George Graham

He grew up in poverty and was raised by his mother, Janet (26 April 1908 – 27 March 1977), after his father, Robert Young Graham (born 22 June 1900), died of tuberculosis and heart failure on Christmas Day 1944, when George was not yet a month old.

George Graham (born 30 November 1944) is a Scottish former football player and manager.

Nicknamed "Stroller", he made 455 appearances in England's Football League as a midfielder or forward for Aston Villa, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United, Portsmouth and Crystal Palace.

The youngest of seven children, Graham was born at Dykehead Road, Bargeddie, near Coatbridge on Thursday 30 November 1944.

His elder sister also died of tuberculosis on 22 February 1950.

While growing up, Graham showed considerable promise as a footballer, and Newcastle United, Chelsea and Aston Villa displayed an interest in signing him.

Graham received offers from Aston Villa, Chelsea and Newcastle United aged 15, in 1959, and visited all three clubs to see their facilities.

He chose Aston Villa mainly as he and his family liked manager Joe Mercer, initially playing for their youth side, he signed professionally in 1961, on his 17th birthday.

He spent five seasons at the Birmingham club, but only made ten appearances – though one of them was the club's 1963 League Cup final loss to Birmingham City.

Chelsea signed Graham in July 1964 for £5,000.

He scored 35 goals in 72 league games for the club and won a League Cup medal in 1965 but he, along with several other Chelsea players, increasingly clashed with their volatile manager Tommy Docherty.

This culminated in Graham and seven others being sent home and disciplined by Docherty for breaking a pre-match curfew in 1965.

Bertie Mee's Arsenal were looking for a replacement for Joe Baker, and paid £50,000 plus Tommy Baldwin in 1966 to bring Graham to Highbury.

He made his debut on 1 October 1966 at home to Leicester City, and although the result was a 4–2 defeat he immediately became a regular in the Arsenal side.

He was Arsenal's top scorer in both 1966–67 and 1967–68, having started out as a centre forward for the club, but later moved back into midfield as an inside forward with John Radford moving from the wing to central striker.

With Arsenal, Graham was a runner-up in both the 1968 and 1969 League Cup finals, before finally winning a medal with the 1969–70 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup.

He followed it up with being an integral part of Arsenal's Double-winning side of 1970–71, and even had a claim to scoring Arsenal's equaliser in the FA Cup Final against Liverpool, although Eddie Kelly is officially credited with the goal.

Approximately half of his appearances were for Arsenal, and he was part of the side that won the Football League Championship and FA Cup double in 1971.

Winning the Double brought the attention of Scotland and Graham was selected for the national side for the first time against Portugal on 13 October 1971.

The arrival of Alan Ball midway through 1971–72 had made his place in the Arsenal side less assured.

In total, he played 308 matches for Arsenal, scoring 77 goals.

Graham moved for £120,000 to Manchester United in December 1972, where he was soon reunited with Docherty.

He would go on to win twelve caps over the next two years for Scotland, scoring three goals, his final one coming against Brazil on 30 June 1973.

By then, however, Graham was no longer an Arsenal player.

He spent two years at United and was relegated to Division Two in 1974.

He was sold to Portsmouth during the 1974–75 season.

Graham saw out his career in England at Portsmouth and Crystal Palace.

Graham also made 17 appearances for California Surf in the NASL in 1978.

He then moved to the coaching staff at Crystal Palace, before joining former Palace manager Terry Venables as a coach at Queens Park Rangers.

He played the summer of 1978 in America for the California Surf.

After retiring from playing in 1978, Graham became the youth team coach at Crystal Palace and then from October 1980 Queens Park Rangers.

On 6 December 1982, he was appointed manager of Millwall, who were then bottom of the old Third Division.

Graham turned the side around in a short period of time—they avoided relegation that season on the final match of the season with a 1–0 win at Chesterfield.

The following season they finished 9th and in 1984–85 they were promoted to the old Second Division.

After Graham left the club in 1986, they went on to win the Second Division and win promotion to the First in 1987–88.

Graham's achievements at Millwall attracted attention from First Division clubs, and with the resignation of Don Howe as Arsenal manager in March 1986, their directors first offered the job to FC Barcelona coach Terry Venables, but he rejected their offer and Arsenal switched their attention to Alex Ferguson, the Aberdeen manager, as their new manager with Graham as his assistant.

As a manager, he won numerous honours with Arsenal between 1987 and 1995, including two league titles (in 1989 and 1991), the 1993 FA Cup, two Football League Cups (in 1987 and 1993), as well as the 1994 European Cup Winners' Cup.

He also managed Millwall, Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur.

He was one of the most successful managers in Arsenal's history, remaining in charge for almost a decade until he was sacked by the club's board after being found guilty by the Football Association of taking money from transfers.

Graham was banned despite paying back the money, which he always claimed was an "unsolicited gift".