17th May 2003 could well be a day which goes down in Arsenal history. For at 3pm in the Millenium stadium in Cardiff David Seaman may be stepping out in an Arsenal shirt for the last time. Seaman’s contract expires in a few week times and whether Arsenal will offer him another season as their No. 1 goalkeeper is unclear.
However with the news that he will be our new goalkeeping coach regardless suggests that his playing days may well be over. With this in mind (and not at all to annoy a reader who I promised a column about Dennis Bergkamp!) this edition of Hot Stuff will be dedicated to his Arsenal career. To be more precise this edition will deal with his early Arsenal years, from his signing in Summer 1990, through to the infamous Nayim incident. Next edition will deal with his career from season 1995-1996 through to the present day. So lets get cracking!
“I paid top money, and I got a top goalkeeper.”
Those were then Arsenal manager George Graham’s words following one of Seamans outstanding performances in his first season at Highbury. However flash back in time a few months and some Arsenal fans may have been surprised if you had told them those words were soon to be spoken. This was nothing to with Seaman himself, his performances for QPR over the previous few seasons and been consistantly good, but Arsenal fans had a warm feeling for then keeper John Lukic. The fact that Lukic went from 25th April 1987 through to 5th May 1990 without missing a competitive game for the club showed what a consistently good goalkeeper he had been for the club. In fact some fans organised a small demonstration outside the ground upon news in March 1990 that Graham was seeking to sign Seaman! But it turned out he was signing a bargain at £ 1.3 million, which despite being a lot of money at the time, especially for a goalkeeper, was almost entirely recouped by selling Lukic to Leeds for £ 1 million. To say Seaman’s 1st season for Arsenal was outstanding was to be an understatement as he consistantly turned in excellent performances in the league and cup.
Highlights included rescuing a point at White Hart Lane with a save which left Spurs’ star striker Gary Lineker gazing in amazement, pulling off four world class saves in an FA Cup tie against Leeds and crucially, denying Liverpool on several occasions in the make or break game at Anfield which Arsenal won 1-0. He also came second in ITV’s saves of the season tournament with a stunning save at Roker Park, in
another game which the Gunners won by one goal to nil. If anyone deserved a league championship medal for his performances that year it was him, and to be frank his season was flawless. Well not quite …
Luke … I am you father!
Now the above must seem like a somewhat random and frankly bizarre comment to place in the middle of a commentary on David Seamans career. But just bare with me one minute and I shall explain its reason for being there. As most of you will be aware this is a famous line from the ever popular “Star Wars” film franchise. To cut to the basic plot of the film the hero Luke is battling against Darth Vader to save the universe. However part of the way through the series it is discovered that Vader is in fact his father. Shock horror! Recently two prequels to the original three films have been released charting Lukes’ dads’ life where ultimately (in the currently being filmed third prequel) he turns evil and becomes Vader. Now in the original 3 films whenever Vader appeared on screen there would be a short piece of sinister music played. As a result although at this point he is still young and on the side of good, occasionally this same piece of music is played to remind us that this young man is soon to become evil incarnate. This is otherwise known as foreshadowing. So what has this all to do with Big Dave? Well the 1991 FA Cup Semi Final between Spurs and Arsenal would ultimately turn out to be a piece of Vaderesque foreshadowing for Seaman’s lowest points in his career.
Already one goal down after 3 mins, Arsenal foolishly conceded a free kick outside their own penalty area. Up stepped Paul Gascoigne and curling a great free kick over the Arsenal wall he found the top left hand corner of our net. The instant reaction was that this was a pure moment of genius and was unstoppable. On closer inspection though it looked very much stoppable. See instead of flinging his left hand at the ball which was very much within reach of it, Seaman flung his right arm at it instead which was clearly no where near the ball. The inital consensus was that this was poor judgement on his part but looking back at it now it is easy to identify where he went wrong. He simply could not get across to the ball quick enough and his stride pattern was such that he would have struggled to get off the ground had he gone for the left arm. As he would soon find out, this would not be the last time a ball whipped across him with pace would catch him out.
En-ger-land, En-ger-land, En-ger-land
What was unique about David Seaman in relation to the England Italia 90 squad? He was the only Arsenal player in it. Selected as 3rd choice keeper behind Chris Woods and the legendary Peter Shilton, Seaman watched the tournament from the confinds of the substitutes bench.
However England’s semi final exit provided him with an opportunity to claim the No. 1 jersey when Shilton announced his international retirement. However newly appointed manager Graham Taylor obviously was not a fan of his as despite his excellent form from 1990 – 1992 Seaman was inexplicably overlooked for the over rated Chris Woods. As a result Seaman once again watched from the sidelines as England took part in Euro 92. That said in the circumstances he was probably better off there than in goal! This selection process continued until September 1993 when Woods picked up and injury which would ultimately see him lose not just the No.1 jersey for England, but for Sheffield Wednesday as well! Seaman had his chance and started in goal against the Dutch in the now infamous game in Rotterdam. Holland won 2-0 but Seaman had no chance with the goals and left with his reputation in tact. A minor mathematical miracle was England’s only chance of qualifying for USA 94 but despite a brave effort on the night (sans the first 10 seconds!) they went out. Graham Taylor then resigned and Terry Venables was appointed. Luckily for England as hosts of Euro 96 they did not have to qualify and therefore faced 2 years of friendlies.
