Sol Campbell, the Spurs skipper, has joined Arsenal. It is a huge shock. It takes a moment for the journalists to gather themselves. ‘I could feel their surprise, the shuffling in their seats,’ Sol says. Questions are finally asked. Sol answers diplomatically and remains, not for the first time in his life, the calmest man in the room. ‘I was very keen to stay in the Premiership; it was important to me. Sven-Goran Eriksson, the England coach, is here and the majority of games he sees are here in England,’ he says, scanning the few members of the press. If I were abroad I might have been forgotten, he thinks to himself while answering the question. But why Arsenal? ‘There were a number of factors I had to go through, but in the end it was overwhelming for Arsenal. I’ve made my decision and I’m happy. I just hope everyone respects that decision.’ The word ‘hope’ is not emphasised, the question isn’t properly answered; just the thoughts of someone eager to step into a new chapter of his life.
Wenger sums up his joy in capturing one of the world’s finest defenders: ‘For me, he is the best. I felt we could not compete on a financial basis with the top clubs but we could give him a football challenge.’
Sky is watching everything out of sight. ‘I just remember no-one really knowing what to do when Sol walked out. There was mayhem for two minutes. Phone calls, cameramen trying to work out where to point the camera. It was an amazing scene.’
‘But why Arsenal?’ Sol is asked again.
This time he is more clear. ‘They are a fantastic club and have a great manager and the setup is geared to win. I want to be here and I’m here now.’ Dein and Wenger instinctively smile.
‘How have you managed the pressure of the last months when it seems many around you were being affected by it?’
He replies without pause. ‘I have kept my head when other people around me were losing theirs.’
When the news conference ends, the gathered break out into an almost apologetic applause; no-one is quite sure how to react.
• • •
The manager and his new signing walked out into the sunlight and posed for photographs. Sol was in dark suit and white shirt; Wenger in a grey-blue suit with the widest of shoulders and polka dot tie, his hair parted to the right, matted, thick. They shook hands. Posing like two good friends, Sol and Wenger gave their best Colgate smiles.
As he walked with Sky back to the car, Sol felt relief and had a glow of pride. His heart was set on a team that would win things. He knew he’d found it.
‘You all right?’ Sky asked his client.
‘Yes,’ Sol replied. Then he took a long pause and Sky held his breath, unsure what the next part of his response was going to be. He felt responsible. He had stood by his friend, his client, but, even with the million words they had shared over this decision, he was still unsure of Sol’s innermost feelings. Finally Sol, with a knowing look in his eyes, said to Sky, ‘This is the right decision.’
As the car drove away from the training ground, he felt like he was floating on an ocean of calm. He glimpsed back over his shoulder. Today, professionally, I’ve been reborn.
• • •
‘When I first played against Sol, I thought, who the hell is this? He’s strong, fast and has instinct. Thank God he’s now on my side,’ says Thierry Henry.
Sol felt immediately at home. He was happy. He had a minor injury so it was arranged that he would take the next four days off in Sardinia to get into shape before all the Arsenal players reported back for pre-season. So, while one half of North London buzzed and the other half was fuming, Sol was out of the country.
On his return, the training was intense but relaxed. He enjoyed it. ‘It [Arsenal] was all about positioning, timing, getting fit and about getting the best out of everyone. Basically, don’t waste a second on the pitch. We played eight-a-sides – tighter, less time on the ball, think quick, don’t be lazy, move it quicker. The idea was to solve problems before they got to you, and then when you do have space in a competitive game the time on the ball seems longer, a gift.
‘At training we played more across the pitch, more side-to-side. If we did play up and down, which was rare, it was more of a passing game. If you were playing forward you could have a third touch. The emphasis was on controlled passing moving forward.’
It was a good time in his life. He was testing his skills all the time. ‘It was my dream to play on the same side with some of the best players in the world. Training with them every day naturally raised my game. They tested me every day and because of it I got better. There was hardly a session when something extraordinary didn’t happen, where I’d watch in awe at a certain skill. I had to up my level. They would stretch you. There was no point going into training and feeling you could take it easy. There was no hiding place. That decision was taken from you. You would have to give a hundred per cent. Maybe you wouldn’t go into a full tackle but you always had to be switched on to deal with the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, who was very strong and so gifted. People don’t think that Dennis had such strength but believe me he was one of the strongest I played with or against. Kanu was also strong and inventive. He could do something out of the ordinary. It was a privilege to play with such players.’
