“When you start supporting a football club, you don’t support it because of the trophies, or a player, or history, you support it because you found yourself somewhere there; found a place where you belong.”
– Dennis Bergkamp
Similarly this book is not about one player, but about the events that transpired to bring this incredible group together to create history, the alchemy that moulded them into the Invincibles. The tale of “how a group of players is constructed, how a style is formed, connections created and a spirit fortified”.
It takes a certain skill to take such familiar material and add deeper insight to it. Amy Lawrence, a fellow Gooner, renowned journalist and writer, manages to attain a near-perfect balance between nostalgia, perspective and facts – and the result is a narrative that is as fluid, intricate and compelling as the then-revolutionary style of play Arsene Wenger introduced to the North London club and English Premier League football in general.
There is perhaps this compulsion to paraphrase and immortalise people and events, especially when they are as momentous as the achievement of going unbeaten for an entire season (49 overall if you count the whole run of games without losing) in what is considered as one of the toughest leagues in world football. But the writer mostly dodges these pitfalls by maintaining as much of the words of the players and manager as possible. This means that we also get a deeper sense of the personalities of each individual, and she manages to flesh out each person – whether it’s the intelligence of Bergkamp, the gentle firmness of Gilberto, the almost maniacal passion of Jens, the refined sensibilities of Henry, the classy strength of Sol Campbell or even the never-give-up old guard spirit of Keown.