Unluckily for Seaman this meant he often had to make way for flash in the pan keepers like Tim Flowers and Ian Walker so his caps total remained far fewer than he deserved. However come the tournament himself El Tel had no doubt who his number one was and that was Seaman. After six years of playing second fiddle Big Dave was going to play in an international tournament!
What goes up, must come down
The same time period for Seaman was a good one domestically. Although Arsenal failed to retain or subsequently regain the league championship they did win 3 cups, the FA and Coca-Cola cup in 1992 – 93 and the coveted European Cup Winners Cup in 1993 – 1994. Throughout this Seaman performed consistantly well, missing only 4 games from 25th August 1990 through to May 7th 1994. His only real low spot was a humourous one where he missed a vital penalty in the 1993 Charity Shield to hand the trophy to Man Utd. But come August 1994 things were looking good for Arsenal.
Our defence had been superb the year before and on the surface all we lacked was creativity in midfield and new signing Stephan Schwarz looked like providing it. However domestically season 1994-1995 was an unmittigated disaster. On the pitch we could barely field our first team all season meaning our defence started leaking goals all over the place and only Ian Wright could score for us.
Off the pitch Paul Merson missed half the season after admitting he was addicted to cocaine and George Graham was later sacked for financial irregularities. Unsurprisingly we finished 12th only 6 points off relegation. To round things off we lost at home to First Division Millwall in the FA Cup 3rd round. The season was truely awful … with the exception of our Cup Winners Cup defence.
I’m not entirely sure why but while we were a shambles domestically we were inspired every time we played in Europe. But none more so than David Seaman. After a disappointing 1-1 draw at home to Auxerre in the Quarter Finals 1st leg, our passage to the next round looked very dodgy indeed.
However a sublime Ian Wright goal after 15 mins in the away leg put us in front and the entire game swung in our favour. Unfortunately no one told Auxerre that. The next 75 mins was attack after attack, after attack from the French side but despite having cracked ribs Seaman repelled everything they threw at him. Off hand I can’t remember a better goalkeeping performance than his in that game and to be honest I doubt I ever will do. However while this performance went somewhat unoticed in the press at home, the semi-final tie against Sampdoria of Italy would propel Seaman into the spotlight and give him the credit he deserved. After a pulsating 210 mins of football the scores were deadlocked at 5-5 and as a result the dreaded penalty shoot out ensued. 10 penalties later and 3 magnificant Seaman saves later Arsenal had won 3-2 and were in the final for the second year in a row. What was so special about Seaman’s performance was that the three penalities he saved were all decent penalities, in fact Lombardo’s third penalty was actually very good indeed.
These were not fluffed shots rolled straight at the keeper, these were all well struck and going in. So destiny appeared to be with Arsenal and despite the fact that technically they were inferior they were favourites to beat Real Zaragoza in the final. Things looked to be going their way too as 119 minutes into the game it was 1-1 and Brian Moore along with most of the Arsenal fans in the stadium were anticipating a Seaman led shoot out victory. Then it happened. Nayim picked the ball up about 10 yards inside Arsenal’s half on the right hand side of the pitch. You could tell the other 21 players on the pitch had settled for penalties as he was the furthest Zaragoza player forward and the Arsenal defenders weren’t exactly hurling themselves at him either. What Nayim’s thinking behind his next actions were is unclear, while the fact they were intentional is not in dispute quite why he chose to shoot from the previously unchartered territory he was in is anyones guess. My thinking is he thought sod it and took it on as a proverbial shot to nothing. Anyway with Seaman a few yards off his line Nayim smashed the ball high in the air towards the left hand side of David’s goal. Despite furious backpedalling a one last desperate lunge Seaman could not keep it out and he ended up crumpled up in the back of the net with the ball. Once again his difficulty in moving his feet quick enough to deal with a ball hit across him was exposed. That said give Nayim his due, he hit it perfectly and it will go down as one of the greatest moments of genius in football’s history. However, this was no consulation to Seaman and the next day he was the country’s laughing stock. Thankfully, he would only have to wait just over a year to prove his doubters wrong and come full circle and be the nations hero.
So thats the first half of a look at Seaman’s Arsenal career complete. Next time I go through how Euro 96 became the highlight of his career, how injury interupted his next few seasons but he still picked up two doubles, World Cup 2002 and Ronaldinho’s goal, a review of his season domestically and for England and a brief summary of his 13 years at the club and my personal favourite memories of him.
Before I go I should give major kudos to Ivan Pontings ‘Arsenal Player by Player’ and ‘The Official History of Arsenal 1886-1995’ by Phil Soar and Martin Tyler whos excellent books helped me compile this edition.
Take care everyone, and if the second half is not online by 3pm on Saturday the hears to an Arsenal FA Cup final win!