I’ll always remember Don Howe.
He was a fantastic coach and a lovely bloke.
Everyone says that because it’s true.
A Midlander whose contribution to Arsenal was absolutely massive.
The anecdotes forwarded by quartzgooner, especially the one about Charlie George being arrested at Wolves when he was 13th man and joined his mates on the terraces, show what kind of man he was.
Charlie George hated manager Bertie Mee but would have run through a brick wall for Don Howe. And if Don had still been at Arsenal, Charlie would never have gone to Derby. He would have stayed and become one of Arsenal’s indisputably great all-time legends.
The canny coach’s eye noted that Frank McLintock was no longer as mobile as he had been, so he switched Frank to centreback, with big Peter Simpson alongside him.
And it was Don who realised that George Graham, a lazy striker at Chelsea, could become a silky playmaker who could still score goals from midfield.
This was very perceptive team-building.
When I heard that Don had died, aged 80, three moments just jumped into my mind.
Two came from dramatic days when I was a journalist, the other was something he said that was typical of his thinking.
He was talking about a Liverpool player, Alan Kennedy, a buccaneering left back who made his name at Newcastle and then played for Liverpool from 1978-86. Kennedy was a fast and very determined defender who could tank forward and power into the box and smash shots across the keeper into the top corner.
Don said, “I always tell Brian Talbot: ‘Tackle him on the halfway line, because he knows he can do these things.’”
The first dramatic moment was in the Highbury press room when Don was manager in 1986. Arsenal were fifth in the table, attendances were down, they played Coventry in a routine Saturday game in front of a crowd of 17,000. Most of the top Fleet Street reporters were elsewhere that day as we watched Arsenal win 3-0 and then Don came in and said he had resigned as manager. He said he had told the chairman that morning.
When he left the room we were all gobsmacked. The story was bigger than any reporter in the room and I cursed myself for not using the dictaphone that I always took to matches and always used. But at that moment in the season, Arsenal v Coventry wasn’t a big game but suddenly a posse of hacks were asking each other, “Hang on, what exactly did he say?” Nobody else had a dictaphone, so we couldn’t play back what he said.
It turned out that the club had approached Venables, who as at Barcelona.
The other drama came in 1988 when Don Howe was Bobby Gould’s No.2 at Wimbledon and they reached the FA Cup Final.
After that game against Liverpool, after the managers had done their press conferences, I happened to ambush Don in a stairwell adjoining the tunnel, and as we spoke we were joined by another reporter.
Don said their game-plan had been practiced at one training session the previous day.
He had decided to double-mark John Barnes, Liverpool’s best player, using Dennis Wise and right back Clive Goodyear. They kept it tight, frustrated the stars, hoped to get something from a set-piece. In 39 minutes, Wise took a free-kick and Lawrie Sanchez headed home. In the second half Dave Beasant, Willesden’s finest goalkeeper, saved a John Aldridge penalty. They’d also marked Allan Hansen, who was at centreback alongside Gary Gillespie. The plan was to “Let Gillespie have it.” That made sense, since Gillespie might give Wimbledon a pass, while Hansen never would.
That night I saw Match of the Day and BBC commentator John Motson said, “Oh my word, the Crazy Gang have beaten the Culture Club!”
Later on, in the Nineties, Don helped me out with previews of big games. I used to phone him at his home in Radlett, a village in Hertfordshire.
———————————————–
Here’s a piece we did in April, 1999, after a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford.
Arsenal’s veteran coach Don Howe still bubbles with enthusiasm when he talks about the nuts and bolts of who will be marking who in a forthcoming game.
Howe, now 63, has studied Italian football, and loves commentating on Serie A games for Channel Four, so he is well qualified to judge Manchester United’s prospects in Wednesday night’s Champions League game against Juventus.
Being a realist, he admits the possibility of a 0-0 draw, which would put Juventus through to their fourth consecutive European Cup Final. A United victory would mean Juventus will not be in the Champions League next season, as they are 7th in the league.
“We all look on Juventus as the top team in Italy,” he says. “This game is very important to the future of the club.”
He admires Juve coach Carlo Ancelotti and believes he will concentrate on keeping a clean sheet. “These days the manager makes sure that everything’s tight at the back. And if it becomes a no goal draw, fine. And if people wanna say you played for a no goal draw, fine. So he’s gonna say: Look, we have a nice situation. If we don’t give anything away we go through. If we don’t give anything away, and then we hit them on the break, or we do as we did in Manchester, and get a goal, it’s goodnight for Manchester United.”
