Great Wenger article
Building a better future drives Arsene Wenger
By Henry Winter
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 25/08/2007
Autism is a life-long disability that Nick Hornby describes as "a whirlpool that drags children under into a world nobody can reach". The author, whose son Danny suffers from the condition, has joined forces with Arsene Wenger, of Hornby's beloved Arsenal, to reach down into the whirlpool and drag these children back.
It takes a special cause to attract the interest of Wenger, whose obsession with football saw him spend one birthday viewing a Bundesliga match, "although I did put some candles on top of the television". Only knowing the roads between his home, the Emirates Stadium and Arsenal's training ground at Colney, Wenger inevitably got lost on the way to TreeHouse, the specialist autism school in north London attended by Danny. He had to be guided in by phone.
Here to help: Gilberto Silva and manager Arsene Wenger
Wenger dislikes staged photo-opportunities, such as Thursday's, to promote Arsenal's campaign to raise £250,000 for TreeHouse's sports facilities, but away from the cameras he impressed all the staff with his knowledge of autism. "I have read about it and know that what made it very well-known was that film, Rain Man," Wenger says.
"What is very strange to me in this mental disease is that it can open some secrets in the functioning of the human brain. I read that they gave a guy who had autism a sum involving a multiplication of endless numbers. It ran into billions and he gave the right answer straight away. They asked him how he did it and he said, 'I just see the numbers'. So maybe you discover through this kind of disease that you use only a little part of the potential of our computer."
A private audience with Wenger is always a privilege, as revealing as it is rare. After donning a hard hat to tour the building site that will soon become TreeHouse's new home, Wenger finds a deserted Portakabin and talks about everything from how hippies harmed English football and how England can become a great team again. He muses about Roy Keane's hunger, how to build the perfect player, and considers the English the most football-obsessed nation on the planet, eclipsing even Brazil.
His first words revolve around the "social responsibility" of a sport that possesses such incredible power. When Wenger enters TreeHouse's temporary home, he walks across a green carpet with the white lines of a pitch. Autistic children who struggle to connect with the outside world sense the excitement of distinguished visitors and flock around Wenger, who has brought Gilberto Silva and Gael Clichy with him.
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As he watches the young faces fascinated by the arrival of a gentle Brazilian and a polite Frenchman, Wenger confides that it is good for players to make such visits. "I am very happy the players come out. You can forget when you are in a privileged position that it is not like that for everybody," he added.
But when I mention that managers in Brian Clough's era used to take players down the mines to appreciate their good fortune, Wenger pounces. "If you go to the coal mines, you don't give anything to anybody," replies Wenger. "You just help yourself, or the manager tries to help himself by making the players scared to work in the coal mines so they play better on Sunday.
"But when Gilberto and Clichy come today, they give their presence to help other people. I prefer that. It makes them better people; it makes them more rounded. I feel humility is a fantastic quality. It gives the first intelligence to people that life doesn't stop with you. I was always very lucky with the players at Arsenal that way.
"What is the biggest astonishment for me since I have arrived at Arsenal is how big this club is. The love for the club was created before I arrived. It was done by [Herbert] Chapman or people even before that. When the club shows it can care about people, then people love the club.
"At the start, when I went to Arsenal board meetings, I was surprised by how much people sense a responsibility to the local community. I never sensed that in France. That responsibility towards the local community is present in English football more than anywhere else in the world. The tradition starts with a covenant between the club and local community."
As a Brazilian midfielder and French defender chat to staff and children, Arsenal's Alsace-born manager does not find anything strange about fostering local roots while recruiting from abroad. He rejects the claim by Steve McClaren (and many others) that foreigners stifle the development of native talents.
"For me, English sport was in advance of European sport for years, because you had competitive sport at school but transferred the children to the clubs. I speak of Sebastian Coe. You had tennis players and footballers. But in the Seventies, English schools became non-competitive. The same in France. It was the peace and love generation. Don't say 'who is first?' or 'who is second?' 'Everybody is the same', he said. "At school they didn't create any competitiveness any more. In France, all the sports died unless the federations took charge of the education of the players. Three federations survived: judo, football and tennis. They pumped money in to educate their own people, because schools did not do it any more at competitive level. In England, they continued to rely on the schools for a long time, and didn't bring any players through any more. When I worked in Japan there was exactly the same problem."
Drive through any French city, town or village and the local clubs will be hosting well-organised training sessions for all ages. "I inaugurated a new stadium in a small village where one of my cousins is mayor," Wenger reflects. "Guess how many under-16 coaches they had in that village? Four! Two teams, four coaches. All paid by the Government. Four coaches! In a small village!"
