Kevin Whitcher
To help promote his new book on Red Letter Days, about 14 dramatic events that shook Arsenal Football Club, The Gooner chatted with author Jon Spurling about putting the book together.
The Gooner: Why did you decide to write this particular book?
I'd had everything ready for the book for a couple of years, and – after Rebels For the Cause and Highbury - I'd always wanted to complete my Arsenal trilogy. I wanted to focus on key Arsenal history turning points, covering some areas I'd not really written about before in my books like the '30s and the '70s, and Wenger post 2004. It's not a narrative of Arsenal's greatest games. It's about those "non negotiable" moments - awful phrase I know - where Arsenal's history looked one way but went another. I'd got a stack of unused transcripts of interviews which I'd either partly used, or not used at all - ranging from George Male through George Armstrong to Patrick Vieira... it was time to make full use of them. So much has been written about Arsenal's big moments that I wanted to take a fresh view on Henry Norris, the 1930 FA Cup Final, Anfield '89. I like digging around to see what fresh takes there are on things, and it was great to do that with pre '40s Arsenal, the '71 FA Cup Semi Final v Stoke and the 2004 Invincibles. I hope I've unearthed plenty of players' views which put a fresh perspective on things, and that there are episodes and stories that Arsenal fans won't previously have been aware of.
Is there anyone you would like to have interviewed to tell the story but couldn't?
There's two actually - Henry Norris and Charlie Buchan. I'm not sure that Norris - whom I regard as the most important figure in our history - would have said too much to me, but I'd like to have half an hour with him to try! Charlie Buchan I regard as our most important signing. It all began with him I think, in terms of Arsenal becoming a box office attraction in the mid 1920s. Buchan was very vocal, and I found in the archives plenty of comments both by and about Buchan, which gives us a far more three dimensional approach on football back then. I reckon I could have talked to Charlie for hours about most things!
I count myself dead lucky really. I've been interviewing Arsenal players for around 25 years. I spoke with Ted Drake and George Male back in the early '90s - so I've now been able to fully use interviews with them which I only dipped into with Highbury: N5. Luckily, John Harding, Mike Langley and Brian Woolnough leant me taped interviews with Joe Hulme and Tom Parker, which were gathering dust, doing nothing. Hulme in particular was a goldmine of information for Mike Langley when they spoke way back when. He verifies what a superb man manager Herbert Chapman was, and Parker is great because he was Arsenal's first ever skipper to lift a trophy. So I hope that the book helps us see the 20s and 30s in a more rounded way.
As for after that, I pretty much spoke to everyone I needed / wanted to. Patrick Vieira, Edu and Gilberto were great to talk to. Arsenal players from the 60s to the 90s, will fall over backwards to talk to you, except, oddly, George's back four, who repelled my attempts to interview them, like they used to repel opposition attacks. I don't know why...
Of those you spoke to, did you find there was any difference between the British and the foreign players in terms of what Arsenal meant to them?
No - not at all. I think they had different ways of showing their passion though. I'd speak to McLintock, and he'd be up, screaming and shouting as if he were still Arsenal skipper, in his own living room. Guys like Perry Groves, Charlie Nicholas, Willie Young and Geordie Armstrong - they absolutely loved the club and could talk for hours about Arsenal. George Male and Ted Drake spoke in almost reverential tones about the club, the crowd and the marble halls. But then you speak with Patrick Vieira, and although he didn't rant and rave like McLintock, there was a really steely passion about him. The same with Gilberto, who looks back on his time at Arsenal with genuine passion. So just because - say - Vieira and Gilberto didn't necessarily grow up dreaming of playing for Arsenal, they grew to love the club and look back with pride on what they achieved here, and regret not winning the Champions League at Arsenal.
The book is essentially a history of the club, hung off 14 major turning points. Did writing it give you a fresh insight into the events, in terms of learning something you had not really spotted before?
Yes, definitely. I mean, obviously a saddo like me who spends too long watching and thinking about the club knows quite a lot, but the interview which Brian Woolnough did with Joe Hulme donkey's years ago gives us a far fuller picture of what happened in the '20s and '30s. Like the level to which Arsenal players "froze" in the '27 Cup Final, and how they learnt from that for the 1930 FA Cup Final, and that Charlie Buchan was as influential as Chapman was tactically. It opens up the whole debate over who was more responsible for the use of the WM formation - Buchan or Chapman. Perhaps both or maybe, as newer research suggests, neither. George Male said a great deal more about Chapman's man management skills than has ever been said before and him and Ted Drake shed more light on the stresses and pressures of maintaining the incredible level of success in the late 30s. Half a century on, I also realised after talking to the players that the seeds for what happened at Anfield in May '89 were really sown when Arsenal drew up there in the League Cup a few months earlier. It was the night, as Alan Smith and Perry Groves suggest, that George Graham realised he had a system which they could use to get the better of Dalglish's side. And one thing I'd suspected, but which was confirmed by players, was that despite the unbeaten 2003 - 2004 campaign, there's still a sense of disappointment at losing to Chelsea in Europe - because that was so symbolic - and how Arsenal never really imposed themselves in Europe during that era, despite their domestic league achievements.
Having produced a few varied titles about Arsenal, do you think you have another book in you about the club?
It will be a good few years before I write another Arsenal book. It's been eight years since I wrote Highbury, and at the moment, my plans are to write a general football book, or two. I enjoyed writing my World Cup book a few years ago, and ghost writing Dennis Tueart's autobiography. They seem to have been well received, anyway! It's great to write about other football topics, as well as Arsenal. But I'm not thinking too much about any of that at the moment. I've got quite a lot of book signings coming up at various Waterstones in Hertfordshire (Henry Norris was right - that's where a huge proportion of our support now is!!) and Essex and writing to a deadline is exhausting, so I'm not embarking on any new projects for a while. Hopefully I'll update Red Letter Days when it goes to paperback, but in the future, it's interesting to think what new angles can actually be taken on Arsenal. I think that Arsenal - even more so than United - is the most "covered" club when it comes to books. It's probably down to its image as an upwardly mobile, southern-based club. I guess that when Wenger finally departs, there will be a glut of books on his time at Arsenal - but it will be distinctly lopsided, in terms of success, unless we add to the FA Cup won this year. This year has been astonishing for the number of Arsenal books out. I make it seven new books since May. It's partly down to the FA Cup effect. I suppose there are always new stories waiting to be unearthed, but less and less as time passes.
Twitter@JonSpurling1
‘Red Letter Days – 14 Dramatic Events That Shook Arsenal Football Club’ can be bought from the publishers for the special price of £13.27 including postage and packing using the special discount offer detailed on this page. It is also available through all the normal outlets, online and in bookstores.
And if you want to buy a signed copy at one of Jon’s book shops signings, here is a list of dates and venues at which Jon will be armed with his pen (all Waterstones stores)…
Saturday November 15th Hitchin 11am-1pm
Saturday November 15th Hemel Hempstead 2pm-4pm
Saturday November 22nd St Albans 11am-1pm
Saturday November 29th Enfield 11am-1pm
Saturday December 6th Chelmsford 11am-1pm
Saturday December 6th Brentwood 2pm-4pm
