By Myles Palmer
I WAS AMAZED when my agent called last February to say Virgin wanted a new chapter.
The Professor was a hardback in 2001.
It was updated as a paperback, with a more appropriate title, describing the Double season in 2002.
Many football books follow that pattern.
So that was that.
The Professor had sold well, inspired friendly emails from all over the world, and now it would fade away.
But Arsenal looked like winning more trophies, so Virgin wanted to re-publish my book with a new cover and a new chapter about 2002-2003.
I was stunned by the suggestion. Gobsmacked. It was the furthest thing from my mind.
But : you can only say so much in a book.You think you will have room to say all the things you can’t say in an article.
Then you find that is a myth.You can’t squeeze it all in, and a topical book soon goes out of date.
So I was tempted by the chance to say some things I had not said in the existing 328 pages.
The new chapter is a short one. Lacking space, I needed a lot of discipline.
Upson gets three lines. I would have liked to write three pages about Upson, but that was not possible.
And I only used 15 quotes.
It’s hard to study 3,000 quotes from a season and choose 15 that are more illuminating than the other 2,885.
I chose 15 quotes by Bergkamp, Vieira, Keegan, Capello, Adams, Vicente and Wenger.
I consider them to be the most significant statements of the Arsenal season 2002-2003.
The narrative of the season is built round the pivotal moments.
In that, the new chapter is similar to the rest of the book.
Back in December 1997, Blackburn was a pivotal moment.Arsenal were hammered 3-1 at home.
As I describe, Tony was not Tony that day.
It was the first time that I had ever seen Tony Adams out-powered by a big centre forward, Chris Sutton.
Arsenal were blasted off the field. They played 4-4-2 power football and they were blasted off the field by another team who played 4-4-2 power football more forcefully than them.
Tony didn’t make a tackle on Kevin Gallagher that he would normally have made. I can see it now.
That game was weird, unexpected, scary.
It was something we had never seen before.We had never seen Arsenal physically overwhelmed like this.
It was an earthquake. The cosmos shook. Cracks appeared in the ground, in the building.
Platt played that day, Vieira was on the bench. Need I say more?
After that 3-1 trauma, a team meeting decided that Petit and Vieira would give the back four more cover.
And Arsenal romped to the Double.
So Blackburn was a pivotal moment.
And there were many other pivotal moments over the next six years.
The Professor has many themes. But pivotal moments are crucial throughout the book.
This time around, I wrote the the new stuff round four things : Seaman, Rooney, Ajax and Bolton.
Choosing a title for the chapter was not easy.
Previous chapters had been called The Season of Analysis, The Season of Anelka,The Season of Rotation.
I decided, in the end, to use a stat. I’m not big on stats, as you know by now.
I called it : The Season of 15 Draws.
Nothing more to say, really.
I’m glad I’ve written a good book about a great guy.
Yes, I criticise Arsene a bit, because he ain’t perfect.
But I like to think that The Professor does justice to him.
That my book is a fair appraisal of his character, his football philosophy, and his work at AFC.
12th August 2003.