until September 1979, four months after this moment of glory. The choice of an away-kit that so closely resembles the 1979 away-kit, though, thrills me. It connects me to the club’s past, extending beyond what was available to me in my youth.

It reconnects us all to a moment of glory—but it does so without saddling the current squad with yet another comparison to the Invincibles. It also serves to remind us that the moments of glory are sometimes, by necessity, placed like oases, surrounded by seemingly endless stretches of harsh, barren desert. It would be 14 years before we won another FA Cup, and it would be 10 years before we would win a league title.

Now, as we prepare to enter the 2013-14 season, there are a lot of reasons for optimism. The design of this away-kit, I’d submit, is one of them. I won’t go so far as to say that we’re going to win the FA Cup. The tea-leaves I’m reading, however, all suggest that it’s going to be a banner-year for the Gunners. Right. Let’s make it happen: sign Higuain. See about Rooney and Cesar. And start kicking left and right!