Arsènal (2 page)

The seeds were sown with the arrival of David Dein in the boardroom in 1983 and continued apace – wondrous deeds on the field being the catalyst for dramatic change off it – taking his (temporary?) demise in 2007 in its stride. Ever onwards and upwards.

The second season in a new 21st century stadium which enabled the club to play catch up on Manchester United and overtake practically everyone else in Europe
en route
seemed a convenient time to take stock of events. With a young team and financial restrictions, expectations were that Arsenal would mark time in 2007/08. But once again Arsène Wenger confounded the sceptics.

Having revolutionised Arsenal, there is still a triumphant ending to be written. But in the meantime here is the story of how a few dedicated men and one unique individual transformed a patrician institution into one of the world's few genuine superclubs.

PREFACE FOR SECOND EDITION

In the dying embers of the 1995/96 season two post-80th minute strikes from a pair of expensive Italian imports, David Platt and Dennis Bergkamp, secured a 2-1 victory over Bolton and sent Highbury into raptures at the prospect of a fifth place finish and UEFA Cup football. Thirteen years on, after the supposedly underwhelming return of Champions League and FA Cup semi-finals, Arsène Wenger's dispirited summing up of the 2008/09 campaign (that also secured a twelfth consecutive crack at the Champions League) was that “I have never worked so hard or been criticised so much.”

How had events reached such an impasse? Here are four new chapters which attempt to explain, with the help of the key protagonists, the fissures in what was believed to be a love story without end and how – with both parties wary of what they might wish for – a reconciliation was effected. At least for the immediate future. Arsène Wenger's current contract expires in 2011.

PROLOGUE

There is a fork in the road where Barnet Lane intersects with Totteridge Lane in north London. Habitually, the silver Mercedes bears left past the church heading for home a few hundred yards further on. Today, though, the driver takes the slip road on the right towards Mill Hill and a couple of minutes later pulls into the driveway of his destination.

Since he heard the sensational news that April afternoon, he has been turning over in his mind the possible implications, and is apprehensive as to what the next few minutes might bring.

After an affectionate greeting between two old friends, Arsène Wenger comes straight to the point. “Do you want me to resign?” he asks.

David Dein is still reeling from his, in his own words, “brutal” dismissal earlier in the day – out of the blue he had been handed a letter terminating his directorship at the club he loved after 24 years. Whilst foe and friend alike were dumbfounded by the abruptness of the sacking, in the words of one of the latter, “David was an accident waiting to happen.” Emboldened as ever by the belief which transformed itself into a mantra over the years, to justify contentious decisions – “I would never do anything to harm Arsenal: I would always act in Arsenal's interest” – he had walked a tightrope ever since the move from Highbury had been prioritised over team building.

Stepping outside his specific responsibility for the playing side, his increasingly independent actions had brought him into conflict with the rest of the board. Haunted by the spectre of being overwhelmed by the huge spending power of Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool and his European rivals, especially Real Madrid, Barcelona, Milan and Internazionale, he was determined to ensure that Arsène Wenger had a comparable war chest. Unfortunately, his search for a wealthy benefactor, especially his clandestine wooing of the American sports entrepreneur, Stan Kroenke, was an irrevocable step too far for his colleagues. His Arsenal role had enabled him to secure an executive seat at the FA, UEFA and G14 and in his favour he encompassed the broader view that those responsibilities entailed. To the regret of the football authorities, at home and abroad, if not his fellow Arsenal directors, he was now yesterday's man. And to add to the ignominy, like a miscreant he had been forced to clear his desk and receive an escort from the Highbury House office building adjacent to the Emirates Stadium.

“No,” Dein replied to Wenger's suggestion that he might resign, “I don't think that would be in the best interests of Arsenal.”

