This week marks the 50th anniversary of The Arsenal winning their first ever historic Double. I’m 64 years old and back then as a 14 year old living in South Woodford recently moved from Hackney. I used listen to The Beatles singing “When I’m Sixty Four” and couldn’t imagine being that age as that seemed so very far away into the future. However now I’m at that milestone in life I cannot believe the sands of time have passed so quickly. It doesn’t seem that long ago at all that I watched and cheered on my heroes first of all from the Clock End before moving to the North Bank by the time of the Double season. Players like the young rebellious maverick and former North Bank boy Charlie George who was just 20 years of age when we won the Double who is now 70 and our wonderful inspirational skipper Frank McLintock then 31 years old who is still their captain even now aged 81.
This is my story of that momentous season culminating in my greatest week as an Arsenal supporter when the Gunners achieved the feat of clinching the elusive Double that no other Arsenal side had ever managed to do up to that point. Not even the the wonderful all conquering Herbert Chapman side of the 1930’s.
The 1971 Double squad wasn’t full of world class players like Arsene Wenger’s Invincibles. But what they had was an indomitable team spirit a never say die attitude. They were a band of brothers who would back each other up all the way and triumph sometimes against all the odds. They were my first football heroes as a young kid and my favourite of all the great Arsenal sides I’ve watched over the past 55 years. The sum of their parts was greater than the whole. As Bob Wilson said they all fitted perfectly together like the pieces of a jigsaw. However it didn’t all just come together straightaway. It took years to put the jigsaw together and I’d like to go over how it all came about before moving onto talking about that incredible Double season.
Back in the summer of 1966 England won the World Cup London was swinging and The Arsenal shocked the footballing world as well as their own supporters by appointing their physiotherapist Bertie Mee as their new manager to replace Billy Wright.
Arsenal at the time were a complete mess both on and off the pitch. The club had flirted with relegation finishing 14th in Billy’s final season just four points above relegated Northampton Town. In the last but one home fixture in the 1965-66 season against Leeds United at Highbury the Arsenal fans voted with their feet with only 4,554 watching the Gunners go down 3-0. The board had no real option at the end of that season other than to sack manager Billy Wright.
The almost deserted Highbury terraces for the visit of Leeds United 5th May 1966
Bertie seemed a strange choice but Chairman Dennis Hill-Wood and his fellow board members have to be given credit for making what turned out to be such a shrewd appointment. Because what Bertie brought to the party was his fantastic ability to organise and delegate. Bertie’s unremarkable football career as a winger was cut short by injury and in July 1939 he was called-up for the army. Bertie served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and trained to be a physiotherapist rising to the rank of Sergeant. Bertie served in Egypt and Lebanon before running a convalescent depot at Natanya a small town between Tel Aviv and Haifa where he was responsible for the physiotherapy and rehabilitation of troops from all over the Middle East during the war.
Bertie Mee in his army days
After the war Bertie ended up working for the NHS running a team of 30 people at a rehabilitation centre at Camden Road. Among the people that Bertie treated were footballers from some of the London clubs including The Arsenal. Alan Bass the Arsenal club doctor had worked with Bertie at Camden Road and recommended him to Arsenal and that was how Bertie ended up as the Arsenal physio in 1960. Bertie became regarded as the top physio in the country and the board were impressed with the way he managed the treatment room. Bertie knew how to run and organise a department as he’d done it in the army and the NHS and upon taking over the managerial reins at Arsenal he did the same thing with Arsenal Football Club just on a larger scale. He was a hard taskmaster and he reorganised Highbury from top to bottom in his regimental fashion with an eye for the small details which made all the difference.
The players were at a low ebb after almost getting relegated and the two big stars under Billy Wright were Joe Baker and George Eastham. Both of them were idolised and loved by the Arsenal fans. Billy had already sold Joe to Nottingham Forest and George Eastham recently a member of the 1966 World Cup winning squad swiftly followed with Bertie selling him to Stoke City. The team under Billy were a group of individuals who scored plenty of goals but conceded even more at the other end of the pitch. The team were always getting the glory days of the Chapman era and the other successful Arsenal sides after the war brought up and compared to Billy Wright’s unsuccessful team by all and sundry and it even got to the stage where following Frank McLintock’s suggestion Arsenal dispensed with their famous white sleeves for a couple of seasons in a bid to rid themselves of the ghosts of Arsenal’s former glory days. Bertie wisely later brought back the traditional white sleeves after his first season as manager. Bertie knew his limitations regarding his technical football knowledge at the highest level and shrewdly bringing in Dave Sexton from Leyton Orient as his head coach and the players responded well to Sexton’s coaching and loved working under him.
