February 27, 2010: The Attack On Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey

February 27, 2010: Arsenal Football Club, of North London, travel to Staffordshire in the West Midlands, to play Stoke City, a team already known for its thuggish behavior.

A month earlier, Stoke, hosted Arsenal at the Britannia Stadium (now named the Bet365 Stadium), in the 4th Round of the FA Cup. Stoke played its usual starters, while Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger, surveying what had become an annual event, an injury crisis, fielded a team of prospects and washed-up veterans, and lost, 3-1, getting knocked out of the tournament.

I had begun following and supporting Arsenal the season before, 2008-09, by going into New York City and watching games with British expatriates and American fans of the Premier League, in bars that had the cable-TV package necessary to show the games. For reasons I've since forgotten, I did not make the trip to see this game. And with the cable TV package I had at the time, I could not have watched this game at home. So I only found out about what happened afterward, online.

The game was tied, 1-1 in the 66th minute, Arsenal's goal having come from Nicklas Bendtner, when Aaron Ramsey, a 19-year-old Welsh midfielder who had already begun to make his mark for Arsenal, got tackled by Stoke captain Ryan Shawcross, breaking Ramsey's leg.

This followed incidents from 2006, when the leg of Abou Diaby had been broken by a purposeful tackle by Dan Smith of Sunderland; and 2008, when Eduardo da Silva suffered the same fate from Martin Taylor of Birmingham City.

Arsenal would win the game 3-1, with stoppage-time goals from Cesc Fàbregas and Thomas Vermaelen. They still had a shot at the Premier League title and the UEFA Champions League, but those runs ended up equally broken: Arsenal finished 3rd, 11 points behind League winners Chelsea of West London; and were knocked out of the CL by FC Barcelona in the Quarterfinals.

Shawcross was accused of injuring Ramsey on purpose. The argument from Stoke fans -- and pretty much everybody who hated Arsenal -- was, "He's not that kind of player." He was that kind of player. Andrew Mangan, the Irish fan who has run Arseblog since 2005, called Shawcross "Lennie," after the developmentally-disabled giant in John Steinbeck's novel of Mice and Men, who accidentally kills animals and even a young woman, because he doesn't know his own strength. The difference is, Shawcross knew exactly what he was doing, every time he launched a horror tackle.

Ramsey needed 9 months before he could play again, although, unlike Eduardo, he came back more determined than ever. In spite of Stoke's troglodyte fans singing, "Aaron Ramsey, he walks with a limp," seemed to play particularly well against them.

Ramsey scored the winning goals in the 2014 and 2017 FA Cup Finals, and also played in the victorious 2015 FA Cup for Arsenal. In other words, he won 3 major trophies; while Stoke, in business since 1863, have won just 1, the 1972 League Cup. Ramsey would also be named Captain of the Wales national team.

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February 27, 2010 was a Saturday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NHL was on a break, so that its players who had been selected for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver could play in them.

There were 7 games in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, 120-109 at Madison Square Garden.

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Boston Celtics, 104-96 at the TD Garden in Boston.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Miami Heat, 94-71 at the American Airlines Arena (now the Kaseya Center) in Miami.

* The Indiana Pacers beat the Chicago Bulls, 100-90 at the Conseco Fieldhouse (now the Gainbridge Fieldhouse) in Indianapolis.

* The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Minnesota Timberwolves, 110-91 at the Target Center in Minneapolis.

* The Utah Jazz beat the Houston Rockets, 133-110 at the Delta Center (then the EnergySolutions Arena) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Deron Williams led all scorers on the day with 35 points.

* And the Golden State Warriors beat the Detroit Pistons, 95-88 at the Oracle Arena in Oakland.