George arrived at the club in 1986 and we got to the Littlewoods Cup final in that first season and won it. It gave a lot of players including myself a lot of self-belief. During that run we went through three semi-final games against Tottenham – home, away and a replay. To come out victorious in those was a major, major turning point. The belief grew from there. Then we beat Liverpool in the final. It was an interesting scenario because you don’t expect a manager to get you to a cup final in the first year. Particularly given the way the team had been playing in the past five years.
The significance of that game was huge. The first trophy for George and for us. The club was a very different animal then. We had won the FA Cup before that, in 1979, and didn’t win anything much since, which was eight years. Liverpool dominated the country. They were winning everything in sight. Kenny Dalglish was player-manager. He is probably the best player I’ve ever played against. He had an enormous arse and he used to stick his bottom in and turn you and he was very aggressive. It was an era where you could actually come through the centre-forward. But he used to hit you first. I remember I was 17 or 18 playing at Anfield and as he goes to receive the ball – smack – I couldn’t breathe for about ten minutes and he just dropped off and, of course, he’d turn and pick his ball. Unbelievable. Physical, strong, intelligent. They went ahead in the Littlewoods Cup final through Ian Rush, knowing they had this stat behind them – they never lost when he scored. So to turn that around gave us enormous confidence to go on and keep winning and winning and winning.
For that final in 87 George’s team-talk told you a lot about his ideas. He had a flip-chart and went through the whole Liverpool team – you’re talking seasoned internationals who had won titles and championships – and for every player he highlighted a weakness … I think we can get at the two centre-halves – they’re not quick enough. Charlie, you back in, you’ll be all right. In midfield they’re not going to be mobile enough. Jan Molby is a brilliant player but if we can get around him we can break … So instead of talking about all their strengths, he highlighted their weaknesses. You come out of that and think, basically, they’re human. Just footballers. George was very good psychologically as well as tactically. We closed people down, we showed people inside and everybody knew what to do.
The new boys coming into that environment were just thirsty for knowledge. Everybody embraced it from very early on.
My first day I remember going in and the first people I saw in the dressing room were Kenny Sansom, David O’Leary and Tony Adams. I walked in and I was like, what am I doing here? If I could have given the money back I’d have done anything to go back to Stoke at that moment because I was just thinking, I’m so out of my depth. I really want to just go into my comfort zone of playing in the Second Division. But you need to be pushed and you need to push the boundaries and I said to myself, no, come on, this is where you need to be right now. The first day’s training I was all over the place. On a Tuesday we had a ‘phys’ – a physical. There was a red gravel track round Highbury and George used to run the players round there. The lads said, ‘We run all morning and then we go into the gym and do weights. We don’t play any football.’ That was it. We did have a little kickabout in the gym. The lads were putting the ball through my legs. ‘Wahey! We’ve got one here!’ I remember Dave Rocastle nutmegging me after about 20 seconds. But it was good. It was character-building.
We were a bit apprehensive about all these big players leaving the club. That heaps the responsibility on your own shoulders. You’re thinking, we’ve got to carry this club now and I’m not Kenny Sansom. He played 80-odd games for England. It was quite daunting to know that you were now in charge of pushing the club forward but on the other hand it was exciting because we were in the side and George was all about that hunger.
One thing I’d noticed over the years at Arsenal is that you can sign players who look really good at other clubs but they can come to an environment like Arsenal, a big club, and not flourish. When you’re signing players for the top clubs you’ve got to think, can they cope with the intensity, the expectation, the demands? All those players like Lee and Nigel and Bouldy and Alan Smith could. They relished it. They loved that pressure being put on them and I enjoyed that. That’s what kept me on my toes.
I certainly wasn’t thinking about winning the league. I’m just thinking about staying in the team. But George wanted the players to think we’re going to beat everybody. We’re going to be a team. We’re going to create something. We’re going to challenge the best. That’s drilled into you from day one. Tony Adams had been there and he was Mr Arsenal so he educated us on what the club was all about. Day one, you realise why it’s called The Arsenal because they do things in a certain way and there are certain responsibilities as a player. Remember who you are, what you are and who you represent – that was drilled into me by David Rocastle. He used to say it all the time, bless him. When somebody says it to you it makes your shoulders go back. I get goosebumps thinking about it now.
