Alan BALL

 From the moment Arsenal achieved the 'double' in 1971, Bertie Mee worried about the players' ability to motivate themselves to do it again. At the mid-point of the 1971/72 season, with the Gunners off the pace in the championship, the manager decided to act and arrest a perceived drop in standards. He wanted the best and so was prepared to pay a record fee of £220, 000 to Everton to acquire the twenty-six year old World Cup winner Alan Ball, who consequently made his debut for the Londoners in a 1-1 draw at Nottingham Forest on 27 December 1971. The fiery midfielder only missed two of the remaining games that season as Arsenal, despite having lost eight games prior to his signing, regained some respectability by finishing fifth. With half of their 'double' lost the Gunners turned their attention to the Cup. Ball scored his first goal for the club in a third round victory at Swindon Town and the winner in a tricky quarter-final at Orient. However, a dull and ill-tempered Cup final against old adversaries Leeds was lost 0-1 with Ball's bruising battle with Bremner encapsulating the spirit the game was played in.

The 1972/73 season saw Arsenal, after a brief flirtation with 'total football' and a subsequent return to their more pragmatic values, fight Liverpool all the way for the championship. Despite winning 2-0 at Anfield, with Ball scoring, the Londoners finished second. Alan's busy style and desire to get forward enabled him to score eight goals in one sixteen game period, an outstanding ratio for a midfielder. But the season had one last disappointment in store a 1-2 cup semi-final defeat to second division Sunderland, a result which triggered the break up of the 1971 'double' team and a period of transition that Ball would find increasingly hard to accept. In 1973/74 the club staggered from one cup embarrassment to another and limped tamely to tenth place in the league. Ball played thirty-six league games that season and contributed an impressive thirteen goals, but such mediocrity was not what he had come to Highbury for. Additionally, such underachievement at club level contrasts badly with his success at International level for he had been made captain of Don Revie's England. Although he would stick out the Highbury decline for another two and a half years his disenchantment would become audible and his unrest would spread to the rest of the dressing room. (David Fensome)

Alan Ball had broken his leg in the last game of the 1973/74 season and suffered a further small break on Arsenal's pre-season tour of Holland. Consequently he didn't play until late autumn, by which time the Gunners were struggling near the foot of the table. There was unrest in the dressing room and Ball, though always professional in his approach, was losing heart for the Arsenal cause. The following season continued the club's dramatic decline from 1971 and Alan was involved in an incident that showed just how far the proud Londoners had fallen, when he and Bob McNab were both sent off in a 1-2 defeat at Derby County; only the second time since the war that two players from the same side had been sent off in a first division match. The club refused to back Ball's appeal and he never forgave them. His discontent led to a transfer request and at the end of the season he was linked with a move away to Manchester City. The move never materialised, but Alan was dropped for the start of the 1975/76 season. However, four games in he was recalled and stayed in the side for the remainder of a disappointing season that saw the Gunners very nearly relegated.

When manager Bertie Mee resigned during the close season Ball led a dressing room lobby for coach Bobby Campbell to be promoted. The club instead appointed Terry Neil, with whom Ball was never to see eye to eye. Despite an upturn in the club's fortunes in the early part of the 1976/77 season Neil had many well publicised rows with leading players and it seemed only a matter of time before Alan left the club. His last significant action with Arsenal summed up his frustrating time in north London, when he missed a penalty in a 1-2 League Cup quarter-final defeat at Queens Park Rangers. A couple of weeks later he left the club and joined Southampton in the second division for £60, 000. His Highbury career had been a huge anti-climax, for Ball so epitomised traditional Arsenal qualities. Bought initially to help the club retain the 'double' he had instead witnessed such a violent reversal of fortunes that twice the Gunners were nearly relegated during his time with them. For both club and player it was a golden opportunity missed. (David Fensome).