Arsènal (21 page)

Initially, the premium products had been offered on a four-year basis with a built-in sweetener guaranteeing protection against possible price increases. However, with a less-than-anticipated take-up the board were forced to review their policy and offer both boxes and seats on one-year terms. The corporate market, though, is fickle. With Wembley a substantial competitor for the entertainment pound, whether companies will continue to give Arsenal their custom may well in the short term be dependent on Arsène Wenger continuing to produce immodest results from modest spending.

Due to the heady mix of success, stars and entertainment, Highbury had proved resistant to any drop-off in attendances, despite hefty annual rises in ticket prices. However, the Emirates' pricing policy is a quantum leap from anything that had previously been experienced, par ticularly by the irregular supporter. 15,000 tickets, of which 3,000 are allocated to the away fans, are made available on a match-by-match basis. Of the remaining 12,000, the majority are in the more expensive upper tier (most of the cheaper lower tier having been snapped up by season-ticket holders). For the first two seasons' Grade B matches against less attractive opponents, upstairs prices ranged from £38 to £66, whilst for Grade A fixtures (five of the most in-demand league games and selected cup ties) the same tickets started at £55 and went all the way to £94. In 2004 Peter Hill-Wood described these prices as “awful. And they're not going to come down a lot. We're going to try and keep the prices at a level where the lower priced seats – £30, it's still a lot of money – are going to be very comparable with what they are at Highbury.” In 2008, he was forced to take a more pragmatic stance. “Entertainment's an expensive business. But we've got a lot of people on the waiting list wanting tickets [over 40,000] so presumably we haven't priced ourselves out of the market.” What tends to happen when silver members come to book is that all of the cheaper seats sell out quite quickly. So when, a month later, these tickets go on sale to the red members, the beggars at the bottom of the pile can't be choosers despite the often astronomical costs of the remaining tickets.

There are signs that as time goes on, more Grade B matches might have to go on general sale as the novelty factor wears off, whilst heaven forbid if it was coupled with a run of failure and the board might have to contemplate a less-than-capacity crowd. However, given the choice, they would probably prefer a 50,000 crowd paying top dollar than to lower the cost of entry to try to ensure a sell-out and run the risk of less net income. Managing Director Keith Edelman stated at a shareholders' Extraordinary General Meeting in July 2006 (to approve the refinancing of the club's loan) that an average attendance of 22,000 was required for the club to break even and cover its interest charges. Asked at the AGM three months later to clarify whether this meant 9,000 middle tier supporters and 13,000 from the other tiers, Edelman denied he had never given any minimum figure, and said that anyway 32,000 was the break-even number, spread evenly over the three tiers. He was dismissive of the notion that such a scenario would ever seriously require testing, saying it was merely a model that the banks required, but ultimately an irrelevance as he could not envisage ever getting such a low attendance. And if the current practice of always recording an attendance of 60,000 despite the obviously paid-for but empty seats persists, you can follow his thought process.

The stadium's first ever matchday (22nd July 2006) was the third and final trial run, a testimonial match for Dennis Bergkamp, with a capacity limit of 55,000. Arsène Wenger kicked a giant inflatable football towards the north end of the stadium. Supported by guide ropes, it should have entered the goal. However, the manager missed the target as a gust of wind took it onto the crossbar. It was as far off target as the board's promise that the manager could buy any player he wanted. The figures looked good on paper, but in terms of ready cash, Arsenal had none. The shortfall was down to having received and spent on the stadium the revenue from Nike, the Emirates and the corporate box and season tickets. Club Level renewals would soon be brought forward as interest payments on the two initial loans of £210 million and £50 million were due. These were subsequently renegotiated on a 25-year term but still left the club with annual interest payments of £18 million together with almost half as much again for the property loans. In 2008, at a traumatic time for the lending market, the stadium interest payments (at around 10% of total turnover) look like a smart piece of business. Additionally, deals like the one which brought Theo Walcott to the club have been negotiated so that the transfer fees are paid in instalments, and many millions can be outstanding at any time. A good portion of the cash balance has to remain untouched to cover those payments, which customarily kick in after a certain number of appearances.

