by Unknown
The fire at London Colney in the mid-nineties forced Arsenal players to change in a hotel and train at Highbury, while the youth team changed out of Portacabins at Colney. A backdrop that had been the breeding ground for Charlie George, Liam Brady, Paul Merson and Tony Adams, was now far behind the rest of Europe. With the introduction of Arsene Wenger things were set to change, and quickly.
The landscape of football was also changing, with new money, increased competition and the formation of the Premier League. When George got his brown envelopes confused in 1995, it was time for a drastic change at a football club stuck in the dark ages. Suddenly there were new facilities, a change in diet, a modern structure, and a new style of play.
We had been successful under George Graham, but never world class. Following the 1991 league win, the club never again challenged for the title under the Scot. David Dein wanted to modernise Arsenal, keeping the professional approach that the club was built on under George, but nevertheless, install new forward-thinking principles at the club. In the summer of 1995 the club appointed a short-term ticking time bomb in Bruce Rioch who, despite clashes with Ian Wright and co in the dressing room, guided the Gunners to a respectable sixth-placed finish. A much-needed season of stability following Graham’s fall from grace, heralded the arrival of Dennis Bergkamp and David Platt, marquee signings we were certainly not used to.
However in the summer of 1996, following England’s exit from Euro 1996, Dein was able to convince Wenger to join us, causing all the old school stalwarts to react in shock at his disposition. You’ve heard it all before about Wenger; described sneeringly as a maths teacher, then his utter the cheek for subbing Tony Adams in his first match in charge at Borussia Mönchengladbach, followed by his refusal to speak at half time. Oh, how he has changed.
Wenger’s appointment was announced on August 20th, but he didn’t meet the press until September 22nd (he actually took official charge on September 30th, a Monday morning). “He arrived unnoticed at the training ground,” Lee Dixon famously said. “A meeting was called, the players filed in and in front of us stood this tall, slightly-built man who gave no impression whatsoever of being a football manager.”
Adams in particular had his doubts. “There was a feeling of who the fuck is he and what is he going to do? What is he?”
Little did our Tony know that Wenger’s vision on how a modern football club should be run would influence the likes of Manchester United, Liverpool, Barcelona, and Real Madrid, and have far reaching consequences for the future of professionalism in the sport. Bob Wilson, goalkeeping coach at the time Wenger was installed, and eventually one of his greatest advocates and friends, recalls the first time the Frenchman arrived at the training ground.
“I was sitting in an office at the old training ground we used to lease when in walked Arsene. I remember him saying ‘I do not understand. This is Arsenal? It cannot be Arsenal’. First in his sights was a new training ground, purpose-built and paid for in an ingenious way. He bought Anelka from Paris St Germain for £300,000 and sold him to Real Madrid for £23 million. From that, £12m created the country’s best football training facility. And with the spare £11m he went out and bought another young French player called Thierry Henry. Some business; some brain.”
Wenger had a master-plan following years of amassing an encyclopaedic knowledge of football from spells in France and Japan. With the keys to a football club entrenched in tradition and values gifted to him, our new Gallic leader had the perfect blend of ingredients to put his philosophies into action. Joining him was right hand man, Boro Primorac, and a team of French medics, including Yann Rougier, a specialist in dietary supplements (who had previously developed a remedy to enhance sexual performance), his assistant Hervé Castel, and osteopath Philippe Boixel.
The most immediate changes focused on diet and the application of science to training. Out went favourites like ham, egg, and chips, and in came raw vegetables, steamed fish, boiled chicken, and pasta without the sauces. Wenger never forced this on his players. The benefits soon became obvious, particularly during the Premier League run-in of the 1997/1998 double-winning campaign, where we were noticeably stronger as the season reached its climax.
Training was meticulous. Wenger would give his signal– two minutes to go – during a game of five-a-side. The time would pass without an outcome until Arsene picked up the ball and call, ‘end of session.’ Wrighty, bursting with energy, might protest, ‘next goal wins gaffer!’ but Wenger never broke his measured and controlled programme.
Plyometric stretching was also introduced which benefited the elder statesmen and extended their careers, with many of them extending their careers far longer than the Frenchman believed possible. The stretches were compared to the rack by some of the old guard, painful, but when followed correctly, produced long-lasting effects that ultimately allowed Dixon, Winterburn, Bould, Keown, Adams, Seaman, and even Bergkamp, a few successful extra chapters.
But the training complex was Wenger’s primary concern. He wanted his Mecca of modern football facilities, and his own legacy to be built. Wenger had more or less the final say on all specifications. Firstly, because the board believed in him following the immediate double-winning success, and secondly, because he had clear plans in place, plans he had failed to get off the ground during a seven-year spell at Monaco. The architectural design was based around natural elements, lots of wood and natural light were crucial, and absolutely no mud being allowed in the centre, with players, staff, and visitors having to take shoes off on entrance to the complex. This was an influence from his time in Japan, where an obsession with hygiene emerged. Wenger built a “dirty room” between training pitch and changing-rooms as players were not allowed to sully the inner sanctum. Immediately players would change into flip-flops, dressing gowns, and enter state of the art changing-rooms that took inspiration from the American locker rooms of the NFL. It was a place of Zen-like tranquillity and calm, surrounded by state-of-the-art facilities and techniques.
