What a grafter, running back and forth at his end of the Emirates Stadium for the whole night, the big screen showing veins popping on his forehead from the sheer, crowd-pleasing effort.

No, not one of those overpaid kids who play for Arsenal. I’m talking about Bruce Springsteen, who at nearly 60 can still manage a goalscorer’s knee-slide.

My wife and I, who had last seen him at Wembley 20 years ago, were lucky enough to get tickets at the last minute when a friend of a friend wasn’t able to go.
Nobody works a crowd or himself as hard as Springsteen did for two-and-a-half hours last night, from the mellow mike-to-the-crowd chanting of Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out to the joyous, air-punching encore, when an audience most of whose speediest days were behind them bellowed that “tramps like us, baby we were born to run”. The urge was still there, even if the capability was gone, and Springsteen drew it out.
The man who sang so understandingly in Night in 1975 of those moments when the “boss man’s giving you hell” has long since taken over the running of the firm, but he flogs himself as hard as ever.
He remains committed in other respects, too, though he’s generally happy to let his songs do the talking. About halfway through the set, he played Livin’ In The Future, that cry of a disillusioned patriot from the latest album, Magic:

“My faith’s been torn asunder,
tell me is that rollin’ thunder
Or just the sinkin’ sound
of somethin’ righteous goin’ under?”

He introduced it with a couple of sentences about “extraordinary rendition” and the suspension of habeas corpus – surely the first time any player’s used those words in front of an Arsenal crowd…