One thing that Billy Wright deserves credit for was developing Arsenal’s youth system and introducing some of the youngsters to the first team which gave Bertie the nucleus of the future Double winners. Two of Bertie’s earliest signings were George Graham and Bob McNab. So within the first few months of his Highbury reign Bertie had every piece of the jigsaw already at the club either with the first team or the younger players making their way through the youth and reserve sides. However some of the players didn’t fit the puzzle Bob Wilson spoke about as they were in the wrong places.
Bertie Mee’s first three signings Bob McNab, George Graham and Colin Addison
In Bertie’s first season Arsenal showed much improvement finishing 7th and drastically cut down on the amount of goals they were conceding. Things were beginning to look up but then Dave Sexton dropped a bombshell on Bertie and Arsenal by moving over to West London to manage Chelsea. The Arsenal players were gutted. However Bertie Mee then pulled off a masterstroke by promoting Don Howe from coaching the reserves to become the new first team coach. Don proved to be every bit as good a coach as Dave Sexton and he soon completely won the players over after they were initially wary of Don as up until quite recently he’d been a teammate of theirs before having to retire through injury. In fact I was one of the 13,029 fans who attended Don Howe’s final game as a player in Arsenal’s first ever match in the League Cup against Gillingham at Highbury on 13th September 1966.
Don Howe showing Bertie Mee his expertise on tactics
In Don Howe’s first season as head coach which was also Frank McLintock’s first season as captain the Gunners reached their first major final for 16 years (I’m not counting winning the Quizball final in 1966!) Arsenal met Leeds United in the 1968 League Cup Final at Wembley. In one of many feisty encounters between the two sides. Leeds won quite a violent encounter 1-0 with a controversial goal from Terry Cooper. Arsenal’s keeper Jim “Fingers” Furnell being fouled by Jackie Charlton from the corner that led to their winning goal.
Arsenal and Leeds players clash at the 1968 League Cup Final at Wembley
The following season Arsenal reached the League Cup Final again. We narrowly beat our bitter rivals Tottenham in the Semi-Final over two legs to get there winning the first leg at Highbury 1-0 with a late goal from John Radford and after trailing to a Jimmy Greaves goal in a fiercely fought physical battle at White Hart Lane Raddy came up trumps again with a late equaliser to see us through to Wembley 2-1 on aggregate and we were all confident we’d see off little Third Division Swindon Town in the Final!
The Arsenal squad celebrate reaching Wembley again in the White Hart Lane away dressing room 4th December 1968
However there were a few things we didn’t count on that went against us. “The International Horse Show” had taken place at Wembley the previous autumn lasting a week and the horses hooves had packed the earth down which made drainage after that almost impossible. Then England played France in an international match three days before the final and the pitch had to be pumped free of hundreds of gallons of rainwater to allow that match to go ahead. After that the pitch was too wet to be rolled and all the ground staff could do was replace the divots. Jon Sammels told me when I interviewed him last year that when the teams went out onto the Wembley pitch their boots sunk so much into the mud that you could hardly see them! He said the game should never have taken place. The other factor was the previous Saturday our league game against Liverpool had been postponed as eight of Arsenal’s players had been suffering from a virus which caused congestion of the lungs making breathing difficult. The day before the game there was also torrential rain turning Wembley’s once lush green surface into a quagmire and the boggy pitch sapped the Arsenal players strength already weakened from the effects of the virus. Arsenal battered the Swindon goal but their keeper Peter Downsborough was equal to everything the Gunners threw at him. Disaster then struck as there was a calamitous mix up between Bob Wilson and Ian Ure which led to Roger Smart giving Swindon the lead. However with just five minutes of the match remaining the Gunners summoned up the energy for one last final attack and Bobby Gould nodded home the equaliser. The whistle went for full time and the Arsenal players were spent. Don Howe tried desperately get the match abandoned in the break before extra time pleading with the referee but to no avail. Swindon’s Don Rogers was brilliant in the boggy conditions in extra time gliding over the pitch like a mudlark and his two goals gave Swindon a famous 3-1 victory. The Arsenal players were demoralised none more so than skipper Frank McLintock after losing his fourth Wembley final on the trot. There was a thud as Frank threw his losing tankard into the Wembley mud as he and the other Arsenal players trudged dejectedly off the pitch with the cheers of the jubilant Swindon supporters ringing in their ears.