Wenger insisted six changing rooms were built, intelligently splitting the first team and youth team between two different ends of the complex, with one corridor peeling away to the first team, and the other to the youth set-up; intended to make players think “one day I will walk the other way”, with each corridor adorned with a photography of some of the greatest moments in the club’s history. A swimming pool was built with an adjustable floor and viewing gallery, with Wenger being one of the earliest adopters of the theory that muscular tears and tissue damage could be monitored better in water. While a state-of-the-art gymnasium, massage rooms, treatment rooms, and restaurant were built, in the same area as the restaurant, an area for relaxing was installed, complete with ergonomic sofas purposely designed to prevent slouching. Wenger even insisted that the traditional red and white colours of the club would not adorn the training centre; instead calming pastels and neutral off-whites were chosen.
On average, around 70 footballers use the training facility every day, while at the weekend, the centre stages youth team matches as well as reserve team friendlies. Under the watchful gaze of head groundsman, Steve Braddock, ten full-size pitches complete with under-soil drainage and an automated sprinkler system, are kept in pristine condition; two of them have additional under-soil heating. Each pitch is built to the exact specifications of the playing surface at the Emirates Stadium, with Wenger insistent that conditions should mirror match-days as closely as possible.
Despite its impressive facilities, the Bell Lane development faced heavy opposition due to it being a Greenfield site; the board had to enclose letters of support from then England manager Glenn Hoddle and Barcelona manager Sir Bobby Robson. Ken Friar persuaded the pair to back the project; letters enclosed alongside planning applications to Hertsmere Council, outlined why the facilities would benefit the future of the national side – an argument backed up by the emergence of Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs and given further credence by England’s regular use prior to every inter
national.
With the sale of Anelka and planning permission granted, Wenger now had the go ahead for the most advanced training centre of its kind in the football world. But Wenger continued the development of the facilities and training methods. The Frenchman pioneered the first use of Pro Zone and GPSports (now standard across international and Premier League clubs). The performance analysis product, GPSports, allows Wenger to evaluate performances in training and real-time during matches thanks to the biometric ‘bra’ players are made wear under their shirts. While ProZone was the first electronic software of its kind to record specific post-match and training data, such as yards covered, number of passes completed, as well as a host of other intricate statistics, including scientific data.
And he hasn’t stopped there, with further plans to develop the training ground once more already underway, including a state-of-the-art ‘Desso’ pitch, like the Emirates surface, and the addition of ‘AlterG’ rehabilitation technology – a progressive innovation to help players recover from training and injury, with Nike having invested heavily in the company. The results have been impressive in the NFL in the United States; Wenger is of the belief that it will aid and speed up rehabilitation time significantly.
Wenger introduced a biological and scientific side to training that is now standard across Premier League, Champions League and international set-ups. He was the first; he alone raised the bar for other clubs to become more professional. The far reaching effects of his philosophy have culminated in a new Arsenal, with a modern 60,000 seater stadium, one of the best academies in the world, topped off with being a sustainable club, superbly run, and one renowned for being among the great entertainers in world football. If we look back to dogging in the car park, sausage and mash post match, and 5-aside behind the Clock End, it is simply chalk and cheese.
Wenger is solely responsible for a revolution. No wonder the board gave him the skeleton key to the club.
***
Nigel Brown launched and edited Sport.co.uk. His first Arsenal game was a 1-0 home defeat to Manchester United in 1992 and he has been a season ticket holder ever since. His favourite player of all time is ‘Captain Fantastic’ Tony Adams.
25 – MR F - Nick Ames
The door is slightly ajar when I knock, as it so often is. Ken Friar OBE must have looked out of his office window, or perhaps even walked out onto his balcony overlooking Drayton Park, hundreds of times – surveying the sweeping, poignant panorama of the new Highbury Square development that these days greets his every sideways glance. Now, though, he’s facing squarely the other way and watching the screen of his Mac. It’s August, a particularly busy month in modern-day football, and the man still regarded by all and sundry as ‘Mr Friar’ shows absolutely no sign of letting up. Almost to the day, this is the start of his 62nd year on Arsenal’s permanent staff. When you add another five or so as a temporary employee, he’s been a cog – of every size imaginable – in the Arsenal wheel for comfortably more than half of the club’s 125-year existence. Nobody has embodied the Gunners’ tradition, and its concurrent moving with the times, as adeptly or as selflessly even if, as he puts it with characteristic self-deprecating humour, “I’m still looking for a regular job!”
