I DROVE MY PLAYERS MAD… BUT I WAS TAUGHT TO WIN
George Graham is about to leave his local café in Hampstead when he comes across an old acquaintance. FourFourTwo have just finished up a pleasant cuppa with the Arsenal great in north London, but we’re not the only ones interested in having a chat this afternoon. “They need you back, George,” says his pal glumly, with a grave shake of the head.
Although it’s fairly obvious that the Scot, now 76, won’t be returning to his spot in the dugout, the sentiments are clear. They’re also shared widely among Gooners. Graham’s managerial style – one that made his Highbury heroes champions of England twice, with three more domestic trophies and even some historic success on the continent – is still appreciated by supporters who believe their team could benefit from his kind of astute guidance. For the modern-day Arsenal, those darker arts of solidity and dastardly defending have often been forgotten to great cost.
Graham, neatly dressed as during his managerial days, nods politely.
“My priority was: don’t lose a goal, do not concede,” he had told FFT shortly before. “That was my policy, and I think I drove the players mad with it.
“I never stopped working and the players would start to get the idea as well, like, ‘I’ve got to sweat here’. If you ever speak to any players of mine, they would say, ‘George was a right pain in the backside, because he kept on the same stuff every morning – he drove me mad’. But eventually they did it on their own… and then I didn’t have to coach them.”
Indeed, so well-drilled were his miserly side that Arsenal’s rearguard quickly became a proper noun in themselves. They weren’t just a back four – they were The Back Four. They were the bedrock of Graham’s stellar success in north London, before providing the foundations for a previously unknown Frenchman to develop his work and then revolutionise English football in later years.
Simply, Arsenal would not be the same Arsenal without George Graham. For this self-made Scot, it was quite the ride…
“WE CAN TALK ABOUT STYLE AFTER WE WIN”
Most of Graham’s characteristics as a boss can be traced back to his tough upbringing in Bargeddie, near Glasgow, where he grew up with six siblings and single mother.
His father passed away with tuberculosis when he was only three and a half weeks old – the same disease one of his sisters would tragically die of several years later.
“I come from a very poor working-class background,” he tells FFT. “You had to fight for everything – anything you got, you had to earn it. That’s why I always told players, ‘If you’re gifted, make sure you maximise it as much as possible – don’t waste it’.”
Given his own background, Graham worked especially hard to assemble squads of players who shared his desire
