Terry Burton, former Arsenal stalwart, helps to prepare Gunners’ downfall

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/nov/27/terry-burton-arsenal-

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Terry Burton has been talking for over two hours in his office at West Bromwich Albion’s training ground – and the anecdotes just keep coming. A personal favourite is the story he tells about his early days coaching at Wimbledon, where Vinnie Jones, no doubt aware that Burton’s career had come to an end when Arsenal released him at the age of 19, asked in front of everyone during a warm-up: “Tel, did you ever play football?” Deadpan, Burton replied: “No, I didn’t. That’s why I came here.”

Jones, for once, was lost for words and now the joke was on him. “I could see Carlton Fairweather behind cracking up,” Burton says, smiling. “At Wimbledon it was one of those where you had to hit them with humour and personality. Once you got them training, it was not a problem.”

But it could be a problem before training. Burton was the man who had the thankless task of trying to split up that notorious brawl between John Fashanu and Lawrie Sanchez, after the pair decided that the best way to sort out a long-running feud was to go toe-to-toe.

“There was a phone call, I think it was from the club, so I asked Fash if he could take the warm up,” Burton says. “The next thing Neal Ardley came running over. He said: ‘Tel, it’s all kicking off.’ So I went running over to where they were. To be fair to Sanch, he stood his ground, which wasn’t easy against Fash, who was a brute. They ended up in the bushes, and I was trying to get in between them.”

It is quite a scene to picture. Burton, after all, is not exactly an imposing figure to look at – it was his lack of height that probably counted against him when he was trying to break through at Arsenal. He remembers how Bertie Mee, the manager when Arsenal won the double in 1971, once sent him for tests to “get my bones checked to see what size I would eventually be”.

Although he helped Arsenal win the FA Youth Cup in 1971, Burton accepted that “the dream had ended” when he was let go not long afterwards. He went into coaching, took his badges and towards the end of the 1970s was back at Highbury as youth team manager during a golden era that saw players such as Tony Adams, David Rocastle, Michael Thomas and Martin Keown come through.

He left Arsenal for a second time in 1987, but returned 25 years later as reserves and head development coach, after a stint with Wimbledon including a couple of seasons as manager, followed by spells at Watford, Cardiff, Albion and Sheffield Wednesday.

The 62-year-old would still be at Arsenal now if he had been offered the chance to take over from Liam Brady as academy manager last season but, much to his frustration, he was overlooked and the job was given to Andries Jonker. He told Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s chief executive, that he had made “a big mistake”, informed Arsène Wenger – who said he was not involved in the decision – that he would be leaving at the end of the season, and took up the position of technical director at Albion.

All of which means that, with Arsenal visiting The Hawthorns on Saturday, Burton has spent this week trying to help Alan Irvine, Albion’s head coach, plot the downfall of the club that is closest to him. Arsenal’s problems are well documented, but do not expect to hear Burton say a bad word about Wenger. “Fantastic” is Burton’s response when asked what it is like to work for the Frenchman.

“For me, he is the boss. I think I can look most football people in the eye – not physically but metaphorically – but with Arsène I see him as someone who has done things that no one else has done. To me, he will always be the best. He’s done an unbelievable job at Arsenal over a long period of time.”

Burton smiles as he reflects on some of the criticism of Wenger. “He’s had this philosophy of ‘despite what everyone else says, I’m going to play this way’. Of course I have looked at it when there have been games and it’s crying out for defensive stability, wide players to tuck in and be tighter, but then you would probably have taken something away from the game he’s tried to create. He has this vision of how he wants to play football, and it’s unshakeable.”

It is fascinating listening to Burton rowing back over the years and talking with such enthusiasm about his time in football, in particular the period at Arsenal in the 1970s and 80s. It is only now, he says, that he realises how privileged he was to work with such distinguished names. “Don Howe was my mentor, I used to try and sound like him, everything. Don was the man, really. The first thing that always impressed you with Don was his coaching manner, he had an edge to his delivery, and he was so creative in his practises.”

