The Melvyn Bragg Interview
Order Your Copy	by Simon Rose

Melvyn Bragg is the Controller of Arts at London Weekend Television and has edited and presented 'The South Bank Show' since January 1980, having joined three years earlier from the BBC.

As a loyal Arsenal supporter, Melvyn misses few matches home or away, following the club on its domestic and European campaigns.

Simon Rose met Melvyn, shortly before Christmas, to chat about how he became an Arsenal supporter and to discover Melvyn's opinions on Arsenal issues, both over the last few seasons and regarding the near future.

Where were you brought up and what were your roots as a football supporter?

I was brought up in a little town called Wigton, which is about eleven miles from Carlisle and the first football I saw was played by Wigton Harriers. A ferocious team. When my Dad came back from the War he used to take me down to Carlisle United - he'd been in the Air Force with one of the guys who played for Carlisle United...So that made me feel incredibly important for about ten minutes.

Is it true that you once painted your house in Carlisle colours?

I did it when we got into the first division, in Gayton Road, Hampstead! We were in the first division for one season and I saw most of the games they played, and the last one. I went up to Derby to see it and it was the most soulless game I've ever seen in my life! Derby had already won the league and we were already relegated, so it was an entirely pointless move on our part. We all stood there glum and the Derby supporters were just waiting for them to lift the trophy. I think the score was nil-nil, something .....depressing!

So how, and maybe even why, did you become an Arsenal fan?

I became an Arsenal fan because of my son. When Tom became about seven he was obviously keen on sport and I thought he should have a club to go to. Arsenal is literally the nearest to where we live - I always believe you go to the nearest club. We went to Spurs one game and then we went to Arsenal - thank God he chose Arsenal! I think I would have persuaded him for Arsenal anyway.

I had two other sentimental reasons for always being interested in Arsenal. One was that, I think in 1950, Arsenal had played Carlisle United in the cup and drew, which was about the biggest moment in Carlisle's history at that time. A lot of cockneys came through Wigton and met up with my Dad, who had a pub, and I just remember them as the first foreigners I'd ever seen, these cockneys! And they were so nice and they talked in this funny way. So Arsenal figured big in my mythology then.

The second reason was that I was appallingly bad at cricket - I wasn't any good at football either actually - but I thought that Denis Compton was wonderful and of course he played for Arsenal. So there was a certain connection. So when I went to Arsenal I felt that although it wasn't my first club - my first club was Carlisle United - I didn't feel as though I was letting anyone down. And anyway, Carlisle is a long trip on a wet Saturday. It's three hundred miles! Mind you, Tom and I have come down from Cumberland to see an Arsenal game and gone back on the same day!

What was the first Arsenal match you attended and what was your immediate impression?

I just thought immediately that I enjoyed being there. I'm very lucky I just asked for a couple of tickets and I've had the same seats all the time. Very nice people there, nice to talk to. I just fitted in and we liked it. I liked the ground, I liked everything about it - we had a routine immediately. All we've done is add to it - about eight or sometimes twelve of us go and have a meal at an Italian restaurant beforehand...so that extends it a bit! It's terrific.

The very first game, I can't remember - that lets me down as an Arsenal fan doesn't it! It will probably be the second game of the first season we went - we'd have been away at the end of August - so we're talking the second game of that 88/89 season.

What was your personal experience of that night at Anfield in 1989?

It was terrific, we couldn't believe it! We watched it on telly - it was a bit like 'Fever Pitch' really. Tom was behind the sofa for the last few minutes, just looking round, and I was sitting crouched in the corner, just wanting us...y'know, to get there. And I couldn't believe that last goal! It was amazing, a great moment. Tom would have been twelve or thirteen and I wanted very much to be with him, which is why I'm keen on sticking with that routine and not going to the directors' box. Oh, we cheered our heads off!

One of the things that I think is ridiculous, and I do think it's ridiculous, is that I spend so much time thinking about it. It's easier for me to have a perspective on it because I was away from football for a long time, maybe thirty years or so when I didn't really follow anybody.

So coming back it was really really fresh and also quite amazing to discover how many bonds you get, especially with the form of somebody. Rocky wasn't playing well and I couldn't work it out and I was trying to. I spent one night thinking to myself "what the hell am I doing, spending an hour trying to work out why he's lost form, what am I doing?" But you get very involved and it's terrific. It's such a good game to watch when it's good and when it isn't good it's interesting to know why it isn't good, why these eleven guys can't fire. You've got a fairly tiny area, a crowded room for twenty-two people and you'd think by the time you'd seen a lot of football it would be a predictable pattern still, but it never is. It's very interesting and it's very absorbing and you can get really, quite stupidly, upset about something. I mean half of the office, they're dead (after the Blackburn game, that is!) - they all go to Arsenal. There was real gloom on Monday morning and people were like "oh I don't want to talk about it".

