Arsenal - All Talk!

by Ian Trevett

When Clive Anderson invites a personality from the football world on his chat show, there appears to be a recurrent theme: George Graham, David Seaman, Ian Wright...could there perchance be an Arsenal bias? Especially bearing in mind Clive is a committed Arsenal supporter. 'No, there's always a good reason for the guests' counters Anderson, drawing on his experience as a barrister to deny the obvious: 'George was involved in the bung scandal and had a book out. Seaman came on the show just after England qualified for the World Cup and he's a well known figure. He's a nice guest, he just likes to chuckle away. As for Wrighty, he's got a wild image and a big personality and he's good at this sort of thing. In fact, it was from that appearance that he was offered his own chat show.'

So, you know who to blame if Wright starts looking distracted on the pitch, planning his future guests. Indeed, won't Wright be in direct competition with Clive now? 'Well, I wished him luck, but I'll be expecting FA Cup Final tickets. Anyway if he gets too good at it, maybe I can take over up front for Arsenal.'

Regular Highbury High readers will recall we interviewed Clive Anderson at the end of the 1995/96 season, discussing Clive's life-long support of Arsenal (Issue 10). A lot has happened since then, so we caught up with Clive again to ask him his views on the French revolution at Highbury:

'Arsene Wenger has made a fantastic input in terms of style. Really we started the season a bit too well, as it all feels a bit disappointing now. I'm happy to be patient and wait a year or two for some trophies if necessary. I hope people will be patient and give him a chance.

The foreign players can look really good at times, but then sometimes they seem to get lost, due to the pace and physical nature of the British game. Grimandi, for instance, looks like a good defender and has some nice touches, but he always seems to give a goal away. I suppose that's not really a good feature in a defender.

I'd like to see Stephen Hughes given a chance. A good home produced player, it would be a shame to lose him. The defence is getting on a bit as we know, and we need a forward before Wright drifts totally into television. Really, I wish we had kept Merson and Hartson, maybe even Dickov, although at the time I was happy about Hartson going. Really he's proved us all wrong.

I remember watching the Coca Cola match against Birmingham and thinking this is really interesting. We've got a whole new team developing. But when they've come in individually, they haven't really settled into the side. Anelka, for instance, is really talented but he's not quite there.'

Clive lives fairly close to the ground, so the conversation soon moved onto the issue of the ground:

'Of all the options, Wembley is certainly the worst. Imagine Arsenal at Wembley and Wimbledon at Highbury. It would be far too confusing. Whatever happens, moving from Highbury will change the nature of the club.

I'd really like to stay at Highbury. I like being able to walk to the ground. But I'm sure they won't be thinking, we'd better stay at Highbury so Clive can walk to the ground. The best result would be to knock down a few houses. I'm sure some people would be glad to see Arsenal go, but the area would lose so much if Arsenal left. I always argue with my friend who disagrees with demolishing houses, just because he lives in Highbury Hill. I don't think I'm very sympathetic to his plight.'

When we interviewed Clive before, he told us how he converted Rory McGrath from Leeds to Arsenal. Since then the two friends seem to have been competing with each other over who is the most committed Gooner. McGrath admits Clive introduced him to Arsenal, but claimed that Clive hardly goes now, which Clive instantly refuted: 'Rory is a very fine comedian, but a very poor reporter. I've got a half share in a season ticket, but I've worked it so I've seen most of the games.'

Perhaps Rory should be careful about questioning Clive Anderson's loyalty. After all we saw how he handled the Bee Gees, although there's no truth in the rumour that they were Tottenham fans.

Thanks again, Clive. For the second time, that was Clive Anderson saying goodnight...goodnight.