It was the answer Wenger must have been hoping for. Only a few weeks before, he and his wife, Annie, had decided to stay in London (though in fact it would be some months before he would eventually get round to renewing his contract) and had settled on the new school where their daughter, Léa, would begin her secondary education. Besides, he could sense a conclusion to the most exasperating time of his Arsenal tenure. Never allowing himself to luxuriate in the euphoria of victory, it was always onwards and upwards to meet the next challenge. For the fact that, despite having the personnel capable of doing so, Arsenal had never retained the Premiership title or even once won the Champions League, Wenger blamed himself. He felt he had failed; he had certainly failed to live up to his own high expectations.

He was unconcerned about leaving a legacy. Certainly, titles and cups had been won with panache and the innovative training ground and superb playing facilities in the new stadium had been developed according to his precise specifications. But he regarded them only as a means to an end – to facilitate the chances of perpetuating the winning habit and to do so with a flourish. What mattered most was today, the next match, this season.

Paradoxically, limited in how much he could spend on wages and transfers, Wenger had been forced to concentrate on what he enjoyed above all about his job – finding and developing young talent. Now, as the 2007/08 season beckoned, anticipated revenue from his club's new home, for the first time in over two years, would give him money to sprinkle on a star or two to add to the precocious squad he had assembled.

The timing appeared propitious. He could only be optimistic, certain that the new season would see definite progress with the following campaign bringing probable fulfilment. If he left now, there would always be the nagging doubt of what might have been.

Relieved and reassured, he could now concentrate on his mission. There was work to be done and a genuinely exciting future on the horizon. Looking ahead, he had the feeling the best was yet to come.

CHAPTER ONE

“Dead money”, Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood's renowned caustic comment about David Dein's £292,000 purchase of over 1,600 unissued shares in Arsenal Football Club in 1983, proved wildly inaccurate when, in 2007, Dein sold his shareholding (at the time consisting of less than the 16.6% stake he'd bought initially) for £75 million to Red and White Holdings Ltd. The 1983 transaction valued the club at a mere £1.8 million, even after several £1 million transfers had been undertaken, indicating the negligible importance that was then ascribed to a club's assets apart from the players. And in compiling a fortune so large that it could pay for every ticket (at an average price of over £40) for every spectator to see all of Arsenal's home matches for the duration of a season, by the time he sold, Dein had been part of a transformation in English football both on and off the field, and he felt much of it was due to his own contribution.

Yet back in the early 1980s, Dein, a successful entrepreneur through his commodity business, was just another Arsenal fan, albeit an affluent one. Living in Totteridge, both Graham Rix and Tony Woodcock were neighbours and friends, and he and wife Barbara often enjoyed socialising with them. It was a different story watching from the directors' box at a time of decline for the team. Despite three FA Cup Finals, with one outright win between 1978 and 1980, and a European Cup Winners Cup Final, there had been scant success in the league, a poor return for a side filled with gifted personnel. Moreover, in 1980 and 1981, Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton were sold to Juventus and Manchester United respectively, and although star names such as Woodcock and Charlie Nicholas were brought in to replace the former idols, the team still failed to mount a challenge for the title. Dein bought into the club at a time when English football was enduring a lengthy and tortuous trip to rock bottom, underlined by the deaths of 39 Juventus supporters as a result of trouble involving Liverpool fans before the 1985 European Cup Final in Brussels, and the subsequent ban on English clubs from UEFA's competitions for five seasons which cast a long shadow over the game.

In hindsight, one can appreciate Hill-Wood's short-term view of Dein's investment. Dein, however, was intoxicated with the increased involvement his new found status brought. His rise mirrored that of another self-made entrepreneur, property developer Irving Scholar, who took over Tottenham Hotspur in 1982. Both he and Dein had, as younger men, played in the same Sunday league, albeit for different teams, and it was a quirk that, as grammar school boys from the same part of north west London moving in the same circles, they did not come across each other. They quickly became friends once both were effectively running the clubs they loved.