It's been a couple of years now since George Graham left Highbury. Looking back, what are your reflections on the Graham era?

I was a big supporter of George and I kept saying in all my columns "don't judge him until all the facts are out". But, unfortunately, there you are, he shouldn't have done what he did, but he's owned up, he's taken his punishment and he's come back. I think he's seen it through very well actually. He's a good manager and now he's got an incentive at Leeds. I think George's real problem was psychological. The problem was that George, to his astonishment had come to Arsenal - which he revered - and he'd turned them into winners. And I think he was astonished that he'd done it, delighted. And then we started to win everything - I mean we were winning the Grand National at the end weren't we! Remember that season when every Arsenal team, the boys, the women, were all winning something?

I got to know George a bit - I don't know the players, but George and I happened to live near each other so we kept bumping into each other. We had lunch once or twice and I interviewed him for 'The Sunday Times'. But I think he got to the stage where he didn't know where to go with Arsenal. I mean, you can't cap it, so what do you do next? George is very much that kind of guy who needs to be proving you wrong, that's a big motivation with George.

Curiously enough, this episode - which is very sad and we could have done without it - has remotivated George. He's lining up a George Graham monster in that bloody championship now and everybody in the Premiership, well he just wants to show them. He'll be fine with Leeds - if they give him a bit of decent money.

You almost feel with George that he won't rest at Leeds until he wins everything he won at Arsenal - and then surpasses it...

...Yeah, he's a fierce bloke and that's what he needs. My loyalty's with Wenger, but what I like about George is the quality about him. He could be bottom of the league and he'd still say "all we have to do is win the next eighteen matches and we're perfectly capable of doing that"! You know what I mean!? And that's the thing about George, that's the spirit that spreads itself to a team.

To what extent do you feel that Arsene Wenger has changed Arsenal's playing style? Is there a realistic change or is the change merely somewhat of a veneer, with too many of the squad only capable of playing Wenger's way for twenty-odd minutes before reverting to hoofing the ball around?

I think the problem now is that we've got two halves. The midfield and the forward play has changed and sometimes it's lovely to watch them when they all play, when they're all fit. We've got a problem with fitness and suspensions. I think sometimes it's deeply unfair, the number of times that Bergkamp is getting booked for bugger all and the amount of harassment he's taking. I sometimes feel like saying to the referee "well either he's being harassed or it's sexual assault, make your mind up!"

When we're flowing we're terrific, but then it's still George Graham's defence. Wenger's got a really really interesting and difficult problem - how to make that defence fit into the midfield and attack. I think it's got to be a couple of different, younger players. I don't think it's a veneer - I think he's changed the midfield and the forwards - and I think he has made Parlour play differently and much better. Parlour is one of the most improved players and I think Wenger's done that. But he hasn't attacked the defence and it seems that across the pitch there's a crevice, a gap - and all of a sudden it's George Graham's Arsenal again. Except they're three years older and slower, and that's the problem.

Do you think that Tony Adams is fit enough to be playing? Or are we just patching him up so that he'll last until the World Cup, and then perhaps he'll have to retire due to his knee and ankle problems?

I think that Adams has been a wonderful player and he's never to be underestimated. You're talking about a seriously good defensive footballer, but the fact is his injuries have slowed him down and we're seeing a lack of confidence. Two things he did last Saturday (against Blackburn) are almost text-book examples of lack of confidence - two ridiculous passes. It's not a weak ankle, that's just completely lack of confidence and that's the worry because he obviously sets himself such high standards and he knows he's not meeting them.

It's very difficult for these players when they're not doing their best and they know the crowd knows it and it gets to them. So I think that may be his problem - physical fitness and a lack of confidence. I don't know how fit he is - I'm not an expert in that field - but he certainly isn't as fit as he was, not by a long way.

You develop respect and affection for people. I feel very respectful of Tony Adams and I'm struggling with him at the moment. Is it temporary or is the game up? They have difficult lives these players - since he was a boy he's been pushing himself at competitive sports at a very, very high level, and he's gone through drink and he's gone through marriage - it's extraordinary pressure to put yourself under. What do you do without it? What do you do with it when you can't cope?

What's about Ian Wright? Is his talent really beginning to wane?