Now consider English facilities. "I had the son of my wife's first marriage here and on Tuesday night, I had to bring him to a park to play football, and I had to give £2 so he can practise! Every player had to bring £2! They rent a football pitch in a park! Two pounds! In France, you would have a revolution if you charged a fee.
"Look when London wanted the Olympic Games. There was a hurdler from Namibia who was on the IOC investigation committee, and when they were in the hotel in London, we tried to help. They wanted Arsenal shirts. We gave them Arsenal shirts. The guy said to me, 'We were in Paris, and do you know how many swimming pools we found in Paris? Forty-eight. Do you know how many pools we found in London? Two.' I thought, 'They have not one chance, London, to get the Olympics'."
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In full flow, Wenger cannot be interrupted by minor details such as London actually winning the hosting rights for 2012, and is launching himself into a passionate defence of the academy system set up 10 years ago. With clubs, not schools, in charge of youngsters' development, Wenger believes England's future is promising.
"We have 16-year-old players in our academy now who are of a quality I have never seen since I have been in England. They are ready to compete. Look at the signs. If you look at England's Under-17 team, they start to make results." Indeed; yesterday England defeated Brazil at the Under-17s World Cup.
"When I arrived in England there was no correct youth-team development. But when it starts, people want results quickly. The answer is that it takes 10 years. The academy system is a success."
The Under-17s will be maturing internationally in about eight years. "I will have a beard and a walking stick by then!" Wenger smiles.
It's "simple", he adds. England have not succeeded in recent years because "you did not dedicate enough time for your football education," Wenger argues. "You take the blood of any Englishman and it is no different from the blood of a Frenchman or Brazilian. They are not less gifted. It is education."
His thoughts turn to a different education, to the amazing work going on around him at TreeHouse. He remembers the words of Danny's mother, Virginia Bovell, who spoke of how she "went into a kind of paralysis for a few months" when she and Hornby, her then husband, discovered their son had autism.
"Danny would slump on my shoulder, making strange noises," recalls Bovell. "Nick always described it as like the hard drive on a computer crashing. Only when I met other parents of children with autism did they get me out of this paralysis."
Because specialist teaching is so difficult to find, Hornby, Bovell and other parents founded TreeHouse to reach out to those children who fall into the whirlpool of autism. "You can't possibly cure Danny," says Hornby. "He's very severely disabled. But he lives in the world much more since he went to TreeHouse.
"Before, Danny wouldn't make eye contact and preferred to be on his own. He is actually quite sociable now. Danny comes to matches at Arsenal, more with his mum than me. I'm terrible with the kids - I am always frightened they will want to leave early. Danny has been to quite a few of the Carling Cup games. He loves the noise and the lights.
"The first time I went with him, it was very noisy for the first five minutes, and when it stopped he stood up and demanded more noise. He spends most of the time watching the light and the crowd.
"No one knows what causes autism. In Danny's case, the best guess his mum and I can have is that he had a very traumatic birth, and that there was probably some brain damage at birth that manifests itself in autism."
Wenger muses for a while over whether autism could be genetic, before the conversation switches to football and the issue of nature versus nurture in fostering desire in players. Wenger's response illuminates how he moulds stars. "You build the player like a house," he says. "The basis is the technique that happens before 12. If the player can play, the next floor is the physique at 14-15. Then it the tactical ability - how to use your technique and physique in the game.
"The last part, the roof, is the mental side. If you have no roof, it rains in your house. How competitive are you? How motivated to do well every day? That is the final step. I believe that hunger is something you get at 18 and remains relatively stable during your life. That is decided between 18 and 20. And that decides careers.
"You are not born with hunger. Roy Keane was competitive [from a young age], but why? You need to be psychoanalytical to see why. Sometimes the same adversity can have a bad effect. If you have a strong father, you can fight against him or completely lie down. Maybe Roy Keane had the first reaction, to fight the father. I don't know."
The Frenchman's own obsession with football is legendary, although he is aware of the pressures it can place on family. "When you are in a passion, you can become isolated and that is the danger for everybody. The pressure on all of us is to be successful and that means that you have to sacrifice something.
advertisement
"People around suffer somewhere. This person works for so many hours that their family doesn't see them. There is always a price to pay. Of course it's a danger for me and it's a danger for the players, it's a danger for everybody who has a passion."
Talking of passion, Wenger still marvels over English fans. "Last night [Wednesday], Wembley was packed. To go you must be really brave. It was raining. It's a friendly, a few players not available, nothing at stake, and you have choice of many matches on television - and Wembley is packed! You English are crazy about football, crazier than even Brazil. I have been in Brazil many times and you don't see stadiums packed like Wembley on Wednesday."
From Wembley to TreeHouse, people with a passion can be found.
