Clive Palmer with his son at the Arsenal Emirates Stadium
Clive Palmer (@Clivepafc) is a contributor to the Arsenal Vision podcast, where he shares his tactical acumen and understanding of the game.
He is also the Director of Football at Barton Rovers and away from football he works in IT for financial institutions.
When did you start supporting Arsenal and why?
When I first got into football, I chose to support Arsenal and Charlie George, around the time we did the Double in 1971.
I liked them from a distance and I started going when I was 14 at a time when not a lot of people in my area went and certainly not a lot of black guys.
I went to Luton games as well in the times of Ricky Hill and Brian Stein and there was a lot of racist abuse in the crowd, it was quite an aggressive environment back then.
When I started going to Arsenal, it was more diverse and there were other supporters that looked like me and there was no racism.
Arsenal is always the place where I felt like I fitted the club, the area and the fanbase.
So Charlie George opened the door, Paul Davis kept me in there and it went from there.
What was your first Arsenal match?
I think it was in 1978 when Arsenal played QPR but I am not sure.
I struggle with remembering games back then, but I remember the period.
What I do remember is what it means to be a fan.
I know what it is like to travel around the country, to get into a ground, to support your team, to have a last minute victory or defeat.
I know what it feels like when Nayim scores a last minute goal from the halfway line because I was there.
I know what it’s like being kept in at grounds, being tear gassed in the stadium and not getting back to my hotel and having to sleep rough.
I’ve done 30 plus game seasons many many times.
Who was your first Arsenal hero and why?
Charlie George opened the door when I was very young but the first hero of real value was probably Paul Davis.
Paul Davis was a really great example of a midfield player, how he played, how he carried himself, how we treated him as a player and he always kept his class. He is a hero of mine.
I also loved Liam Brady who made the team popular and my son’s middle name is Liam. It was heartbreaking when Brady left.
Who is your favourite ever Arsenal player and why?
Patrick Vieira was the ultimate midfield player for me.
He carried the team and was the midfield for years.
How he understood that role was way ahead of his time,. He was press resistant but he could transition and create the press.
He could pass short or pass long or carry, he could defend and he could score…he is the perfect midfielder.
If you look at his core attributes, he had size, speed, two feet, long pass, short pass, he can’t be pressed and yet he can press you all day long.
He could play deep or higher up, wide or central.
He was also a strongest character and our captain and we are only just replacing him now.
We watched a player (Thomas Partey) in the second leg against Benfica who has the heart of a Patrick Vieira and you can’t beat having players who can play and play like that.
What is your biggest Arsenal regret/disappointment?
I’ve been to all the European finals.
I was in Paris, which was fantastic and we knew that we were the best or second best team in Europe so there was a feeling of joy. They reckon it was one of the most over-subscribed football matches in history and I was very lucky to have a ticket.
The saddest moment for me, the most heart-breaking moments, there were two.
When Brady and Graham Rix missed penalties in the Cup Winners’ Cup final against Valencia in 1980 – that was young kid sad.
The saddest moment that I can remember, without doubt, was the day Chelsea knocked us out of Champions League in 2004 when Wayne Bridge scored that goal at Highbury.
We were the best team in Europe and we blew it. We blew it managing the FA Cup semi-final and that game.
I remember walking out of the ground that night and it was the quietest walk to Finsbury Park tube station.
It was devastation.
Let’s be honest, Arsene Wenger underachieved.
We should have won the European Cup and we should have won the Premier League in 2003 and we would have won it three times in a row.
That team was the best team in Europe for three to five years and it’s such a shame because we would have had Monaco in the semi-final and then Porto in the final and that’s what the club deserved.
We had the greatest team in our history with three of the best players in our history in it and we haven’t won the European Cup and that is a shame.
What is your favourite Arsenal memory (away from the pitch) and why?
I got an opportunity through work with O2 to go and watch the team train.
For me it was such an majorly exciting day, going to their place of work, their office.
It dawns on you that you are in the inner sanctum of the club, the inner family, the tight bubble that exists at a football club.
We are outsiders and in there is another world. You are either an Arsenal man or you’re not and that was made clear to me that day.
I met all the players, met Wenger, had lunch and dinner, I did the whole thing and spoke to everybody.
It was the day that really opened up the inside and I learnt so much. I want to go back one day.
I was so excited that when I drive out of there I couldn’t drive on the motorway. I had to sit in a lay-by because the palpitations were going .
It was such an insight into Wenger and sport science and into the sacrifices that footballers make, which I don’t think people realise, to stay at their physical level and at their weight.
You are in a clinical elite environment and for me it was wonderment.
The second was when I was younger in 1993 and ahead of the FA Cup final we played Tottenham and we lost 3-1 because we rotated the team.
I was in the players’ bar and the whole first team were there.
I was talking away, I knew Ian Wright a little bit through a friend of mine and he asked where I drink.
I told him I would drink at a pub called The Favourite by Drayton Park and the team said to me “Alright then, take us there!”
This was Merson, Bould, the lot of them and Ian Wright said “Come with me!” I got in the front seat of his car and we drove down to The Favourite…all the first team players.
I knocked on the door and no one opens up. It was really embarrassing because I was with the Arsenal first team who I don’t really know.
Suddenly someone opened the curtains and had been thinking it was police. They opened the door and there were 50 people in there, drinking and I walked in with Arsenal first team so my street cred has gone through the roof.
Later on, Wrighty said, “Come on, let’s go up west!” so all the players are following with us.
Being with Ian Wright for one night shows what fame really is. People were asking for autographs through the car door.
What is your favourite ever Arsenal match?
I loved the 2005 FA Cup Final against Manchester United.
I was so drunk that I thought we dominated them until I got home.
I kept telling people “Don’t worry” and they were looking at me asking what was up with this guy but when I watched it later I realised!
I didn’t go to Anfield (in 1989)….There were two cars going up there but I had to work, my boss said that we weren’t going to win and he wouldn’t let me take the afternoon off.
I could have gone and should have gone and that was a real blow.
Copenhagen was the one for me, my first European cup final. (Arsenal won 1-0 thanks to an Alan Smith goal)
We were out there for two days, drinking in the square was unbelievable and then having a drink in the park next to the stadium.
As you get in we had three sides of the ground and I thought “Oh my God, we’re going to win!”
We went behind the goal where David Seaman made an amazing save, looking down onto that.
That whole experience of that 1-0 to the Arsenal side….I went to all the games…but that game was the most special, winning.
Afterwards we went to a nightclub, met Tomas Brolin (Parma striker) and the whole thing was just amazing.