If you were not doing your job 100 per cent out on that pitch you would be told. Someone would tell you and you had to take it in the right way and sometimes it got physical. There might be some pushing and shoving but when a game was finished, or the next day in training, everybody was best mates again. There were no grudges held within that dressing room because the desire of each player to win a game of football was so, so strong. You needed to know very quickly if your standard drops; it wasn’t going to be the manager who was going to leave you out the team, one of your team-mates is going to let you know that you need to pick your game up considerably. Tony was quite good at doing that. He was so annoying because he used to come and tap you on the backside and say, ‘Come on. I know you can do better.’ Yes, I know I can do better. I don’t want you tapping me on the backside and letting me know that. That’s for sure.
The philosophy was: you train like you play. You don’t have days off in training. That’s not what training’s about. You can’t just come in and freewheel because on a Saturday you’ve got to be full on, so you’re full on from Monday to Friday. Every now and again, very rarely, George would have a meeting or he wasn’t there and Theo Foley would take training. That was like a bank holiday. The next day he’d be back in and Theo would tell him that the lads had been messing about so we’d work double hard. The whip was cracked again. We didn’t have any other options because he was teaching us from a base level: this is how you win games and this is how you go and challenge Liverpool and the big teams. I thought, I’m buying into this. It hurts every day being almost hit with a stick, saying do this, do that, run here, run there. You get used to it after a while. It was full on. Train. Train. Train.
Players just need to see a bit of success for all their hard work. We’re doing back four work again and we’re running on a Tuesday and we’re going to do the weights. We had the odd day off on a Wednesday and maybe a game of golf or something like that, but not that often. George was a really tough manager to play under. He was a disciplinarian. He was fierce at times. I was scared of him. I would do anything I could for him to look at me and not have a frown on his face. That for me was gold dust because it meant he wasn’t on my back. The treat for us was he educated us. The treat was three points on a Saturday. The one bit of candy you got was, ‘Well done, you have won the game.’ Our treat was winning.
It was a battle of wills with me and George. He always wanted to get something over on you and I was like, no, I’m not having it. If we’d do something wrong in the training session or if we missed a chance you’d have to do press-ups. I was doing press-ups once and I thought he wasn’t looking so I’m pretending. He sees me and he goes, ‘Come on, do it.’ I said, ‘I have done it,’ and he says, ‘No, no, you’re not getting up until you do it.’ Here we go. So I had to do it and then he lays on top of me and I had to do a press-up with George on my back. Are you kidding? But that was George.
He actually clambers on top of Mickey and he’s kind of sitting on him trying to get him to go all the way down. It was dangerous really. The sport scientists would have a heart attack. But Mickey just decides ‘I ain’t doing that’ so his arms are locked and the gaffer can’t get him down because that’s how strong he was.
Mickey was the most laid-back player. Honestly, he could sleep on a clothes line. He was so laid-back he wasn’t allowed to play five-a-sides on a Friday. He’d have to go in because he’d just mess about. He wouldn’t run around as much as everybody else so George wouldn’t let him play. Mickey was a cool dude.
George used to join in little five-a-sides. He’d have a little shimmy and move the ball about and if he scored he’d let us know and do a little celebration. He was a really good header of the ball and he used to give me a bit of one-to-one coaching. ‘Alan, this is how you head it. You get the old neck like that and go tsch.’ He’d always make the sound effects. Tsch.
George had his buffer in his assistant Theo Foley. Theo used to drive me mad at times. He used to drive me round the twist. All he talked to me about was Dublin all the time and I would think to myself, you know, just because I’m from Dublin, I’ve been living over here a long time. We can speak about other things you know, Theo. But Theo was good for him and us because he wasn’t as serious as George.
Theo was a lovely personality and the players loved him. We’d got to know each other when I joined Queens Park Rangers as a youth team coach and he was a reserve team coach. Then we got on great at Millwall when I asked him to be my assistant. When he came to Arsenal he was fantastic. It was the good cop, bad cop situation. It was always good for me to bounce ideas off him. Theo, what do you think here? What do you think there? Because he was a coach longer than I was.
George used to sit in the stand first half of every game because he’d get a better view. The second half there’s not a lot you can do so he’d sit down on the bench. He always used to write stuff down on a piece of paper from his seat in the directors’ box. At Highbury the doors open into the dressing room and there’s a massage table there and he used to be standing, hands resting on the massage table, with his piece of paper. I used to come in and have a look over his shoulder because inevitably my name would be on there. If your name was on the paper you were getting it. It wasn’t a well done. He’d start with the defence. Top of the list, Dixon. I’d go straight towards the toilet so he couldn’t tell me off and then he’d go, ‘Lee, come on, sit down.’ I would sit down. ‘Right, you’re not doing this and you’re not doing that …’ Nigel never got anything said about him. He used to love Nigel and Tony Adams. But me and Bouldy used to get it all the time.