By Henry Winter
Last Updated: 2:04am BST 25/08/2007
Autism is a life-long disability that Nick Hornby describes as "a whirlpool that drags children under into a world nobody can reach". The author, whose son Danny suffers from the condition, has joined forces with Arsene Wenger, of Hornby's beloved Arsenal, to reach down into the whirlpool and drag these children back.
It takes a special cause to attract the interest of Wenger, whose obsession with football saw him spend one birthday viewing a Bundesliga match, "although I did put some candles on top of the television". Only knowing the roads between his home, the Emirates Stadium and Arsenal's training ground at Colney, Wenger inevitably got lost on the way to TreeHouse, the specialist autism school in north London attended by Danny. He had to be guided in by phone.
Here to help: Gilberto Silva and manager Arsene Wenger
Wenger dislikes staged photo-opportunities, such as Thursday's, to promote Arsenal's campaign to raise £250,000 for TreeHouse's sports facilities, but away from the cameras he impressed all the staff with his knowledge of autism. "I have read about it and know that what made it very well-known was that film, Rain Man," Wenger says.
"What is very strange to me in this mental disease is that it can open some secrets in the functioning of the human brain. I read that they gave a guy who had autism a sum involving a multiplication of endless numbers. It ran into billions and he gave the right answer straight away. They asked him how he did it and he said, 'I just see the numbers'. So maybe you discover through this kind of disease that you use only a little part of the potential of our computer."
A private audience with Wenger is always a privilege, as revealing as it is rare. After donning a hard hat to tour the building site that will soon become TreeHouse's new home, Wenger finds a deserted Portakabin and talks about everything from how hippies harmed English football and how England can become a great team again. He muses about Roy Keane's hunger, how to build the perfect player, and considers the English the most football-obsessed nation on the planet, eclipsing even Brazil.
His first words revolve around the "social responsibility" of a sport that possesses such incredible power. When Wenger enters TreeHouse's temporary home, he walks across a green carpet with the white lines of a pitch. Autistic children who struggle to connect with the outside world sense the excitement of distinguished visitors and flock around Wenger, who has brought Gilberto Silva and Gael Clichy with him.
advertisement
As he watches the young faces fascinated by the arrival of a gentle Brazilian and a polite Frenchman, Wenger confides that it is good for players to make such visits. "I am very happy the players come out. You can forget when you are in a privileged position that it is not like that for everybody," he added.
But when I mention that managers in Brian Clough's era used to take players down the mines to appreciate their good fortune, Wenger pounces. "If you go to the coal mines, you don't give anything to anybody," replies Wenger. "You just help yourself, or the manager tries to help himself by making the players scared to work in the coal mines so they play better on Sunday.
"But when Gilberto and Clichy come today, they give their presence to help other people. I prefer that. It makes them better people; it makes them more rounded. I feel humility is a fantastic quality. It gives the first intelligence to people that life doesn't stop with you. I was always very lucky with the players at Arsenal that way.
"What is the biggest astonishment for me since I have arrived at Arsenal is how big this club is. The love for the club was created before I arrived. It was done by [Herbert] Chapman or people even before that. When the club shows it can care about people, then people love the club.
"At the start, when I went to Arsenal board meetings, I was surprised by how much people sense a responsibility to the local community. I never sensed that in France. That responsibility towards the local community is present in English football more than anywhere else in the world. The tradition starts with a covenant between the club and local community."
As a Brazilian midfielder and French defender chat to staff and children, Arsenal's Alsace-born manager does not find anything strange about fostering local roots while recruiting from abroad. He rejects the claim by Steve McClaren (and many others) that foreigners stifle the development of native talents.
"For me, English sport was in advance of European sport for years, because you had competitive sport at school but transferred the children to the clubs. I speak of Sebastian Coe. You had tennis players and footballers. But in the Seventies, English schools became non-competitive. The same in France. It was the peace and love generation. Don't say 'who is first?' or 'who is second?' 'Everybody is the same', he said. "At school they didn't create any competitiveness any more. In France, all the sports died unless the federations took charge of the education of the players. Three federations survived: judo, football and tennis. They pumped money in to educate their own people, because schools did not do it any more at competitive level. In England, they continued to rely on the schools for a long time, and didn't bring any players through any more. When I worked in Japan there was exactly the same problem."
Drive through any French city, town or village and the local clubs will be hosting well-organised training sessions for all ages. "I inaugurated a new stadium in a small village where one of my cousins is mayor," Wenger reflects. "Guess how many under-16 coaches they had in that village? Four! Two teams, four coaches. All paid by the Government. Four coaches! In a small village!"
