Ahead of today’s north London derby, Piers Morgan reflects on a life following Arsenal and the memories it has given him…
My team is Arsenal and it goes back to 1971 when we won the double and I was six years old. Charlie George scored that amazing 25-yard screamer at Wembley. And that was it. I was in love. With Arsenal. With Charlie, with Frank McLintock, with Bob Wilson, with George Graham and Pat Rice. And that was the start of a 49-year love affair, with all the torment that love brings.
It was the dawn of colour television, they had great yellow and blue shirts. I have one of those shirts signed by Charlie George, one of my prized possessions. People talk about the last 20 years through rose-tinted spectacles as if we never had a great team; the ’71 team that won the double was a really great side, from back to front. One of the greatest in Arsenal’s history.
The complication was that my dad was and still is a lifelong Spurs fan. He was running a pub down in Sussex and took his eye off the ball; before he knew it…
Charlie George was so beloved. There have been lots of great players, but when you talk about the most beloved, it tends to be people like Charlie George or David Rocastle or Ian Wright or Ray Parlour or Martin Keown. Not necessarily the ones you may think, but those who have a real connection from the fans.
In Charlie’s case, he had an extraordinary story. He was the fan from the North Bank who scored the winning goal in the FA Cup final. The biggest cup competition, arguably in world football.
The Wembley FA Cup days were so brilliant; it was a national event, the build up, the whole day, over 20 million people watching. It was like watching one of the Muhammad Ali fights.
One of the saddest things about modern football is that my boys and my daughter, who are all Arsenal fans, have never experienced what the FA Cup meant. It has never meant as much to this generation as it did to us.
My mum remembers that within hours, I was a crazed Arsenal fan. Up went all the posters on my walls. I had Charlie George, Bob Wilson, Frank McLintock, all of the double-winning team. I fell in love with the club. The first game I went to, it was 1972 – Arsenal v Manchester United. We won 3-0 at Highbury with goals from John Radford, Ray Kennedy and Peter Simpson. I was seven years old.
I remember my dad, god bless him a Spurs fan. I can remember the smell, the noise. There were no all-seaters. I was standing in the North Bank with my dad and the crowd was swaying and the beer was everywhere and the smell of the hotdogs…
I watched Fever Pitch with my daughter, who is eight, the other night, so she could get a sense of how different it was and understand what football was like. Colin Firth’s character as a kid, that was like me as a kid. It wasn’t as clinical and clean and safe and comfortable. Hooliganism was rife. I have to be honest, as a young kid, it was oddly exciting. It was more dangerous and therefore more exciting. I wouldn’t say it is sad that it is cleaner and safer, it is different.
I have four season tickets now, but my kids take those. I have a couple of friends who have boxes. I am very lucky. When you have a raised profile and you’re on telly, it’s not as simple as it used to be. I drive, I park under the stadium and it’s a wonderful stadium, but it’s not Highbury. It will never be Highbury, I miss it so much.
As an experience of going to the match, it’s very civilised; we have a nice meal, a glass of wine. It’s a long way from standing in the North Bank. I put the hard yards in early!
When we won the league in the Invincibles year at White Hart Lane in 2004, I ended up in the boardroom with my Dad.
Everyone for Spurs had left obviously. The doors swung open and in came Arsene Wenger and Pat Rice. I grabbed a bottle of wine and we sat and talked football for an hour. It was probably the last time I spoke to Wenger, but it was special!
No question, the longer Wenger stayed on as manager and it dragged on, the more sad it got. At the end, I didn’t see anyone who would shed a tear for him. I never thought that day would come. It was a sad, elongated ending to his time at Arsenal and looking back I’d rather he had gone seven or eight years previously.
I, like quite a few fans, had detected he had lost that edge. Yes, we won some FA Cups, but they are not the same in terms of how that tournament is valued by the top players and coaches.
We haven’t competed in the league since 2004-05 so I felt that Wenger went on a third too long. It was sad for the club, it dragged us down and it is hard to get back up again.
It was sad for Wenger. It wasn’t tinged with the same regret as when Sir Alex Ferguson left Manchester United as a Premier League champion. I could see Wenger didn’t want to leave on a low, like a drug addict with the next high around the corner.
Enough time has passed now that I can look back to those first eight years of his management and say it was the greatest period in the history of the club.
Piers Morgan’s all-time Arsenal XI features an all-English defence, but no Sol Campbell, and includes his boyhood Highbury hero – who else makes the cut?
The football he gave us was utterly brilliant. When he and Ferguson were going at each other, it was one of the greatest battles in football history.
For eight years he was Arsenal’s greatest manager and transformed the club. He gave us a uniquely brilliant brand of football and during that period was the best manager in the world. He transformed English football.
Mikel Arteta looks and sounds the part. He is doing all the right things. I like his style, I like him personally.
And, given he has no experience as a manager, he has been impressive. I have confidence that if he is given the money, he can get Arsenal back competing. But will he be given the money? Can he keep a player like Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang?
