“I remember the first time I visited Highbury, I was on my own and it was January 2, 1989,” Wenger said.

“I had been in Turkey two days earlier watching Monaco’s next opponents in the European Cup and I had to fly back on January 1, but I saw that in England they play football at that time of year so I decided to fly back from Ankara to France via London to watch a game first.

“I immediately thought that football in England was great. There was a fantastic atmosphere at Highbury and I just wondered ‘is everywhere like this? – even at that time I thought it would be great to be part of that.

You could see that the legs were tired – it was after Christmas and they had played many games and had many drinks – it was not the most exciting game to watch. I just remember there was a red-haired guy who came on and made the difference.“ (es war … Perry Groves – und das Spiel ein 2-0 gegen T´ham!)

“Obviously on that day I could never imagine that I would come back one day as manager, it was not even in my head. It was just a coincidence because on that day I first met [former vice-chairman] David Dein and from then on we developed a friendship.”

David Dein dazu:

´He looked very elegant, not like your normal football manager. He was by himself and looked lonely. That was the start. I hijacked him. That evening we went to a friend´s house for dinner. The friend happened to be in show business and at the ende of the dinner we started playing charades. I said to Arsene in my best french – because his English wasn´t great at the time – do you want to play? He said yes. Ten minutes later he was acting out A Midsummer Night´s Dream. I thought, this is an unusual guy. That night I remember the words appeared in my mind: Arsene for Arsenal. It could happen. It´s destiny. I really felt it.´

AW later: ´I said if you come down, call me, we can have dinner. So from 1989 to 1996 we were always in touch´

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So war das also: Qualifikation von Arsene Who? der kann Shakespeare ….

(Auszüge aus: Amy Lawrence – Invinvibles)