At half-time he’d be tearing the wallpaper off the walls at times. He’d praise you but not that often. Being on the edge gave us the impetus.
If we lost the game literally you’d put a towel over your suit so when he came in, when the cups and the tea went everywhere, it wouldn’t go all over your suit. It was unbelievable.
George would always linger and want to pick your brains about this or that. I remember him doing that at the start of the 88–89 season. Tony had come back from bad times at the European Championship for England and he was being treated badly by the press. We’d bought Steve Bould and George said to me, ‘Tony’s having a bad time, David. What do you think about it?’ I said, ‘Well I don’t think you’d be right to leave him out because I think that would be the final nail in the coffin.’ So a couple of days later the team was announced and I was out of the side and Steve Bould and Tony were in. I remember going to see him on the Monday about it. He said, ‘Dave, I wanted to play Bouldy. I wanted to give Bouldy a chance now to see what he’s like. You told me it would kill Tony to leave him out …’ I absolutely went mad with him. It was probably one of my only proper go-to-see-the-manager fall-out times. I was very wary of offering advice after that!
With George there was the impression of: address me when I ask you to. If you want to talk to me you’ve got to make an appointment. It wasn’t really like that but that’s what it felt like. I always felt that Tony was the link to the manager and that if you had a problem, you go and speak to Tony and he’d speak to George. Or if the team had a problem and George wanted to feed something out to the team he’d probably go through Tony. But away from that his attention to detail as a manager, particularly in the way that he wanted you to play and the way that he analysed the opposition, was absolutely sensational.
I was scared of George. You could say he was a father figure. My own father gave George permission to father me as well. My own father said, do as you’re told, son; George knows best. My dad handed me over in a football context and George was a very dominant father figure. We used each other I think. George was good for me and I’m sure I was good for George and we were after the same end result. We were after winning things. He was a manager of that time. He did get lucky with the amount of young talent coming through but I also think that he was brilliant in the way that he worked them and organised them and formed a character. George did an unbelievable job for The Arsenal.
When I was on a coaching course up at Lilleshall in the old days, all the coaches one afternoon were watching the England youth team play a practice match. Everybody was discussing Tony Adams, this young lad who hadn’t played in the first team but did soon after. He was outstanding. He had leadership then and everybody knew it. Bossing people. Talking to people. He was just a young lad. Oh my God, who’s this boy? When we had to have a new captain, even at 21, he was a natural leader. It was a simple decision to make him captain.
My education as a defender was all down to George. He taught me how to understand winning the ball back, to make that a pleasurable thing for me as opposed to it being a chore. It was like, wow. Clean sheets. Cor, we used to love clean sheets.
I think the good thing about it was, even if we were winning by two or three and it was near the end of a game, if we conceded a goal that used to eat me up all over the weekend. If we lost a game, you can ask my wife; I wouldn’t go out. I hated it. I felt as if it was failure and that’s what really hurt me. I look back now and think you’ve got to feel the hurt of the supporters who are working all week to pay to come and watch you play. You’ve got to feel the pain that they’re feeling. I hated losing. I’d say all the back four did.
The back four was purely George’s idea. He wanted to build a side from a solid base. You had to do it every single day and at the time you don’t appreciate it because training was boring. Same thing. Same thing. But it put us at an advantage – not all the time, because obviously we conceded goals. You can’t stop goals sometimes because it is just brilliant play or a mistake – but in general the team knew what they were doing when we didn’t have the ball. There’s a lot of the game when you haven’t got the ball so let’s be good at that. We can be expansive when we’ve got it but when we haven’t we have to constrict the space and win it back early. So the high press that everyone’s talking about in modern day football, trying to win the ball back in the first few seconds? We did that in 1989. George wanted that: as soon as you lose the ball, the first player who’s closest to the ball goes to close down and then you drag everybody with you and everybody has to go. If you see a player go, it doesn’t matter what’s happening behind you; everyone goes together. It’s amazing how if you all go together, how easy it becomes to win the ball back. It is joked about with George having a piece of rope across the training ground tying us all together. That didn’t happen but in the training sessions he put on we did imagine there’s a piece of rope. So if Lee goes over there you know Tony has to come because I’m pulling him with me, and he’s pulling Steve Bould with him and Nigel’s having to come because he’s got hold of the other end of the rope. So there are no gaps.