As the curtain rose on the 2007/08 season, despite playing to capacity crowds in the brave new world of the Emirates, in one sense, nothing had changed. Arsenal were still relying on their manager to buck the odds, a phenomenon by now taken for granted. But the grandeur of the surroundings merely disguised the reality that the man at the centre of it all was finding his task increasingly difficult.

CHAPTER TEN

An hour and a half or so before matches at Highbury, Arsenal's players used to disembark from their coach having consumed their pre-match meal at their Chelsea Harbour hotel and made the short journey across town. Parked up outside the main entrance on Avenell Road, their few steps between the coach and the marble hall were invariably witnessed by hordes of fans patiently waiting behind crash barriers. For young children especially, it was a thrill to be so close to their heroes. They could shout encouragement and receive nods and waves of acknowledgement in response. At the Emirates the team coach, with its blacked out windows, arrives at the entrance in Hornsey Road. On a dull day it may just be possible to make out the silhouettes of the passengers before the electronic gate opens to admit the vehicle into the bowels of the stadium. It stops directly outside the players' entrance and the dressing room is reached without a supporter in sight. The ‘Unbeatables' of 2004 have metamorphosised into the ‘Untouchables' of today.

With the move to their new home, an estrangement has grown between the fans and the players. The physical distance between the two groups and the disparity between the outrageous sums paid to these athletes and the earnings of the working man ensure there is far less empathy with the personalities who pull on the shirts. The days when Charlie George – who supported the team as a kid from the North Bank – would proudly wear the Arsenal shirt, providing a tangible bond between crowd and performer, belong to a bygone age.

Sadly, Arsène Wenger prefers it this way, with any distraction on matchdays avoided. In his single-mindedness he has – whilst forging a new identity for Arsenal – allowed something of the bond that binds the supporters to the club to slacken. Wenger often reflects on the special atmosphere at English grounds. “The first time I arrived in the UK,” he recalls, “I saw a match at Anfield [Liverpool against Manchester United] and I got a terrible shock. I had no idea football could create such passion.” Yet he is unwittingly undermining the communal feeling between spectators and performers by maintaining a policy of protecting the squad from any diversion. Of course he is not intending to drive a wedge between the two parties but with his desire for total control when his players are on duty he has perhaps neglected the value of good PR. Perhaps while the fans continue to stream through the turnstiles, the consequences of a loosen ing of the chains of loyalty can be put aside for the moment.

Thursday 20th July 2006 saw what the club termed a Members' Day at the Emirates. It was the second of the three scheduled trial runs ahead of the first competitive fixture. At no cost, although limited in numbers through advance booking, several thousand fans were invited to watch the players go through a training session on the virgin pitch. However, due to the stipulations of the safety certificate, only the upper tiers were being utilised, thereby segregating the supporters from their favourites. (Two open training sessions had been held at Highbury where fans had also been restricted to the upper tiers.) Further, as the timing was less than three weeks after the World Cup finals had ended in Germany, only four of the 16 Arsenal representatives who had been at the tournament (new signing Tomas Rosicky, Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Emmanuel Adebayor) managed to make it onto the pitch and they exercised apart from their colleagues, who comprised principally reserve and youth team players, some of whom had not even set foot in the stadium before and could not find the players' entrance. Two had had to be admitted via the Armoury, the club's new flagship store, where Managing Director Keith Edelman, despite not recognising the youngsters, had ushered them in after the security staff had brought the problem to his attention. In fairness to Edelman, the duo were not known by any of the fans queuing to get into the shop either, and so it was no surprise that what grabbed the attention once inside was the environment rather than anything that was happening on the pitch.