There was a nice irony in their accession as successful young Jewish businessmen that they should have secured key roles as both Arsenal and Tottenham – their large numbers of Jewish fans notwithstanding – epitomised the conservative, ageist and reactionary administrations so prevalent throughout English football at that time. Akin to golf clubs, perhaps Arsenal operated a quota system on how many ‘outsiders' they would allow into their inner sanctum, whilst Tottenham had no choice in the matter, the old regime having been swept aside by a new breed who just happened to be smarter, youthful and Jewish.

From the moment Irving Scholar took over at Tottenham, he set about creating an enterprise that could fund the expensive acquisitions he felt exemplified their swashbuckling image. (He characterised his club and compared them to their greatest rivals, saying, “Whilst Arsenal would spend big money on a defender, Tottenham would spend twice as much on a forward.”)

A groundbreaking merchandising business was created at White Hart Lane and Spurs floated as a plc in 1985, but not before manager Keith Burkinshaw, having accumulated two FA Cups and a UEFA Cup, walked away with the acerbic comment “There used to be a football club over there.” Burkinshaw's prescient criticism proved to be accurate as Tottenham diversified into non-football areas which, instead of providing new revenue opportunities, accumulated debts that compounded the overspending on the rebuilt East Stand, eventually forcing Scholar to sell to Alan Sugar and Terry Venables in 1991. Arguably, to this date Tottenham are still struggling to achieve the success and status they acquired under Burkinshaw's stewardship.

Seeing this turn of events across town must have encouraged Dein to become more proactive. With his share purchase in 1983, he had been invited onto the board in return for the amount by which his outlay had boosted the club's coffers. One of his initial acts was to agitate for the dismissal of then manager Terry Neill, a situation Brian Clough had anticipated. Dein had been introduced to Clough by Ken Friar, the club secretary, when Nottingham Forest were the opponents at Highbury as “our new director”. “Now don't you go making trouble for your manager, young man”, was Clough's immediate and typical response.

It may have been an era when Bob Paisley's Liverpool were the dominating force in England and Europe, but both Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa had shown that the Football League Championship, and indeed the European Cup, were not beyond the reach of a run-of-the-mill First Division club. Smaller than Arsenal in terms of resources, they had built successful teams due to the managerial abilities of the exceptional Brian Clough and Ron Saunders respectively. Arsenal had an excellent cup record, but in the early 1980s never challenged for the league. Terry Neill had been given the funds to buy the best but had by and large failed to produce a team that equalled the sum of its parts. When Brady and Stapleton moved on, both intimated that they were leaving for bigger clubs. Certainly, despite the rich history, there was a feeling that Arsenal were a club marking time, and perhaps had never fully recovered from the 1979/80 season that saw them play 70 matches and reach two cup finals, yet fail in both and miss out on European qualification as well.

Matters came to a head with a League Cup defeat at home to Walsall, two divisions below Arsenal, at the end of November 1983. Less than three weeks later, after two subsequent Division One losses, Neill was given his cards. The Arsenal board were historically very reluctant to dismiss managers (there had been just eleven in 60 years, two of whom had died in the post). But the manager probably knew his time was up when, shortly before the Walsall defeat, he admitted, “The players don't seem to know what it is to hunger for goals and glory. Some days I think they just want to pick up their money and go home. But we'll finish in the top six again this season. Whether or not I'll be around to see it is another matter!”

Increasingly, there were supporter protests on matchdays, demanding Neill's sacking. And Dein, so recently one of their number, empathised with the fans and argued for a change in the manager's office. “I am not a hatchet man,” he said later in relation to Neill's departure, “but I like to think of myself as an action man. And where surgery was needed, I was prepared to recommend it.” Neill had been concerned about the new director's relationship with the players, whilst Dein was obsessed about the club's position in the table. However, if, as Neill said, the players were content to just go through the motions, the inability to motivate them was down to him. Dein could have picked this feeling up from his mates in the squad, even if they felt the nature of their association had changed somewhat now that he was effectively one of their employers rather than a mere fan with whom they could socialise.