Sol’s first game for his new club came in a pre-season friendly in Austria, when he took to the pitch for the last twenty minutes against Roma. ‘It was a special moment for me,’ he recalls. He’d felt unfulfilled at Tottenham, and it was only now, in this new setup, that he realised how unhappy he had been. ‘I knew I was talented and I was always thinking about the game and wanting to improve,’ says Sol. ‘I wanted to be in a club whose ethos was about training and bettering oneself. They had that and it was the perfect environment for me.’ Wenger had promised that on their very first meeting, and Sol felt vindicated. ‘He showed me things I knew I had inside me but I didn’t have the platform on which to show it.’ He was at last beginning to fit into his skin.
• • •
Sol made his Arsenal Premier League debut on 18 August 2001 away against Middlesborough. The Arsenal side that day was: Seaman, Cole, Adams, Campbell, Vieira, Pires, Ljungberg, Lauren, Parlour, Wiltord, and Henry. It was an easy 4-0 win for the Gunners, despite Ray Parlour’s sending off in the second half. Parlour said afterwards, ‘A few lads knew Sol from England. That helped him to settle without any problems. There was a lot made of him coming from Tottenham but that didn’t phase him one bit. He slotted straight in and was confident about what he wanted to do at Arsenal. I remember him doing very well in that first game. Shame I couldn’t have stayed with Sol on the pitch until the end. But it was great to see him become one of Arsenal’s all-time greats.’
The players were welcoming. ‘He was quiet at first but it wasn’t long before he opened up,’ says Patrick Vieira. ‘We could see very quickly he was focused, calm and concentrated. He gave off a sense of knowing what he wanted.’
Sol was glad the Arsenal fans got behind him. ‘I felt they had the attitude of let’s see what he can do, what he’s made of. And when I put on the shorts for the first time, it felt good. It felt really good. I understand that must be hard for Spurs supporters to hear, but I was in a good place and felt comfortable with everything that went with it. The club seemed to do things properly; they were fair. They never tried to pull the wool over my eyes. If they wanted to make it work, they would find a way of making it work. They had really good people who cared about football.’
It seemed he had finally realised he was simply a happier footballer, who had left behind the problems of playing for Tottenham. He was sounding optimistic, something his new team-mates soon came to appreciate.
‘I thought he was crazy when he first arrived,’ says Thierry Henry. ‘Here’s the Tottenham club captain, joining Arsenal! But if there was person who could make it work, it was Sol. We now had in our team one of the best centre-backs in the world!’
The team was gelling and his connection with the manager was growing by the day. He speaks of Wenger with the utmost respect. ‘Wen
ger had a German mentality, more like a bookworm. Sometimes you need that intelligence, but you need the balance of a warm side. He has his own way of talking and approaching people, slightly reserved. I knew I could learn from him.’
• • •
Sol liked Highbury; he liked its sense of history. The team bus drawing up to the main doors of the East Stand; the players stepping out onto the pavement. The fans waiting, all on display in red and white scarves staring, in awe of their idols, autograph books in hand. ‘Sign here! Sol, sign here!’ Sol gives an unconfident nod at the recognition; his shyness has never left him, even though he now has to deal with it daily. ‘I’ve never felt that comfortable being famous; I’d prefer to be invisible, unnoticed. I always have.’
Then, into the marble entrance on the way to the dressing rooms, past the bronze statue of Herbert Chapman, a moderniser of the game who brought in a new form of training as well as championing floodlighting and numbered shirts. He was Arsenal’s manager from 1925 to 1934 who, in his time, brought the previously trophy-less club an FA Cup and two First Division titles. He died at the age of 55 from pneumonia but left, as a legacy, a club that would be the dominant force in English football in the 1930s, winning five league titles in the decade. ‘I loved the tradition,’ Sol says.