Wright's done a great deal for Arsenal so you preface anything you say about Wright by saying that we owe him an enormous amount. He's scored some wonderful goals and he's made my day so often that I've got enormous affection for Ian Wright.

I don't know what's happened to him recently - maybe beating that record blew a fuse - maybe he thinks there's nothing else to go for. I don't know what he's going through but I've never seen him so bad. I've never seen him not participating in a game. What you knew about Wright was that on any day of the week he'd be going like the clappers - and that's sometimes his problem. But now he's playing that silly dodge of when a ball comes high he runs behind a defender in case the defender misses it - well the defender's not going to miss. He's not challenging for the ball, he's just hoping for a colossal mistake. It's never happened as far as I've seen. He's lost so much that you wonder just what the hell's going on, he seems to have lost interest, and it's a shame. You can't have somebody as the focal point of your attack losing it, without it affecting everybody. I think the problem is that Bergkamp has nowhere to go and he's being asked to do about four jobs. He's perfectly capable of doing two jobs - creating attacks and finishing them - which is terrific. Wrighty isn't capable of creating them - he'll pass a man, but he's a finisher, a great finisher. Bergkamp is quite outstanding, but Wright isn't finished yet.

Do you think then there's a danger that Wright's form and behaviour is causing real unease or unrest in the team?

I think he's a big man in the team, you're quite right. I mean look at all the bloody goals he's scored, it's phenomenal. And I think he's been a good pepper-up of the team because he's one of these nice daft lads. He's as daft as a brush isn't he! And that's good, that's fun. But when he's just gloomy and moody, nobody knows quite where they are. I mean if he carries on I'd just knock it on the head and call it a day, get on with it. I wish we had Hartson, but I'd bring in Anelka.

How do you rate the players that Wenger has brought in?

I don't rate Grimandi at all. I've never seen him play a game that has interested me - Tom thinks better of him than I do. Petit I think will be quite a strong player although with Vieira he knows what his job is, but without Vieira he kind of hangs around the centre circle not quite knowing whether to go forward or to go back. But I rate Petit, I think he'll turn out fine. Overmars is a good buy, but again I think he just needs a bit of confidence. You watched him try to take on Kenna on Saturday - I think he could have beaten that guy. Maybe he's carrying a bit of an injury, we don't know these things. He didn't seem anything as fast as he has before.

I think on the whole Wenger has bought well. I rate Wenger. I certainly wouldn't dream of writing Wenger off because it is extraordinarily difficult to come in and take over a great institution - which Arsenal is in its own right without any question. It was an extremely attractive proposition, a great winning side - but what do you do when players are too great to sell yet you know they're getting older and slower? When do you start to replace them?

Is Wenger, perhaps, almost too polite?

Yeah, he's a very polite, well-mannered man, not forceful - but sometimes you have to be a bit of a ruthless bastard. Ferguson did the trick, very brutally, up at Man Utd and maybe Wenger should have been a bit more brutal. I suspect he is a rather sentimental chap and I feel he's very fond of Ian Wright and Tony Adams. There's no anger in what I'm saying, I'm just thinking that Wenger's over-wary in some way. Except that one day you've got to go to your office, shut the door, put your head in your hands and say "I've got to have a clear-out".

Do you think maybe Wenger's thinking along the lines of taking some of the new youngsters - like Upson & Crowe, Anelka & Wreh - and putting them all in, as a whole, to replace the old guard, maybe even fairly soon?

Maybe that would be a better thing for him to do. Wreh hasn't really had a chance yet to show what he can do - he's missed a couple of unbelievable goals...never mind, we'll forget that! He'll be alright, he'll even things up. I've been impressed with Anelka, you've got to be. I mean Wenger knows what he's doing - he knows more about football than I do - but you can only comment on what you see. It comes back to one thing in my view and that's that he's got to tackle the defence. What are we going to do about that defence? It's been there eight years now. In the second half Winterburn and Dixon, they just fade. When did you last see Dixon go up the wing? Why's he not doing it? Because he's tired. He can't do that anymore. Winterburn keeps playing because he's a tough banger-away, it's alright, but Dixon is tired. He's been absolutely brilliant for Arsenal and Adams isn't fit - he's obviously slow and can be turned now, quite easily - and they all know it. You're right, that's the problem - other teams all fancy their chances and now Adams and Dixon and Winterburn know it. You feel so sorry for everybody involved. They've been great players but it's got to change.