Training was certainly different. At Stoke it was 11 v 11, no coaching. I came to Arsenal and it was all individual unit work, constant, every day.
George used to come out with a ball. He would take the back four and we would be on a line on the edge of the box and he used to move around the pitch with the ball in his hand. Every position that he went into we would have to move individually and collectively to stay as a back four. We’d do it for half an hour, 45 minutes. The ball would not even be on the floor. You ask professional players to do that today. They would probably just laugh at him. The reason behind it was he wanted to keep the distances between each player exactly the same no matter where the ball went and he worked at it and he worked at it and then he would introduce the apprentices to play against us. He knew if he brought in the young kids they’d run everywhere. You were expected not to make a mistake. So you always got yourself into a good defensive position. If you show the winger inside, as we did a lot under George, you knew that the centre-half around the edge of the box was going to come out and take absolutely no prisoners whatsoever.
It really was monotonous. Just going through it continually. It was long afternoons. We used to be up at London Colney, the five of us there. Everybody else had gone home to have a cup of tea and we were still out there. But it served us well I think from a defensive point of view.
I absolutely loved it. The thing in the English game is that everybody thinks a defender just is a destroyer. Just loves the physical contact side of the game. No! Definitely no. You’ve got to think. You’ve got to make decisions on that pitch and that tests if you’re a good defender or a bad defender, not if you’re going to win a tackle. When are you going to win a tackle? When do you sit back? When do you play offside? There’s a lot of thought put into defending. Today’s game could do with a lot more of it. I have nothing but admiration for my defenders. There were millions of sessions. Sometimes I would have the youth team take on the back four – the whole team. They wouldn’t get a shot in.
We didn’t man-mark. We covered space. Those back four were always linked together. If we push one of the full-backs forward the other three spread the width of the pitch, so really instead of a back four it would be an outstanding back three.
George would say in the morning, ‘OK, lads, we’re going to work on the back four today’, and everyone would go, oh no, not again. We’d hardly get through. A shot would be an achievement. We were trying to break down this back four while the gaffer was organising them and they held such a good line and they were so in tune with each other after a bit that you had to make a perfect run and the ball had to be perfectly timed in order for you to get round the back of them. You’d say individually that’s not the best right-back in Europe or the best left-back in Europe … But as a unit, they were by far the best rearguard I’ve seen so that just goes to show what can be achieved with hard work.
We worked as a unit and the unit was bigger and better than the individuals. Boring Arsenal? I took that as a compliment.
It was very groundhog day. In November I could tell you what I was doing on a Tuesday in March in four months’ time. Every single day you knew what you were doing. But it worked a treat. We were Ashford & Simpson: we were ‘Solid’.
We knew within our group that if we did our job the front players we had could excite the league. You could play it into Alan, he’d link up the play. Merse had individual ability. Brian Marwood was whipping sensational balls into the box. You’d got the driving runs of Mickey Thomas, who was as strong as an ox. Then we’d usually have Rocky out on the right-hand side with his ability to go past players. I always used to call it dancing.
Up front we had magic Merse. He could do anything with a ball. Absolutely brilliant player, one of those enigmas. What’s he done? How’s he got past someone? He just used to run and balance and know where the gap was. And Smudge wasn’t underrated at the club but outside was an underrated player. He was just brilliant. He did everything. I remember my dad saying to me, is Alan Smith right-footed or left-footed? I want somebody to say that about me one day. He scored some great left-footed shots and was brilliant in the air and his hold-up play was second to none. He wasn’t particularly muscly but he was wiry and he had really sharp elbows. In training he was always catching you. You didn’t want to mark him in training because he was bony. He’d sort of hit you with his knee. He was horrible to play against and a gentleman on the pitch.
Merse was my favourite strike partner. He was an unselfish person to have alongside you and such a skilful player as well. If you made a move he knew where you were and would try and find you with one of those little dinks. Brian Marwood was really important for me. We built up a good understanding. He was one of those wingers that didn’t need to beat a man, a much different style to Rocky on the other side. He was very clever at shifting the ball and just curling it round the full-back into the box with that left foot of his. Back then you didn’t count assists but he would have had a lot of assists that year. He gave us great balance.
I always remember one team meeting and I said, ‘Look, in an ideal situation in this club, I would like my back four to play until they’re 30 at the top level. I want my midfield players to play until they’re 28 and I want my front players to play until they’re 26.’ They all looked at me as if I was stupid. Why? Because my front boys are going to work harder than midfield and my midfield are going to work harder than my back four. They all looked at me as if I was crazy.