Ian Ure holds his head in his hands after his calamitous mix up with Bob Wilson
The Arsenal fans were also understandably devastated at losing a second successive final especially to a Third Division side. However we could all see that the team were getting better. We had our highest finish in the league for a decade ending up fourth in the table and this qualified us for the Inter Cities Fairs Cup. Better times were just around the corner.
Over the first four seasons of Bertie Mee’s reign the team had undergone many changes. Bob Wilson had become our number one goalkeeper. Peter Simpson established himself as a centre back after playing in so many different positions. George Graham became a midfielder after his first two seasons as a centre forward and during the 1969-70 season Frank McLintock was a revelation when moving from midfield to form a great centre back partnership with Peter Simpson. The pieces were slotting into place and the jigsaw was well on the way to being complete.
A lot of younger football fans today especially fans of other clubs unfairly dismiss the Fairs Cup as not being a major trophy. But I can assure anybody reading this that the fans that are old enough to remember would never say that about the competition. There were some very strong sides involved particularly the season we won it among them Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool and Barcelona for starters, then there was that brilliant Ajax side with the great Johan Cruyff who the Gunners blew away 3-0 at Highbury in the Semi-Final first leg with us going through to the final 3-1 on aggregate after losing the second leg 1-0 in Amsterdam. This was the same Ajax side that won the European Cup for the next three years on the trot.
Peter Simpson steps in to act as peacemaker between Johan Cruyff and Gunners John Radford and Charlie George in the Fairs Cup Semi-Final
In the two legged final the Gunners faced Anderlecht another excellent side who had two superb forwards in Jan Mulder and Paul Van Himst. Arsenal were 3-0 down away in the first leg with the Dutchman Mulder scoring two of their goals with not long left when Arsenal brought on 18 year old Ray Kennedy (who had been rejected by the great Stanley Matthews when manager of Port Vale as being not good enough) in a last throw of the dice and he did the business heading home a Geordie Armstrong cross to give us a vital lifeline for the second leg at Highbury. However afterwards in the dressing room the Arsenal players were still downcast at getting beat 3-1 especially Frank McLintock who was sick of losing finals. But after our captain fantastic emerged from the showers it was as if he’d washed away all the pain of defeat giving the troops a rousing speech that Mel Gibson’s Braveheart couldn’t have bettered according to Bob Wilson in his book “Behind the Network” as Frank said “We’ll fucking murder the bastards at Highbury. They’re a load of shit. Van Himst’s a fucking carthorse. Mulder will bottle it, it’ll be a piece of piss” was the gist of it. The whole team were lifted by Frank’s words. The scene was set for the second leg at Highbury the following Tuesday.
Bertie Mee granted Patrick Marnham of the Daily Telegraph unusual access to Arsenal’s preparations for the second leg and he gives the following intimate insight into the home dressing room at Highbury just before they took to the field for what anybody who was there players, club officials and fans all say was the greatest ever night at Highbury.
“In the dressing room you can hear very little of the din outside. Howe is still talking to anyone who will listen. There is the stink of camphor oil being meticulously rubbed in. Each player steps gingerly, preparing their legs like blades, to be stretched and oiled and bound. Once they have their boots on nobody stands still, the noise is deafening. With 15 minutes to go Charlie George is being sick, Bob Wilson is standing in the showers hurling a ball at the wall, which is a foot away, and Peter Simpson has put on his cigarette and is saying “Relax, just treat it like a cup final”.
