‘Never thought in my life I’d find myself saying this,’ muses George Graham as we sit down for lunch.
‘Never crossed my mind I would admit feeling truly sorry for the referees. But the way the Premier League is going, their job’s become impossible.’
No prizes, folks, for guessing where this conversation is going.
We had just watched Arsenal fail to muscle any of their corners or free-kicks into goals and consequently lose the Carabao Cup final to Manchester City.
There could be no escaping the raging debate about the legality of what is euphemistically called the ‘physicality’ of the unarmed combat which more and more of the leading clubs are applying to set-pieces.
George still loves the Arsenal, with whom he reached the twin peaks of his career. First as player, then manager. So he refrains from lasering the focus on to Mikel Arteta and his macho team for mastering the dark arts.
George Graham’s affection for Arsenal, where he flourished as both a player and manager, is undimmed. But he despairs at modern football’s obsession with set-pieces
‘OK, they’re the best at it,’ says Graham. If that is an appropriate way of defining the carnage they bring to the goalmouth. ‘But they’re not alone. And if others are getting away with it, what are they supposed to do?’
He catalogues some of the crimes: The bear-hugging, wrestling opponents to the ground, pushing and shoving and blocking players off the ball, wrenching arms almost out of their sockets, the non-stop shirt-pulling, the elbowing, the head-banging, the clambering onto rivals’ shoulders.
‘It’s not only in the box but all over the pitch now,’ he points out. ‘If they’re not fouls, what are? But few are given. Rarely blown up. Even when there is dangerous mugging of goalkeepers. Who I also feel sorry for.
‘The referees are always under pressure to keep the game flowing. So they only penalise a few of the worst offences. Otherwise there would be free-kick after free-kick, penalties galore and a procession of more players being sent off for repeat offences than would be left on the pitch to finish matches. None of us want to watch that. Our game is being dragged down a steep decline. Do the fans want to watch this? Don’t think so.’
‘So what’s the answer, George?’ His reply: ‘Can’t blame the players for what they’re being told to do. Nor only the managers, because they can’t just let their rivals have an illegal edge in a business which is first and foremost about winning. ‘
So the referees? ‘It’s not only their fault. There’s obviously no directives from the FA or the Premier League about clamping down. It needs a crisis meeting of all parties. And soon. To put a stop to this stuff before it gets worse and ends up ruining football. Our domestic football, that is. Because it doesn’t look like it’s happening abroad.’
This, from the elegant, creative international footballer turned manager who understood that ‘winning teams are built from the back’. George smiles at the irony as he recalls: ‘It was me who our crowd at Highbury were getting behind when they chanted “to the Arsenal one-nil”. And I was the one the fans at away grounds were getting at when they shouted “to the Arsenal nil-nil”. And, yes, I always based my managing on having a rock-solid back four.
‘That was part of my upbringing. In our family we had nothing to give away. So I drummed into my defenders to give nothing away. If teams want to score against us, make them work damn hard for it. But for us defending was a manly art. Not professional wrestling on steroids. ‘
Graham won two league titles as Arsenal boss, with his team’s success built on their rock-solid back four
The Arsenal dressing room celebrate their famous victory at Anfield in 1989, which sealed the First Division. ‘None of us expected to win,’ admits Graham
That, for the record, is an observation on methods not an allegation of substance abuse. Methods which left television with highlights of an excruciating first half at Wembley which – after an early glimpse of Kai Havertz’s thrice-saved attempt – was comprised almost entirely of a posse of Arsenal defenders striving and straining to subdue City’s Erling Haaland by any means, fair and foul.
Embarrassing? ‘Well,’ says George, ‘there are other ways of skinning the cat.’
Which takes our chat back to the balmy Merseyside evening of May 26, 1989 and the closest, most astoundingly dramatic climax to any season in the history of the First Division.
Graham took his Arsenal team north knowing that to claim the title they would have to win by two clear goals in a match held over beyond the fag end of the season so Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool could begin the city’s painful recovering from the Hillsborough disaster.
‘You Haven’t Got A Prayer Arsenal’ read the banner headline of one Fleet Street daily.
‘To be honest,’ says George, ‘nobody ever went to Anfield expecting to win. Definitely not by two goals. Absolutely not in a match of this magnitude. But I’ve been a hard worker all my life.’
Then he digresses: ‘My mum instilled that into all of us. I was born and bred in a wee house in a tiny village (Bargeddie) on the outskirts of Glasgow. My dad died when I was a child. My mother worked on seasonal farms while somehow bringing us up. There was little money. My brothers went to work young to put food on the table and to give me the chance to play football.
‘When I did well for Scotland Schoolboys every big club in the country sent letters asking if I’d be interested. For some reason I picked Aston Villa, and by hard work I made it there and at Chelsea, Arsenal and Man United. I’ve never known how I got the nickname Stroller (by finding time and space where there was none, George) – and I never put more work into any game playing or managing than for that one at Liverpool.
‘There was little money,’ says Graham of his childhood. ‘My brothers went to work young to put food on the table and to give me the chance to play football’
On the pitch at Anfield after his side’s miraculous title win. ‘I didn’t want us going into it all emotionally charged,’ he recalls. ‘You would never beat Liverpool with a cavalry charge’
‘Every player knew the job he had to do, down to the smallest detail. They all knew what was expected of them but also what to expect from Liverpool. Not only the threats but also the tiny flaws we might exploit.’