The session concluded with a somewhat feeble attempt to kick giveaway footballs into the upper tier where the fans were gathered. Given the manager's distaste for the tactic of gaining territory with scant regard for possession, it was fitting that most of his charges were unable to get the appropriate amount of ‘welly' and that most of the balls fell well short of their target and came back down to rest in the lower-tier seats. Although it meant most of the supporters went home disappointedly empty-handed, the failure to reach the target could be said to embody the difference between Arsenal of 2006 and the ‘Row Z' clearances that were a habitual feature of the George Graham era. Nevertheless it was poor PR. The ‘special' day compared unfavourably with the way other clubs act. At Stamford Bridge and White Hart Lane of all places, supporters are not only downstairs, but the players spend time at pitchside signing autographs and posing for photos. On subsequent members' days at the Emirates, the lower tiers were opened so that at least the public could get closer to the action. But there was no interaction. Even on a December Monday when the first-team players merely warmed down from their weekend exertions before sitting in the centre circle watching the second stringers do the serious stuff with a Carling Cup game on the horizon, there was no attempt to stroll over towards the fans. They were of course merely following the manager's orders. There was to be no fraternising. This was a straightforward routine session that just happened to be transposed from London Colney and was to be treated as such with no regard for the onlookers.

If training is a rehearsal to be undertaken seriously at all times, then the training ground is Wenger's workplace and the pitches the tools of his trade. As a perfectionist in the art of preparation he must therefore have been horrified with the dismal quality of the conditions he was forced to work in on his arrival. Arsenal didn't even possess their own training centre. Rented from University College, London, it was a far cry from the well appointed Monaco training ground at La Turbie in the hills above Nice which Wenger was accustomed to; and his eighteen months at Grampus 8 had given him no cause for complaint.

The manager was so keen to upgrade Arsenal's facilities that the players joked about an ‘Arson Wenger' being responsible for the fire that destroyed the out of date changing rooms. When questioned by Remi Garde, one of his first signings in London, in an interview for French television to celebrate his decade of service at Highbury, the former utility player asked, with his tongue firmly in his cheek, “Do you remember that you set fire to the place in order to get a new one built?” “I can assure you today,” replied the accused, “that it was a true accident. That it burnt down was certainly a stroke of luck as it helped accelerate the building of a new centre and the development of the club.” The unspoken thought was that Wenger could now build his secret empire, away from prying eyes with outsiders only tolerated as and when necessary.

He had another immediate stroke of luck with the exceptionally generous gift by Real Madrid of £23 million in exchange for Nicolas Anelka's services in 1999. There was never any question exactly where the money was going and the builders went to work straight away. Opened later the same year by Arsenal fan and then Minister of Sport, Kate Hoey, the technician now had his priceless laboratory.

First and foremost there are ten full-sized pitches that would grace any Premier League ground, two of which are specially heated to 17°C so that no session ever needs to be postponed even in the coldest of temperatures. Each pitch is used for no more than five consecutive days before being left for ten to recuperate. The pitches are complemented by a gym, a hydrotherapy pool and medical centre, a first-class restaurant, changing rooms and offices. Ironically, the sumptuous centre is sited literally a stone's throw from the old training ground but it is light years away in terms of its conception and self-sufficiency.

With the complex being designed to accommodate the entire squad of first team, reserves and youths, and to simplify the tasks of the coaches and the players at the different levels, according to David Dein, Arsène, “was involved [in the design] down to the last teacup”. Not that there would be much need for this type of crockery, as the traditional heavily sugared workman's tea beloved by British players was now strictly off the menu. Nutritionists and chefs joined an array of medical and fitness specialists to produce a variety of healthy-eating choices that are supervised by Wenger himself.

However, whereas the players needs are prioritised – they also have the use of private, spacious and comfortable changing rooms – the manager's own office is just big enough to meet his basic needs. When one visitor commented on the lack of luxury, Wenger quipped, “I have another one at the stadium and that is modest as well.” In 2003, he said, “I know only three places in London – my house, Highbury and the training ground.” And it is at the training ground that he spends most of his working hours. Left to his own devices, he puts in long shifts in a small ground-floor space with a prosaic view of the car park with photos of, in his own words, his “inspirational captains”, Adams and Vieira, on the walls (Henry is due to join them). The room is divided into two, with a large desk and a three-seat sofa the key items in each section. “The couch is for negotiation and the desk for the agreement [of deals]”, explains Wenger.