No spacings here: a software gremlin? Sorry!
From Stan Mortlock :
Hi Myles,
1. I am upset at the post that blames David Dein for being in any way responsible for the demise of Arsenal
2 . I was born in Woolwich in 1947, so I became a gunner from an early age.
The first game I watched was in 1961 at Highbury against the previous years double winners Spurs. Although we won that day it took another 10 years for Arsenal to become successful. That was 10 years of pain when my school friends supported Spurs , Man Utd and even West Ham
3. In your posts you often comment on the importance of partnerships.
I know that you meant partnerships on the field.But partnerships off the field are as important .CLOUGH and TAYLOR?
MEE and HOWE ? So after the double winning Arsenal team of 1972 the board of Arsenal allowed Howe to depart. Why, because the board had become comprised of old school lords and ladies that just came along for a day out and the prawn sandwiches
4. Arsenal stopped winning trophies when the Wenger-Dein partnership was deliberately broken up by pure greed.
5. Danny Fiszman was a businessman first and an Arsenal supporter second.
David Dein was An Arsenal supporter full stop. Dein was very close to the Arsenal players which was a threat to the board’s plans to sell off the Arsenal. Dein negotiated with Ashley Cole a renewed contract at £65,000 a week.Cole was happy but the Board reneged and made the offer £55,000 .
Losing one of the world’s best full backs did not worry the board but it was imperative to get rid of Dein who was opposed to the financial plans of the board that would not allow any investment in the team for 10 years.
6. Danny Fiszman moved to Switzerland to avoid capital gains tax on his shares. Which to me indicates that he intended from an early stage to make a huge tax free profit from his Arsenal shares
7. David Dein was forced to sell his shares once he was forced out by Danny Fiszman.
However by selling the shares to Usmanov he has protected Arsenal from Kroenke. Sure Kroenke can rip out 3 million in phony consultancy fees each year but without Usmanov holding 30 % of the shares he could take out 103 million pds .
8. The ones to blame for this whole mess are the politicians in the UK. Football is protected in other countries i.e Spain and Germany.
However in Britain if fox hunting or polo was at threat from American investment there would be an out cry and the threat would be stopped.
9. My apologies for this rant Myles but the suggestion that David Dein was in any way responsible for the debacle that has become Arsenal in the last 10 years is abhorrent to me.
10. I now live in Perth Australia and I enjoy watching every Arsenal game. One track that was played here many times was of David Dein. He would be saying that every morning he would wake up and look into his shaving mirror and imagine on his forehead a statement saying “Get a winning team. “
Myles says:
To answer your points I’d have to write another book.
So I’ll just say this on partnerships: Terry Neill & Don Howe did OK for a while.
I liked Don a lot and David Dein is probably more aware of Don’s huge contribution to Arsenal than the other directors were.
Get a winning team? A fine mantra.
Professional football is about winning and what you’ve seen in recent months and years from Wenger’s complacent millionaires is some very unprofessional football.
Millions of people have had a lot of fun from Arsenal and other English clubs over my lifetime and I’m one of those. Most Arsenal supporters I’ve met are marvellous people.
And I’ll always be grateful to Jonathan Taylor at Virgin for asking me to write a book about Arsene Wenger.
He called it The Professor and that turned out to be an excellent title.