He also made an unexpected variation to that renowned defence. He deployed David O’Leary at sweeper. Thereby changing formation from a classic 4-4-2 to 1-4-3-2 which not only closed more channels to Liverpool’s array of potential goalscorers but also encouraged full backs Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn to break out along the flanks.
‘All well and good,’ says Graham. ‘But the most important decision had nothing to do with tactics. Like everyone else we usually stayed in Liverpool overnight before the game. The players were shocked when I told them we’d be going up by coach on the day of the match. A four-and-a-half-hour drive. There was method to my madness.
‘Liverpool is a special place. Such passion for its football. They are all over visiting teams when they reach the hotels, who do their bit by letting lots of fans into the public areas to jibe with your players and do nothing to stop the noise outside the bedroom windows all night. The most popular chant: “You might as well go home now you southern softies.”
‘I didn’t want the hostility to burn up our nervous energy. We needed all our minds focused on the challenge of the match and to be ready for that fantastic atmosphere in the stadium. Nor did I want us going into it all emotionally charged. You would never beat Liverpool with a cavalry charge. You’d get cut apart on the counter. We had to play our game.’
Played their game so well that Alan Smith headed Arsenal into the lead shortly after half-time. The Kop was stunned and its heroes grew increasingly nervous. Graham took advantage by suddenly making substitutions which reverted to 4-4-2 and increased the volume of Arsenal’s lightning counter attacks.
The last sortie produced the sensation. A length-of-the-pitch breakaway ended with Michael Thomas making history. In the last seconds of the match, of stoppage time, of the season. It had come down to the top two teams finishing level on points, level on goal difference and with Arsenal as champions by having scored more goals than Liverpool’s shot-blazing armada led by the legendary Ian Rush, Peter Beardsley, John Barnes, Steve McMahon and John Aldridge.
‘Eight goals more, by the way,’ reminisces George, who would be acclaimed for changing the English game at the end of the Football League’s 100th season with the speed and angles of those counter attacks. We clink our wine glasses to that.
‘I learned so much under Terry (Venables),’ says Graham. ‘He was one of the most brilliant coaches ever, and invented pressing’
‘Love the nostalgia,’ he says, looking round a dining room newly restored to its historic glory after being mothballed at the onset of Covid, in goodly time for its 200th anniversary. Simpson’s-in-the-Strand first opened its oak doors in 1828. Enough of the fabled silver trolleys on which a copious range of meats are carved at your table have been retrieved from auction buyers for that tradition to be revived. This is our first time back since the reopening of one of the venues for our old gang’s monthly lunches.
Bobby Moore; Terry Venables; Bobby Keetch, the swashbuckling blonde centre half for QPR; Mike Kelly who kept goal for the same team and was England’s goalkeeping coach for several years; Dave Metchick who holds the peculiar record of scoring every time he faced the great Gordon Banks for a handful of London clubs; pioneers of football on television Mike Murphy and John Bromley. All were among the regulars.
George Best turned up on occasion, which probably explains why lunch often drifted into dinner without us leaving the table. How could we eat so much meat washed down by so many flagons of claret? By no means all are still with us to help answer.
Mr Graham and I did our best to honour that tradition. Summoning thick cuts of the finest Devonshire beef, of course. Then back to the future, addressing the football matters of the moment.
‘Boring, boring Arsenal?’ asks George, then giving this reply himself: ‘Look, if I was manager now I’d probably have had to do much the same. Not that I would have liked it much. I was never asked at Villa, Chelsea, United or with Scotland to do the things that are becoming common now. Nor did I ever ask any players to do that stuff. But then I never hired a set-piece coach to take up half of every day’s training.’
Graham, as handsome and debonair as ever at 81, is regularly invited to the Emirates for big matches, with his lovely wife Susan. He says: ‘I’ve bumped into Mikel sometimes and we’ve had quick chats. Just pleasantries. Nothing profound. Nice man. One of our things in common, is having someone very good influence us. I learned so much under Terry (Venables), one of the most brilliant coaches ever, who invented pressing. Then I added my bit, firming up defence.
‘Mikel worked all those seasons with Pep Guardiola and picked up the handbook on possession football. Now he’s adding playing for corners and maximising those as well as angled free-kicks with all that mayhem in the box.
Graham is regularly invited to the Emirates for big matches. ‘I’ve bumped into Mikel Arteta sometimes – he’s a nice man,’ he says
‘I wish him well. Not least because if he doesn’t get over the line this season, everyone there will be facing difficult questions. Coming second three years running is not bad at all, but will that be enough? How long can his players keep responding to such hyper-intensive coaching if the rewards don’t come? And who could come in and do better? So many clubs have got rid of good managers only to find themselves worse off.
‘I love Arsenal. Doing the (league and FA Cup) double with them as a player was wonderful. Going to Anfield and beating Liverpool for the title was the greatest moment of my career. I want Arsenal to win the title. They should do it. I expect them to do it. But in this game you never know what’s waiting around the corner.’
As our national game is in danger of finding out if it doesn’t heed George’s warning.
As Dalglish’s Liverpool found out when Graham’s Arsenal turned into Anfield in their team bus.