The Highbury pitch was one of the smallest in the league. He remembers the first time he walked into the stadium as an Arsenal player. The smell of cut grass, the sprinklers on like at the San Siro a few weeks before. He walked from the North Bank to the Clock End and back again, taking in his new home. He liked to do that, to check out the space. I want to play here. It seemed so different to when he came here with Tottenham; much more stately now. Two workmen were putting up advertising hoardings. Someone once said, ‘You can understand the ideals of a club by its advertisements.’ Maybe that quote comes from another decade. Nowadays, it’s all about the big brands, not the local butcher or neighbourhood Greek restaurant.
Sol believes the tightness of the pitch didn’t really suit Arsenal’s style. ‘I think if we had been playing at the Emirates with that team, we would have won even more matches. At Highbury, the opposition could almost cover their mistakes. We loved playing away because we had more room, a bigger space. There was a freedom, with another four or five yards on either side. If you were really good at retaining the ball and good at the counter-attack, you could kill off teams. Our players were suited to that.’
The atmosphere and tradition at Highbury would motivate any Arsenal player. The bars, even when cleaned, smelt like the morning after the night before. Cigarette ash littered the floor like confetti; there was a lingering odour of spilt beer. Thousands upon thousands of people would shout from every corner of the ground, the noise converging on the pitch. Despite his reservations about Highbury suiting the Arsenal way, Sol knew he could feed off the crowd in that cauldron. ‘If the atmosphere was going, you could feed off the energy. In big games, you could feel the intense pressure from the crowd, which I loved, as it was all about the game. The tightness of Highbury, where I could literally see the faces and almost catch the half-conversations, made it feel for me like a theatre. I was there to perform.’
By mid-November, Arsenal had lost twice in the Premier League, both games at home. Their Champions League campaign had been stuttering. ‘I don’t remember much of it,’ Sol stiffens, as if to wipe the stain from the memory. But his new club and his rediscovered self-belief were about to face their biggest test yet, just four months after his headline-making transfer.
• • •
Tottenham 1 Arsenal 1, white hart lane, Saturday 17 November 2001
Tottenham: Sullivan, Perry, King, Richards, Taricco, Freund (Davies 85), Anderton, Poyet, Ziege, Ferdinand (Rebrov 70), Sheringham. Subs not used: Thatcher, Beasant, Bunjevcevic. Goals: Poyet 90.
Arsenal: Wright, Lauren, Campbell, Keown , Cole, Parlour, Vieira, Grimandi, Pires, Bergkamp (Kanu 70), Wiltord. Subs not used: Tavlaridis, Ljungberg, Van Bronckhorst, Taylor. Goals: Pires 81.
Att: 36,049. Ref: Jeff Winter.
In typical frantic and fevered North London derby, the home side dominate but can’t finish off their chances. On his first game back at White Hart Lane since his transfer to Arsenal, Sol Campbell is prominent as he and his fellow defenders face an onslaught in the first half. Late in the second period, an Arsenal counter-attack sees Pires’ first-time curler from 25 yards beat goalkeeper Sullivan, only for man of the match Gus Poyet’s final-minute volley to slip through Wright’s hands and gain a deserved point for Tottenham.
Arsene Wenger made up his mind early in the week that Sol would play on the Saturday. ‘When you are manager you think, do I play this player or not, and you come to a conclusion. If you don’t do it now, next time it will be the same. Then you give credit to the idea that he did something wrong, and then, as well, you punish your own team for not playing one of the strong players. I thought it was an important hurdle for him to overcome, and I thought the sooner the better.’
Sol had spent the night before the game in the team hotel. The atmosphere was convivial, with Dennis Bergkamp and Patrick Vieira making jokes at Sol’s expense about his return to White Hart Lane. ‘It helped,’ Sol recalls. That may have lightened the mood, but no-one knew exactly what was waiting for him, not even the swarms of tabloid press hacks looking at every angle for a story.
He had spent the week meticulously planning how he was going to deal with the game. ‘I felt I was going to war. I knew I had to put my armour on, not only because of the team in front of me but the thousands watching and shouting. I knew I had to protect myself.’ He took solace in the experiences from his early life. All the time he had spent alone was now going to help. He was never bored or at a loss being by himself; it had given him the discipline to remove himself mentally from the chaotic noise shadowing his everyday life.