Now consider English facilities. "I had the son of my wife's first marriage here and on Tuesday night, I had to bring him to a park to play football, and I had to give £2 so he can practise! Every player had to bring £2! They rent a football pitch in a park! Two pounds! In France, you would have a revolution if you charged a fee.
"Look when London wanted the Olympic Games. There was a hurdler from Namibia who was on the IOC investigation committee, and when they were in the hotel in London, we tried to help. They wanted Arsenal shirts. We gave them Arsenal shirts. The guy said to me, 'We were in Paris, and do you know how many swimming pools we found in Paris? Forty-eight. Do you know how many pools we found in London? Two.' I thought, 'They have not one chance, London, to get the Olympics'."
advertisement
In full flow, Wenger cannot be interrupted by minor details such as London actually winning the hosting rights for 2012, and is launching himself into a passionate defence of the academy system set up 10 years ago. With clubs, not schools, in charge of youngsters' development, Wenger believes England's future is promising.
"We have 16-year-old players in our academy now who are of a quality I have never seen since I have been in England. They are ready to compete. Look at the signs. If you look at England's Under-17 team, they start to make results." Indeed; yesterday England defeated Brazil at the Under-17s World Cup.
"When I arrived in England there was no correct youth-team development. But when it starts, people want results quickly. The answer is that it takes 10 years. The academy system is a success."
The Under-17s will be maturing internationally in about eight years. "I will have a beard and a walking stick by then!" Wenger smiles.
It's "simple", he adds. England have not succeeded in recent years because "you did not dedicate enough time for your football education," Wenger argues. "You take the blood of any Englishman and it is no different from the blood of a Frenchman or Brazilian. They are not less gifted. It is education."
His thoughts turn to a different education, to the amazing work going on around him at TreeHouse. He remembers the words of Danny's mother, Virginia Bovell, who spoke of how she "went into a kind of paralysis for a few months" when she and Hornby, her then husband, discovered their son had autism.
"Danny would slump on my shoulder, making strange noises," recalls Bovell. "Nick always described it as like the hard drive on a computer crashing. Only when I met other parents of children with autism did they get me out of this paralysis."
Because specialist teaching is so difficult to find, Hornby, Bovell and other parents founded TreeHouse to reach out to those children who fall into the whirlpool of autism. "You can't possibly cure Danny," says Hornby. "He's very severely disabled. But he lives in the world much more since he went to TreeHouse.
"Before, Danny wouldn't make eye contact and preferred to be on his own. He is actually quite sociable now. Danny comes to matches at Arsenal, more with his mum than me. I'm terrible with the kids - I am always frightened they will want to leave early. Danny has been to quite a few of the Carling Cup games. He loves the noise and the lights.
"The first time I went with him, it was very noisy for the first five minutes, and when it stopped he stood up and demanded more noise. He spends most of the time watching the light and the crowd.
"No one knows what causes autism. In Danny's case, the best guess his mum and I can have is that he had a very traumatic birth, and that there was probably some brain damage at birth that manifests itself in autism."
Wenger muses for a while over whether autism could be genetic, before the conversation switches to football and the issue of nature versus nurture in fostering desire in players. Wenger's response illuminates how he moulds stars. "You build the player like a house," he says. "The basis is the technique that happens before 12. If the player can play, the next floor is the physique at 14-15. Then it the tactical ability - how to use your technique and physique in the game.
"The last part, the roof, is the mental side. If you have no roof, it rains in your house. How competitive are you? How motivated to do well every day? That is the final step. I believe that hunger is something you get at 18 and remains relatively stable during your life. That is decided between 18 and 20. And that decides careers.
"You are not born with hunger. Roy Keane was competitive [from a young age], but why? You need to be psychoanalytical to see why. Sometimes the same adversity can have a bad effect. If you have a strong father, you can fight against him or completely lie down. Maybe Roy Keane had the first reaction, to fight the father. I don't know."
The Frenchman's own obsession with football is legendary, although he is aware of the pressures it can place on family. "When you are in a passion, you can become isolated and that is the danger for everybody. The pressure on all of us is to be successful and that means that you have to sacrifice something.
advertisement
"People around suffer somewhere. This person works for so many hours that their family doesn't see them. There is always a price to pay. Of course it's a danger for me and it's a danger for the players, it's a danger for everybody who has a passion."
Talking of passion, Wenger still marvels over English fans. "Last night [Wednesday], Wembley was packed. To go you must be really brave. It was raining. It's a friendly, a few players not available, nothing at stake, and you have choice of many matches on television - and Wembley is packed! You English are crazy about football, crazier than even Brazil. I have been in Brazil many times and you don't see stadiums packed like Wembley on Wednesday."
From Wembley to TreeHouse, people with a passion can be found.
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