To all Arsenal fans, we are all in this together. It’s often very painful, but there’s no doubt in the 49 years I have been following the club we have had great moments.
We should always cherish the great moments because, as we now know, the bad times are never very far away.
My favourite current Arsenal player
Aubameyang, without a doubt. Not just because he is a great goalscorer. He’s the best since Thierry Henry and one you would back one-on-one with the goalkeeper – that’s what you need from a top striker. But I love his attitude.
I had heard rumours before he came that he could be difficult, but he is nothing like that. He has been a smiling force for positivity. He’s been surrounded by mediocrity, surrounded by people who are cheating their living, like [Mesut] Ozil and others, earning big salaries and not putting a shift in.
Aubameyang has been a force for positivity and good; always happy, always striving to improve the team. If we had eleven players like him, we would be up there challenging for the title. Comfortably my favourite player.
My favourite Arsenal manager
I could choose one of three. Hebert Chapman built Arsenal… George Graham won two league titles, including winning the title at Anfield against the greatest ever Liverpool team and he won a European trophy, which Wenger never did. But in the end, I have gone for Arsene Wenger, with the caveat – the first eight years.
He transformed Arsenal. He gave us a uniquely brilliant brand of football, for eight years, he was the best manager in world football. He also transformed English football.
I used to know Arsene quite well. I would love to have an after the war dinner with him. I wonder if he is really honest, I know football was his all consuming life, but I wonder if he had his time again… would he have gone after winning the FA Cup in 2013? It would have been a much better time for him to have left and the club would be in a better place now.
After his long and tortuous goodbye was now historically to overlook the glory years, which were utterly brilliant. He lost his best players and replaced them with players who weren’t good enough. They were good players, but we went from being a team with Bergkamp and Vieria and Petit and Adams and Bergkamp and Pires and turned into a team with Giroud and Ramsey, who are very good footballers, but they are not at the same level.
I would have ferocious debates with Arsenal fans and say: ‘In the last ten years of Wenger’s reign, how many of those players would get into Wenger’s title winning teams? The answer is none of them.’ That said it all. We went from a team of world beaters to a team the most of the world thought they could beat.
My favourite non-Arsenal player
Cristiano Ronaldo. I went to Turin… he did say I have great abs. To say it’s not something I hear very often is an understatement.
I don’t have a favourite foreign team, but I do have a favourite foreign player. When he was at Real Madrid, it was Real Madrid. Now he is at Juventus, it is Juventus.
I think he is the best player to have ever played the game. Wet Wednesday in Bolton and you need a goal to save your life – I would put money on Cristiano. We’ve become quite good friends. We text each other most weeks.
He’s got this ferocious competitive spirit, the like of which I have rarely encountered. He’s 34 , Lionel] Messi is just behind him and for 16 years we have had these two guys at the peak of their powers. I am a Ronaldo man, I often have an argument with Gary Lineker. The two of them are the stand-out players ever. He’s a Messi fanboy. I am a Ronaldo fanboy.
Look, Messi; he’s been at one club, he’s never done it on the international stage, his record in the Champions League is nowhere near as good as Ronaldo’s in the closing stages in terms of goals scored… Ronaldo has done it on the international stage, the Champions League and brilliant in four different countries – Portugal, England, Spain and now Italy.
Ronaldo has challenged himself more, succeeding in every league. Messi has never risked it, he has never left Barcelona. There is something to be said for one club players, like Paolo Maldini, I don’t want to denigrate Messi, but it’s Ronaldo for me.
My favourite Arsenal memorabilia
The shirts that I have personally signed by the players. Charlie George’s shirt, Dennis Bergkamp’s, Thierry Henry’s shirt signed from the Invincibles season, although that shirt upsets me because he signed it, ‘To Piers, a true Gooner. From Thierry, a Gooner for life.’ And then he left for Barcelona!
I have an Ian Wright shirt, I even have an Arsene Wenger one. But I like the original shirts the players have worn and then signed. I like to have my heroes; the styles, the fashion but the idea that your hero has worn these things and appeared for Arsenal, I don’t think you can get a more symbiotic relationship with a club.
I have a picture that is very special. When we won the league in the Invincibles year at White Hart Lane, I ended up in the boardroom with my dad and we were the last ones left, everyone for Spurs had left obviously. And the doors swung open and in came Wenger and Pat Rice. I grabbed a bottle of wine and we set for an hour, having just won the league in the Invincibles season, against Spurs, at White Hart Lane and we just spoke football for an hour. That was special. It was probably the last time I spoke to Wenger, but it was special!
My favourite Arsenal team
The team if it was the greatest players is one thing, but I’ve gone for a team skewed to players I personally love. It’s not that different.
Read more on Piers’ selections for his all-time Arsenal XI here.
Listen in full to Piers Morgan’s Arsenal memories with Jonny Owen and Friends on talkSPORT from 9am-11am on Sunday
