Tony Adams (footballer) - Club Career

Club Career

Adams signed for Arsenal as a schoolboy in 1980. He made his first team debut on 5 November 1983 against Sunderland in the First Division, four weeks after his 17th birthday. Adams became a regular player in the 1985–86 season, winning his first major trophy in 1987 when playing in the Football League Cup Final win over Liverpool at Wembley.

Together with Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and Steve Bould, Adams was part of the "famous four" that lined up in Arsenal's defence, which under George Graham was renowned for its well-disciplined use of the offside trap. On 1 January 1988, he became Arsenal captain at the age of 21; he would remain club captain for the next 14 years until his retirement.

Adams's strong discipline of the defence was considered a factor in Arsenal winning the League Cup in 1986–87 and then the First Division championship twice; the first in 1988–89 after a win over Liverpool in the final game of the season; the second in 1990–91, losing once all season.

In 1992–93 Adams gained the distinction of being the captain of the first English side to win the League Cup and FA Cup double, lifting the European Cup Winners' Cup the following year.

Despite this success, a battle with alcoholism, which started in the mid-1980s, increasingly blighted his life as he was reportedly often involved in fights in nightclubs. On 6 May 1990, Adams crashed his Ford Sierra into a wall in Rayleigh and when breathalysed his blood alcohol level was found to be more than four times the legal drink-drive limit. On 19 December that year, at Southend Crown Court, he was imprisoned for four months (being freed after half of his sentence on 15 February 1991) but after being released, his alcoholism continued and he was involved in further alcohol-related incidents, including playing through a match during the 1993–94 season despite being drunk, falling down stairs and needing 29 stitches to a head wound when drunk, and letting off fire extinguishers and firing a flare gun into a disabled lavatory with team-mate Ray Parlour at Pizza Hut in Hornchurch where they were being taunted by supporters of rival clubs.

Finally, on 14 September 1996, Adams admitted to the public that he was an alcoholic and, after seeking treatment, found a more sensitive side to his character emerging, which included a return to education and an attempt to learn the piano. He became one of the most high-profile recovering alcoholics in the UK; his battle with alcohol is detailed in his autobiography, Addicted, which was released in May 1998 to enormous critical acclaim.

His recovery and rehabilitation were helped in no small part by the arrival of Arsène Wenger as Arsenal manager in October 1996. Wenger reformed the club's dietary practices and the players' lifestyles. Wenger stuck by Adams following his confessions about his drink problem, and the improvements in the regime probably extended Adams's career by several years. Adams rewarded his manager's understanding handsomely, captaining the club to two Premiership and FA Cup Doubles, in 1997–98 and 2001–02; he is the only player in English football history to have captained a title-winning team in three different decades.

In August 2002, just before the start of the 2002–03 season, Adams retired from professional football after a career spanning almost 20 years, his last match being the last league game of the season at home to Everton (the 2002 FA Cup Final was unusually played before the last league fixtures). He played 668 matches for Arsenal (only David O'Leary has played more) and was the most successful captain in the club's history. The number 6 shirt that Adams wore when playing was not used again until the 2006–07 season, when it was assigned to Philippe Senderos.

Just before his retirement as a player, Adams had applied to become manager of Brentford (who had just missed out on promotion to Division One) after the resignation of Steve Coppell, but his application was rejected.

Nicknamed "Mr Arsenal", he was honoured by Arsenal with a testimonial game against Celtic in May 2002 with many Arsenal legends playing, including Ian Wright, John Lukic and Adams's fellow back four stalwarts, Dixon, Winterburn and Bould. The game finished 1–1 with Lee Dixon, in his final appearance for the Gunners, getting their goal.

In March 2003, just seven months after his retirement and with Arsenal BBC Sport named Adams as the former Arsenal player that the club would most benefit from returning.

In 2004, Adams was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his impact on the English game, and in 2008 he was placed third in the 50 Greatest Gunners poll on the club's website.

A statue of Adams was placed outside Emirates Stadium in celebration of the club's 125th anniversary on 9 December 2011. Manager Herbert Chapman and Arsenal's all-time top goal scorer Thierry Henry were also immortalised with statues outside the ground.