Over and Over and Over Again

DAVO THE ONE CLUB MAN NOT MANY PLAYERS these days spend their entire career with the club they grew up with but Paul Davis is one of those players. Apart from a very brief spell at Brentford, and an even shorter loan period in Sweden, Davis spent his entire professional career at Highbury. While not as glamorous as some other names from the period, Davis survived three managers, numerous injuries and a record English league ban to win a European and every domestic honour with the club over a 16 year career. And he remains one of the greatest players never to win a full England cap. Paul Vincent Davis was born on 9 December 1961 in Dulwich, South-East London. He signed for Arsenal as an apprentice in June 1979 and turned professional the following year. It was towards the end of the marathon 1979/80 season that Davis made his first team debut in a 2-1 North London Derby win at White Hart Lane in April 1980. It was real baptism of fire for the 19 year old in an under-strength s...

SENT TO COVENTRY IT SEEMS HARD to believe now but back in the summer of 1984 Arsenal was considered as one of the favourites to win the league title.  Despite years of underachievement there had been a revolution going on at Highbury. Under new manager Don Howe, Arsenal had enjoyed a great finish to the 1983/84 season, winning eight of their last 15 matches to move from the brink of the relegation zone to finish 6th. Charlie Nicholas, after a slow start to his career in North London, had finally began to blossom into the player that had made him the hottest property in British football the previous summer. And on top of that Howe had strengthened his squad with the signing of England international right back Viv Anderson. Everything, on the surface at least, appeared to have fallen into place for the Gunners, leading many to believe this was to be their year. After picking up only one point from their opening two matches, a draw at home to Chelsea and defeat at Nott...

DID TAYLOR NOT LIKE THAT IT IS MARCH 1987. Arsenal had just been controversially knocked out of the FA Cup by Watford and boyhood Arsenal fan Steve Williams was not happy. Never one to hold back with his opinions at the best of times, Williams, in no uncertain terms, let Hornets manager Graham Taylor know exactly what he thought of him. This attitude was a feature of Williams' three and half year spell at Highbury, where he fell out with manager Don Howe after his debut before later falling foul of George Graham. But for all that he could still be a very good player. Steven Charles Williams was born on 12 July 1958 in Romford, Essex and although he grew up in an Arsenal supporting family, the young Williams joined Southampton as a apprentice having come through their London Selection Centre. He turned professional in 1975 and made his league debut for the club as a 17 year old on 6 April 1976 in a 1-0 local derby victory against Portsmouth. Williams became a regul...

HOUCH, THAT HURT BACK IN the mid 1980s Arsenal and cup shocks seemed to go hand in hand. Following Walsall's League Cup win at Highbury in November 1983, a defeat which ultimately cost manager Terry Neill his job, it was Middlesbrough up next in the FA Cup two months later. When Neill's successor Don Howe's saw his then Division One leaders lose at second division Oxford United in the League Cup the following season, the vultures were circling ahead of Arsenal's FA Cup 3rd round tie at Fourth Division Hereford United in January 1985. A potential banana skin was narrowly avoided despite a late Hereford onslaught which brought an equaliser to Tony Woodcock's first half volley and several presentable chances for the Bulls to win it. In the replay at Highbury 10 days later, Arsenal easily triumphed 7-2 but it merely delayed the inevitable as next up was a tricky tie at Division Three side York City. With northern England in the grip of a winter freeze, Torv...

ONE NIL DOWN, TWO ON UP, PART TWO ARSENAL ENJOYED TWO memorable matches against Liverpool in the late 1980s. While the second one, in May 1989 became one of the most famous matches ever played, this first meeting at Wembley two years earlier certainly paved the way for what was to follow. Liverpool were undoubtedly the team of the 1980s. That decade alone saw them win six league tiles, one FA Cup, four League Cups and two European Cups, a run of success no one else could even come close to matching. But by 1987 Arsenal were emerging as genuine challengers. Former Gunners midfielder George Graham had taken over at Highbury the previous May and had shaped a new look team built around some exciting young players. It is hard to imagine now but between January 1984 and March 1987 Arsenal only bought one player, Perry Groves from Colchester United for the paltry sum of just £75,000. While fans nowadays spend months speculating about how much their club will spend in the upco...