I wish Wenger had started earlier because you could tell, even in the opening games when we were doing well, they were struggling . Wenger must see it, because he's obviously an intelligent bloke but I think he's just been hoping for the best actually.

Are you in favour of the apparently inevitable European Super League? And how do you think Arsenal might fare in such a league?

I think that if we play regularly in Europe we'll hold our own very well. I think the reason we didn't do very well recently in Europe is because we were very rusty. But the more we play the better we'll get, full stop. We've got a bit of a block about Europe at the moment - we think they're better than us, teams like Milan and Juventus. But I think once we get stuck in we'll do okay. But it'll be an accumulator - the more we play the better we'll get. I've no doubt about that.

With Man Utd's financial benefits from their 55,000 capacity, and the likelihood of a European Super League, what's your position on the 'Highbury' debate?

There's one or two answers to that. The first is that like everybody - even though I've only been a proper supporter for 9-10 years - there's huge sentimental attraction in Highbury. I wouldn't like it to be anywhere else. But if we moved obviously I'd go because I follow the club. The sensible thing to do - and this would never happen because there's no common sense in football - would be if Arsenal and Tottenham combined resources and built an 80-90,000 super stadium, say in Kings Cross, which they shared. And that's it, call it the 'Arsenal/Spurs Stadium' or something - that would be the sensible solution. That unfortunately would never happen, but I think that would be great. The way they are now, they're stuck. They think they can get it up to 50,000 don't they...

I guess the plan is to rebuild the Clock End and do something with the West Stand...

Yeah they think they can get another 12,000 in but that's not nearly enough for big European football. I mean it should be upwards of 60-70,000. But that's the most they can get in - so it's 50,000 at Highbury or it's 70,000 at Kings Cross. That might be what they have to do.

Do you think the advent of digital TV may impinge on people going to games?

No, all the evidence is that the successful teams on television attract more and more support, not less. That's the evidence we have in television. It's exactly the same in my game. If we do a big show on, say, Cameron Macintosh, and show some excerpts from his productions, the box office triples, quadruples - they all want to see it. And they'll all want to see Arsenal - your kids and friends watching television, they see a great team and they all want to go too - so it's just the same. It all helps and feeds it.

Do you have a favourite Arsenal XI for the period of time you've supported Arsenal?

If they're on top form I'd go for the defence as it is - but five years ago, I'd prefer Bould to Keown. I'd put Vieira in there because I think he's very capable. I though that Schwarz played well for us and we sold him too early. Schwarz and Vieira would have been a very good combination. I'd put Bergkamp and Wright in and maybe even Parlour - on his present form he's doing very interesting things - and a top-form Overmars. Yeah, even Parlour ahead of Rocastle - who could be wonderful, magic on his day - but Parlour is stronger, he's developing well, he's getting to the line and he's doing things he couldn't do before, so he can be very useful. So I'd choose quite a bit of the present team.

Do your work commitments hinder you from attending many matches?

Yeah occasionally, which pisses me off. I hate it when they change fixture dates, because I take a lot of trouble to make sure I'm here for them - and then they switch it to another night! I'm afraid I still like the idea of playing on a Saturday - I think it gives a great structure to the weekend, doesn't it, Saturday afternoons ("mmm, 'jumpers for goalposts', y'know, marvellous isn't it?"). But I get to most games, I've missed very few. Like I say, we came down last Christmas from Cumberland for a game - bit stupid really, but still!

Have you ever thought there was an angle on Arsenal that could be the focus for a 'South Bank Show'?

Not really - I've thought about football and there's an art to it but I think there's more to talk and write about, than to see. Maybe somebody will do it - but I think it would look pretentious. Maybe somebody will prove me wrong but I don't think I could do it.

What's your opinion of Arsenal's press coverage? Are our players quite as appalling as the press often suggests, do you reckon they behave any differently from any other players?

I think our guys get a rough deal on the pitch - we rarely get the breaks. There's a bit of a handicap for referees towards Arsenal and I can't quite work out why that is. For the Press, we're a big team and we happen to be a big London team. A lot of the national Press is in London so there's more attention because they can get at our players. It's not so easy when players are in Newcastle. There's an orgy of football giving them more and more to feed on and the Arsenal players are handy.

The Full Melvyn

Melvyn Bragg was excellent to chat with and he is clearly deeply infected with the Arsenal mania that afflicts us all. It was a joy to mine his intelligent thoughts about aspects of Arsenal issues and players, as Melvyn unearthed intriguing and measured viewpoints which are not often considered for debate. But perhaps more importantly - and above all - he clearly doesn't think much of Tottenham!