He reckons Juventus attacked enterprisingly and cleverly in the first half in Manchester. Then, as the second half went on, they started to sit back. “I know Conte well, the captain. He’s a wholehearted lad. A typical box-to-box midfield worker who plays on the right. And all of a sudden he’s popped up on the edge of the box, and they’ve got the ball to him, and he’s stuck it in the net. He did the same in the game before against Olympiakos.”
Don points out that Ancelotti’s mentor was Milan maestro Arrigo Sacchi, who introduced pressing and a zonal back four to Italian football. Ancelotti was in the 1989 team which produced one of the most devastating European Cup Final performances.
“He played in that wonderful game in Barcelona when Milan beat Steaua Bucharest 4-0. He played outside left, tucking in. Sacchi’s team that night was Tassotti, Baresi and Costacurta, Maldini at left back. He had Colombo at outside right, who’s now playing in San Marino. His two centre midfield players were Donadoni and Rijkaard. He had Ancelotti wide on the left, and up front he had Gullit and Van Basten. A superb side, and on the night they were absolutely out of this world.”
Coaches like Capello and Zeman later developed Sacchi’s tactical ideas, and Ancelotti did the same when he coached Parma. “He’s a 4-4-2 man. His best two players at Old Trafford were Davids and Deschamps. Instead of playing one in front of the back four, he’s playing two in front of the back four. He’ll do that again. I think this is a good way of defending, a zonal back four and two sitting in front. Alright, Davids came forward a couple of times. I didn’t think Davids was getting forward as much as he did with Lippi, who used to let him go rampaging forward. I love Davids, I think he’s an outstanding player. And Deschamps is an outstanding player. Davids has the ability of a playmaker, while Deschamps is an out-and -out anchorman who will sit there and give Davids the ball.”
He reckons the knee injury suffered by Alessandro Del Piero, which ended his season last November, had a colossal impact on the club.
“They played one up, Inzaghi, and Zidane off him, just behind him, like Dennis Bergkamp plays. And Del Piero virtually played outside left, coming in. He was brilliant, and he could pick up a goal. All of a sudden they’ve lost their best goalscorer, the bloke who can get them a goal out of nothing. And they’ve lost the shape that seems to work for them.
“Losing Del Piero was virtually the end of Lippi. Because it was the start of one of the worst runs Juventus have had for years. They couldn’t win a game. I have a feeling that it even confused Lippi. He didn’t know what to do in the end. Then, all of a sudden, he’s out.”
Juventus are likely, Don believes, to play a zonal back four, and four in front of them, and come forward occasionally, with Conte making runs across to get in the box.
“They’re not gonna do anything different. Except the little lad they played at left back, Di Livio. I have a feeling he’ll play him wide midfield. He’s a real little grafter. They can always depend on him to do a job wherever they play him. He’s a super little player who doesn’t give it away. If Zidane plays he’ll have the freedom to go anywhere he likes. In some ways the loss of Del Piero makes them a bit more solid. When Zidane and Del Piero and Inzaghi played, they only had three in midfield. That’s where Di Livio was very important, tucking in.”
He thinks Alex Ferguson’s biggest problem will be deciding what to do about Zinedine Zidane, the French playmaker.
“The last time Manchester United man-marked anybody was about a month ago. They played Chelsea and he put young Phil Neville on Zola. Alex might look at that, and say ; No, I can’t afford to do that, I’ve gotta win this game In his mind he’s gonna have to say to himself : Do I do another Zola on Zidane? Or do I let the nearest player pick him up?”
Don doubts whether the FA Cup semi-finals against Arsenal will have taken a toll on United, even though both went to extra time.
“Good athletes should be able to recover in a few days. When you’re on a little bit of a run, tiredness never seems to be the problem. They’re so full of chat and talk. You give them a day off. I notice that Alex went off to the races on Thursday, so he got out of it. That’s why he let Schmeichel go off to the West Indies. Beckham can go off and look after his baby. Alex is aware that if you want the football atmosphere to be there all the time, get them away from it every now and again. So they come back fresh.”
He lives for football and once admitted thinking about the game in a cinema while watching a film. He says the atmosphere in Turin next week will be electric.
“It’s not just on the night, but Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Because you go in the restaurants and everybody’s talking football. People just live for football there. I’ve been lucky enough to be in Italy a few times when there’s been a big game coming up, and if you’re there two or three days before the game, it’s a wonderful atmosphere. I think it’s gonna be a great game. I wish I was going, but I’m not. Nobody’s asked me. So, like everybody else, I shall be in front of the box, living every moment.”