Ken Aston the Fairs Cup Committee representative comes in from the Anderlecht dressing room to say their studs are two inches long. “Fucking ‘ell” says Radford, “go over the top with those and they’ll cut the leg in half”. His gloom invariably deepens before a match. He goes out onto the pitch like a man facing the firing squad. Charlie George, famous for being the only man who could find a short cut across the cross-country course, is taping on his shin guards. “Anybody puts a kick through that, I’ll buy them a drink after”. The noise of running, jumping studs on the marble floor has reached a crescendo. The brandy flask is going round faster and faster. Nothing unusual in that. Apparently, at Manchester City in the old days, they used to get through a bottle before every game.
Everyone is dressed now, except Frank McLintock who has neither his shorts nor his boots on and is still fussing about his laces. George Wright is checking his bag for pain-relieving spray, lint dressing, brandy, smelling salts, Deep Heat rub, eye wash, adrenaline chloride, Vaseline, an inflatable polythene splint, anti-tetanus shots, a field dressing, a camel hair eye brush and steel pin to adjust ball pressure. Plus the traditional sponge. Everything to keep an injured man on the field until the game ends. The bell goes. Bob McNab runs a last comb through his hair, Peter Storey applies the last clot of Vaseline to his eyebrows and the lads are lining up ready to run out”.
The two captains shake hands before the the 2nd leg of the Fairs Cup Final 28th April 1970
Arsenal despite being roared on by a HIghbury crowd like never before or since started nervously. The tension on the night was unbearable for Jack Kelsey Arsenal’s goalkeeper the last time we won a trophy in 1953. Jack had to leave his seat and sit in the marble halls for the rest of the game. But in the 25th minute Arsenal made the breakthrough they needed when Eddie Kelly fired into the roof of the net to put the Gunners one up and the noise from the fans was deafening. Bob Wilson says in his book “Behind the Network” George Armstrong was inspired; it was his greatest game. He beat man after man, time after time, and his wing play made a mockery of his non-selection for Alf Ramsey’s World Cup squad, who were gathering to defend England’s title in Mexico.
In the second half Anderlecht started well and struck the outside of the post. However with 19 minutes to go Bob McNab attacked down the left and delivered a wonderful cross to the head of John Radford who thudded the ball into the back of the net and the North Bank tumbled forward like a human Tsunami in celebration. Two minutes later Jon Sammels raced onto Charlie George’s pass to hammer the ball home to make it 3-0 to send the Highbury crowd into ecstasy.
As the final whistle blew the delirious Arsenal fans invaded the pitch. Somehow the police and stewards managed to keep the fans away from the presentation area set up in front of the East Stand long enough for Sir Stanley Rous the FIFA President to present skipper Frank McLintock with the trophy. In Bob Wilson’s words what followed was delirium as the players were engulfed in a sea of red and white. Frank was carried shoulder high by the fans and it became clear that the players needed to head to the sanctuary of the dressing room for their own safety! Most of the players did but the elated Bob Wilson wanted to do his own solo lap of honour around the Highbury pitch. The younger Arsenal fans were ecstatic and the older supporters brought up on the 1930’s sides and Tom Whittaker’s team’s in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s were in tears of joy. Bob who’d swapped shirts with the Anderlecht keeper Jean Trappeniers had so many slaps of congratulations from the fans that his upper naked body had turned a deeper red than the Arsenal shirts by the time he reached the dressing room. Arsenal had gone from being the shame of London after losing to Swindon the year before to the pride of London.
The Arsenal players and fans celebrate as one after winning the Fairs Cup
The Gunners had won their first ever European trophy and had finally banished the ghosts of the past and broken the hoodoo that had lasted for 17 barren trophy less years. The Arsenal were on the march. This would prove to be the springboard to an even greater achievement. However there were still a couple of pieces of the jigsaw to be put into place and you can read all about that in Part Two when The Arsenal go gunning for the Double.
Started going to Highbury in ’66. Season ticket holder since ’76. Love The Arsenal. Need I say more?
Superb piece, sir. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Was on the pitch that night. Ended up on the glass cage with my mate calling for Bertie Mee and the players..who came out in the Directors seats. What a brilliant night !!