Next came George Graham - appointed Arsenal’s manager in 1986 - and an episode that Burton reflects on with some regret. “At the time I was probably the only one on the staff that wanted George. I was pleased. But it was a different George Graham from the one who was a player - it had to be. As a player, he was skilful, a maverick, a real bright, lively character. I can still hear him now: ’Don, can we have a fun day today?’ But George as the manager came in with discipline. We sort of fell out. George was suspicious of the staff when I didn’t think there was any need to be. With hindsight, it was probably more about me than him, I was probably a cocky so and so and thought: ’I produced all these players here, I’m untouchable’.”

Graham told Burton on the first day back of pre-season that he was letting him go. “His actual words were: ’One of us is going to go and it’s not going to be me.’ I went back six months later and apologised, I felt I wasn’t much help to him, a new manager coming in from Millwall. That summer I was out of work. I had a barbecue at my house, I’ve got a great photograph, I still look at it now and again - you’ve got David Rocastle, Merson, Adams, [Stewart] Robson, Keown, [Niall] Quinny, Gus Caesar. They went back to do their football and I was unemployed.”

What followed was quite a gear shift. Burton swapped Arsenal for Wimbledon, where he was reunited with Howe, Bobby Gould’s assistant manager. “I went from the marble halls and London Colney to Plough Lane and Richardson Evans - Richardson Evans was the dogshit park. Literally. Dogs walked across the main [training] pitch. You would queue up behind the lorry drivers for food - and Wimbledon had just won the FA Cup at that time.”

Burton has enough material to write a book on his time at Wimbledon, charting everything from the manager who wanted to substitute a player who had already been sent off to the sadness he feels about the hugely controversial move to Milton Keynes. “It does still sit badly with me now. I think they stole a football club,” says Burton, who was sacked as manager - extremely harshly in the eyes of many - in 2002. “Strangely enough, I haven’t spoken to him about it, but David Dein, who I got on really well with, because he was an Arsenal man, he was on that [Football Association] commission that gave permission for it [the relocation] to happen. How it happened... it is like Qatar getting the World Cup.”

Much to his disappointment, Burton will not be at the Arsenal game to enjoy a reunion with Wenger. With the transfer window opening soon, there is a need to watch matches, although January will be nothing like the summer. “There was no head coach, 13 outfield players and no head of recruitment. So I wasn’t walking into a setup which was ready made and you have a bit of time to sit back. It was very much like a 100-yard sprint – get your head down and go.”

Filling the head coach vacancy was the priority and Burton was guided by the club in terms of the profile of that position. “I think Roy Hodgson was the one that most people at the club, from maybe chairman through to the players, looked at and thought that’s what West Brom need. Roy was out there every day, he led the gameplan, the strategy of how he wanted his team to play, taking 90% of the sessions. My period when I worked here before [in 2011-2012], I enjoyed it, but you were fighting to get the cones to put out!”

Burton agrees that he was brave to put forward Irvine, but he maintains that it was the right choice. “He’s got a good football knowledge, he can coach the fundamentals of the game, he can coach team play, he can coach individuals, his football personality on the training ground is very, very good. He’s a leader. Was it a gamble for me? It was only a gamble because of the name. The processes [behind it], I knew, were right.”

As for player recruitment, in the absence of live games other than the World Cup, there were long hours watching clips on Wyscout, lots of data analysis, guidance taken from the scouts already working at the club and far too many calls received from agents that have never been heard of since. “From where we are now and where we started then, the recruitment department looks entirely different, because the DNA of what we wanted from our players wasn’t set then,” Burton says. “That was part of that experience where you look back and go: ‘It would be far easier to do it now.’”

One of the other challenges for Burton has been adapting to a role where he is not out on the training field – his home for the last four decades - every day. “I’ve come round to it now, and hopefully I’ve got things to offer,” he says. “No matter how enthusiastic you are, you have to give way to age. But it’s not going to stop me from thinking like a football man.”