The Saturday was overcast. Sol woke easily. He shaved, washed, dressed almost mechanically. For breakfast he had cereal and a cup of black coffee with one sugar. At first he sat alone, but was soon joined by team-mates Henry, Bergkamp and Vieira. They read the papers and talked about nothing much, nothing that Sol can remember now. He’d had a good night’s sleep and managed not to think too much about the day ahead. ‘I knew what was coming; it was my emotions that had to be sorted. If they get out of control, your game goes and then you have nothing.’
Arsene Wenger didn’t say anything to him that morning. He didn’t feel he needed to make a fuss. But the vitriol that was waiting on Tottenham High Road and in the stadium took even the manager by surprise. ‘for some players, supporters feel they are a part of them,’ says Wenger. ‘It is more difficult when a player comes from out of your ranks; you give him a chance and then he goes.’
When Arsenal’s coach pulled up within a block from the ground, the crowd started to build. Six, seven, ten deep. A mob was baying at the Arsenal bus, a Dickensian mass waiting at the gallows. The dark coach windows shielded the players’ faces from the staring, cursing fans of their North London neighbours. ‘When I saw them carrying signs with Judas written on them, I thought, oh hell, this will be a real test for Sol, but I tried to treat it as normal,’ says Wenger.
The Arsenal players remained calm. Many had played at Tottenham before, but this was different. ‘I remember arriving at the game, bricks and bottles being thrown at me, but the first thing was the roar and when we reached the clock it was like a sea of people. They wanted blood,’ recalls Sol.
As the coach moved towards the front of the stadium, the police pushed back the crowd, packed together so close they could sniff the dirt on each other’s necks; now ten, twenty deep. Faces were grotesque with fury. ‘There were banners directed at me. I heard the shouting, the insults. It took a lot of energy, it took a lot of guts and heart to get through those moments and what was about to happen.’ He continued: ‘I couldn’t fuck up, I had no choice. I had to hit the bullseye,’ and then he recited the words his father used to say to him. ‘You have one chance
. Grab it!’
He was prepared, mentally strong. He was ready to take on the world.
• • •
Sol had been sitting towards the back of the coach. His face was plain with no expression. He was alone in his thoughts. As the coach pulled up outside the ground, he was the last off. No-one spoke to him. His team-mates knew instinctively that he had to deal with this in his own way. The Turkish doorman welcomed him back with a warm smile. ‘Welcome back, Sol.’ ‘It was Muzzy Izzet’s cousin,’ recalls Sol, from his earlier days at White Hart Lane.
The team walked down the corridor to their dressing room. Sol was at the back, the groom at a shotgun wedding, looking at, half-smiling at, dozens of faces he recognised so well and yet none of which were now familiar. When he reached the dressing rooms, he stopped for an instant. It was always going to happen, wasn’t it? Sol went to open the Spurs door. A steward pointed to the visitor’s dressing room. ‘I think you are meant to be going into that one, sir.’
Sol realised he was sitting in the away dressing room for the very first time. He laid out his kit meticulously; not his team shirt, though. He would put that on just moments before leaving for kick-off. For now, he put on a blue sweatshirt and looked to the exit. He was going out for a twenty-minute warm-up.
‘I had planned how I was going to do this. It took all my experiences from my life before, how I had been brought up, what had happened to me. Going onto my old pitch I felt… Nervous. Nerves had already been there, but I’d had to control them. There’s a fine line between nerves and being too relaxed. You needed nerves but I didn’t allow them to overtake me completely. You almost feel heavy, with jelly-like legs. The whole crowd was probably looking at me. I felt that. This was what I agreed with myself that I was going to do: I was going to cover the pitch and run a full rectangle. Get every single bit out there, don’t warm-up away from it, go to it, take it all in and absorb every single ounce of it. I wanted to feel it, for it to hit me big time. I remember seeing black faces, white faces, Asian faces, and people almost frothing at the mouth, grown men with their little kids. I wanted to feel every single bit. I didn’t want to wait until kick-off when I was on the pitch and then get the full barrage. I wanted to absorb it, get above it, and adjust to it. That was a conscious decision by me.’
Sol Campbell Page 14