BONNY PRINCE CHARLIE THE WORD ENIGMA was invented for players like Charlie Nicholas. Supremely talented and a scorer of great goals, he was often misunderstood by coaches, the media, and fans alike. Nicholas arrived at Arsenal in the summer of 1983 to a big fanfare and for a big transfer fee but only fleetingly showed the ability that had made him such hot property. His four and a half years in London saw only glimpses of his undoubted talent, although he wrote himself into the Highbury history books with both goals in the 1987 Littlewoods Cup final win over Liverpool at Wembley. Charles Nicholas was born on 30 December 1961 in Cowcaddens, Glasgow, and played for Celtic Boys Club as a youth before signing for Celtic in 1979. Nicholas made his debut in August of that year in a Glasgow Cup tie against Queens Park, scoring in a 3-1 victory, but his only other appearance in the first team in the 1979/80 season came in the next round of the same competition, a 3-0 success ag...

ONE NIL DOWN, TWO ONE UP ARSENAL CELEBRATED their centenary in December 1986 sitting proudly on top of Division One. In the previous 100 years they had won 14 major trophies; 8 league titles, 5 FA Cups and a European FAIRS Cup. But the last of those successes had arrived over seven years earlier.  But all that was about to change. Over the following 20 years Arsenal would add a further 13 major trophies to eclipse even the glory days of the 1930s. The catalyst behind this new era of success was former player George Graham, who had been appointed manager on 14 May 1986. Following the rather underwhelming end to the Terry Neill/Don Howe era; Arsenal had finished 7th in both the previous two seasons, managers of the calibre of Terry Venables, Johan Cryuff and Alex Ferguson had all been mentioned to step in to the vacant Highbury hotseat. However, it was former Gunners midfielder Graham, nicknamed Stroller for his laid back demeanor on the pitch, and then manager of Second D...

REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE, WHAT YOU ARE, AND WHO YOU REPRESENT FEW PLAYERS summed up Arsenal's return to the glory days at the end of the 1980s quite like David Rocastle. He knew exactly what it meant to play for the club and this was perfectly illustrated in his famous quote in the title of this piece.  For three seasons at the end of the decade he was one of the best young players in the country and was instrumental in the early success Arsenal enjoyed under George Graham. But ultimately it was a career and life that ended far too soon. David Carlyle Rocastle was born 2 May 1967 in Lewisham, South-East London. Growing up on the same tough Brockley estate as future Arsenal teammate Ian Wright, Rocastle, affectionately known as Rocky, lost his father to pneumonia when he was just five years old. Rejected by Millwall, Rocky instead joined Arsenal in May 1982 and earned his first professional contract in December 1984. Rocastle made his first team debut in a 0-0 draw agai...

WHO PUT THE BALL IN TOTTENHAM'S NET... THE 1983/84 SEASON had been billed as the start of a new modern era for Arsenal. A new vice-chairman, local businessman David Dein, a newly designed match programme by Kevin Connolly, and an exciting new signing, 21 year old striker Charlie Nicholas from Celtic. Nicholas had been much sort after in the summer of 1983 having scored 48 goals in Scotland the previous season. But despite interest from Liverpool and Manchester United it was Terry Neill who secured the Scot's signature for a club record fee of £750,000. After a great start to the season, Arsenal winning their opening two matches and Nicholas scoring twice at Wolverhampton Wanderers, things soon went downhill. By early December, with Nicholas yet to score at Highbury, the team were nearer to the relegation zone than challenging for the title and things were made worse by the fact that neighbours Tottenham Hotspur were very much a team on the up. FA Cup winners in 198...

SUNDY THE LAST MINUTE MAN NOT MANY PLAYERS have their name indelibly linked with one match in quite the way Alan Sunderland does. Michael Thomas, surging through the midfield, Sergio Agueroooo, and Ole Gunnar Solsjaer perhaps do, but Sunderland's moment pre-dates them all. With just seconds left of the 1979 FA Cup final, Manchester United had just scored twice to pull off an improbable comeback from 2-0 down. The cup looked to be slipping away from Arsenal for the second year in a row. The crowd and the watching millions on TV around the world were just regaining their breath awaiting extra time when Liam Brady, the day's outstanding player, fed Graham Rix down the left. When his cross was misjudged by United goalkeeper, Gary Bailey, Sunderland arrived at the far post to slide the ball into the empty net and, in part due to his screaming celebration as much as the goal itself, created his own mark in English football history. Alan Sunderland was born on 1 July 1953 i...