If the club’s rate of change during the first half-century of his employment could be described as stately, the last decade’s developments have been positively supersonic; it’s rarely been easy and has, as he tells me, often been plain exhausting. The warmth and wit remain, though, as does the twinkle in his eye as he recounts just some of a wealth of Arsenal experiences that will, surely, never be matched.
The beginning seems a very long time ago now, but can we start there? The story of how your involvement with Arsenal began is well-told, but remarkable, and bears repeating.
It’s honestly not a story I’m proud of, just one of those things than happened and I suppose you can’t alter history. I was a young boy and, as boys did then, we were playing football with a tennis ball outside the stadium on Avenell Road. The ball rolled away, and I ran after it as it disappeared underneath a big car. I scrambled under it, trying to rescue the ball, when a voice boomed out: “Boy, what are you doing?” I was scared to death! It turned out to be George Allison, the manager at the time. For some reason, he then told me to come back the following day. Why I obeyed him, I have no idea even now – it would have been easier to run away, and that would have been the end of it. But I returned as directed, and that’s how it all started.
So you went back - and then…
I went back and saw him - he introduced me to the box-office manager of the time and I then started as managing director! No, I began on half a crown a week running messages from the front door to the box office on a match-day. I was at Highbury County, a local grammar school, so this was something extra. But believe me, I still have no idea what made me come back.
But message boy to managing director is still an incredible leap. How did the progression work from there?
When the time to leave school arrived I had various things on the table. I wanted to be a stockbroker, and there was a position with a firm that I was really keen on taking. Five years had passed since I first started working at Arsenal, and the Club had been onto my family saying they’d like me to come and work full-time. My parents agreed, but I wasn’t keen because the salary I’d been offered at the stockbrokers’ office was twice as high – another £1.50 a week – as I’d get at Arsenal. Eventually they won, and I started here as a full-time employee in 1950, on £78 a year. From there, I worked through all kinds of departments. The business was very different then, remember – even when we were still over at Highbury in the early 2000’s, we only had one hundred and nine staff. That’s nearly quadrupled now.
From then, your rise was – in its understated way – meteoric…
Well, it was steady. I first became a bit more involved at boardroom level in 1965 – the club secretary was the big job back then and I was made his assistant. I moved up to become secretary in 1973; then became managing director ten years later. I stayed in that position until a time when I very much thought I’d be playing golf, and ended up deeply involved with Danny Fiszman and the move to Emirates, as you know.
Does the growth you spoke of just now astonish you?
I sometimes sit back, yes, and think of the way the club has changed and evolved. But remember, Nick, you’ve grown up in a period when everything is there. Back then we had no photocopiers, for example. Any reports had to be, typed and if there were twelve copies the girl had to do each one three times with carbon papers. I would produce reports and it would take me perhaps a day to do a report I could now write in five minutes.
Another example for you – tickets. Every ticket was produced by a printing company. They’d arrive in books and then had to be checked physically against the seating plan. Then you’d sell them over the counter and people would queue to buy them from the front entrance in Avenell Road up the hill, down the hill, right along to the tube station – thousands upon thousands of people, when it was a big game. We did all that on very few staff, but now it’s unfathomable to people.
And that’s just part of it – then there were the other areas of the business. Players used to get one-year contracts, there was a fixed salary and every year you’d renew all of the contacts in one day! We didn’t have massive numbers of shareholders or much of a commercial operation – instead we had lotteries that made us a £1000 a week and that felt like a fortune. We eventually had the highest shirt sponsorship deal around, with JVC, for over £100,000 a year and that was a big thing in its day. The scale of things has changed immeasurably.
With that, business practices themselves have moved on. Is it less about the bonhomie now?
It always has been, and still is, very cordial, but you have to remember that, although the bonhomie you mention was always there, the Club was still run like a business. The likes of Sir Samuel Hill-Wood and Sir Bracewell-Smith were both big businesspeople; Denis Hill-W
ood was a senior partner in a stockbroking firm; Peter Hill-Wood was vice-chairman of a bank; Sir Chips Keswick was chairman of one. So it’s not been all “What’s next old chap?” – far from it. Once that door shuts it’s very much a business affair. In the boardroom it’s always been “Chairman” and “Sir” even if we’re on first-name terms, and are very good friends, outside it.
I count twenty major trophies in the cabinet since you started here. It’s such a broad question, but have any been more satisfying than others?
It’s hard to talk about any in particular; there have been so many events, memories and successes. I suppose one had to be the 1970/71 ‘double’ because we’d not won anything since 1953 – we’d endured seventeen years with nothing and suddenly started to win things. That was enormous and such a great satisfaction. There was also 1989 at Anfield of course. But tomorrow’s match is always the most important – that’s a maxim I always stand by.
Seventeen years with nothing perhaps puts the current run into perspective. But it leads me to ask you whether there have ever been any particularly dark periods in the years here – times when you thought the outlook was bleak.
