.jpg) Adams in 2017 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Tony Alexander Adams[1] | ||
| Date of birth | (1966-10-10)10 October 1966 (age 59)[1] | ||
| Place of birth | Romford,Greater London, England | ||
| Height | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)[1] | ||
| Position | Centre-back | ||
| Youth career | |||
| 1980–1983 | Arsenal | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1983–2002 | Arsenal | 504 | (32) |
| International career | |||
| 1983–1984 | England U17 | 13 | (5) |
| 1985 | England Youth | 1 | (0) |
| 1985–1986 | England U21 | 5 | (1) |
| 1989-1990 | England B | 4 | (1) |
| 1987–2000 | England | 66 | (5) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 2003–2004 | Wycombe Wanderers | ||
| 2008–2009 | Portsmouth | ||
| 2010–2011 | Gabala | ||
| 2017 | Granada | ||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Tony Alexander Adams (born 10 October 1966) is an English formerfootball manager and player. Adams played forArsenal andEngland, captaining both teams. Known as"Mr. Arsenal", he spent hisentire playing career of 19 years as acentre-back there, making 672 total appearances and winning four English league titles. He is considered one of Arsenal's greatest ever players,[2] and is also included in theFootball League 100 Legends.
With Arsenal, he won four top flight division titles, uniquely captaining a title-winning team in three different decades, threeFA Cups, twoFootball League Cups, aUEFA Cup Winners' Cup and twoFA Community Shields.[3] Adams is one of six people honoured with a statue outside theEmirates Stadium, Arsenal's home ground. He won 66 caps forEngland between 1987 and 2000, and played at four major tournaments.
When his playing career finished, Adams went into football management, spending periods in charge ofWycombe Wanderers,Portsmouth,Azerbaijani sideGabala and Spanish sideGranada.
From early in his career Adams was an alcoholic off the field, and after crashing his car was sentenced to four months in prison for driving while four times over the limit for blood alcohol. From 1996 he recovered completely, and became involved in helping sportspeople with drink, drug or gambling addictions, founding theSporting Chance Clinic.[4]
Born inRomford, Adams grew up inDagenham and was a pupil at Hunters Hall Primary School from 1971 to 1978 and thenEastbrook Comprehensive School from 1978 to 1983.[5] His cousin is fellow professional footballerSteve MacKenzie.[6]
Adams signed for Arsenal as a schoolboy in 1980,[7] and made his first-team debut on 5 November 1983 againstSunderland, aged 17.[8][9] He accidentally put his shorts on back-to-front before the match. Then, with virtually his first touch of the ball during the game, he gave it away, leading to Sunderland's opening goal. He put the ball into the opponents' net, but the goal was disallowed.[8] Adams became a regular player in the1986–87 season, winning his first major trophy that season when playing in theFootball League Cup Final win overLiverpool atWembley.[9]
On 1 January 1988, he became Arsenal captain at the age of 21,[10] remaining as club captain for the next 14 years until his retirement.
Adams's strong discipline of the defence was considered a factor in Arsenal winning theLeague Cup in1986–87 and then theFirst Division championship twice; the first in1988–89 after awin overLiverpool in the final game of the season; the second in1990–91, losing once all season.
Together withLee Dixon,Nigel Winterburn andSteve Bould, Adams was part of the "famous back four" that lined up in Arsenal's defence, which underGeorge Graham was renowned for its well-disciplined use of theoffside trap.[11] The backline achieved legendary status with its unyielding resilience, remaining formidable for over a decade. Arsenal notably conceded just 18 goals during their title-winning1990–91 league season, and the four players amassed over 2,000 appearances for the club.[12]
In1992–93 Adams was the captain of the first English side to win the League Cup andFA Cup double.[13] In 1994, Adams led Arsenal to their first European trophy in 24 years by defeating favouritesParma 1–0 in the1994 European Cup Winners' Cup final in Copenhagen.[14]
Despite this success,alcoholism increasingly blighted his life from the mid-1980s. He was reportedly often involved in fights innightclubs, and on 6 May 1990 crashed his car into a wall inRayleigh; his blood alcohol level was found to be more than four times the legaldrink-drive limit. On 19 December that year, atSouthend Crown Court,[10][15][16] he was sentenced to four months in prison, and freed after half of his sentence on 15 February 1991,[17] but continued drinking for another six years. Adams in a 2024 interview said that in early 1996, aged 29, he was in a very dark period, not wanting to live when not playing football, unable to "do life". He was injured that February, removing football. One Sunday evening he drank seven bottles ofchablis, so his (first) mother-in-law took the children.[4]
From mid-1996, with help from a man he named only as "James W",[4] he became one of the most high-profilerecovering alcoholics in the UK;[18] his battle with alcohol is detailed in hisautobiography,Addicted, which was released in May 1998 to critical acclaim.[18]BBC News reported in 2001 that he had becometee-total.[19]
"When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence."
Six weeks into Adams's sobriety,Arsène Wenger arrived as Arsenal manager in October 1996. Adams reflected in 2020 that Wenger understood his psychology, and knew of the dangers of alcohol, as his parents ran a pub.[21] Adams rewarded his manager's understanding handsomely, captaining the club to twoPremiership and FA CupDoubles, in1997–98 and2001–02.[9]
In August 2002, just before the start of the2002–03 season, Adams retired from professional football after a career spanning almost 20 years, his last match being the2002 FA Cup Final.[22] He played 674 matches for Arsenal (onlyDavid 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 the2006–07 season, when it was assigned toPhilippe Senderos.[23]
Just before his retirement as a player, Adams had applied to become manager ofBrentford (who had just missed out on promotion to Division One) after the resignation ofSteve Coppell, but his application was rejected.[24]
Nicknamed "Mr Arsenal", he was honoured by Arsenal with a testimonial game againstCeltic in May 2002 with many Arsenal legends playing, includingIan 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.[25] In March 2003, just seven months after his retirement and with ArsenalBBC Sport named Adams as the former Arsenal player that the club would most benefit from returning.[26]
In 2004, Adams was inducted into theEnglish 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 scorerThierry Henry,[27] and laterDennis Bergkamp[28] and Arsène Wenger,[29] were also immortalised with statues outside the ground.
Adams made his debut forEngland againstSpain in 1987,[9] and played inUEFA Euro 1988. England lost all three games, but Adams scored one of England's two goals in the tournament in a 3–1 defeat to theSoviet Union. He was the first player to represent England who had been born after the 1966 World Cup win.
After a highly promising start to his international career, Adams suffered a series of setbacks during the early 1990s. He was surprisingly left out of the1990 FIFA World Cup squad by managerBobby Robson,[9] missedUEFA Euro 1992 due to injury, whilst England failed to qualify for the1994 FIFA World Cup. England reached the semi-finals ofUEFA Euro 1996, before losing onpenalties toGermany.
Adams appeared at the1998 FIFA World Cup. Later that year, he made headlines for several statements in his autobiographyAddicted, criticising managerGlenn Hoddle for his management ofDavid Beckham andPaul Gascoigne, and for makingAlan Shearer captain instead of Adams; he also called Gascoigne an alcoholic, which was denied by the player's representatives. Hoddle told the press that he had no problems with Adams's opinions from the book.[30]
His international swansong was England's unsuccessfulUEFA Euro 2000 campaign. With Shearer retiring from international football after the tournament, Adams regained the captaincy. However, within months, England lost a World Cup qualifier to Germany in October 2000, the match being the last to be staged atWembley Stadium, before the stadium was torn down for rebuilding. That match was Adams's 60th Wembley appearance, a record. WithSven-Göran Eriksson eventually taking the helm and under increasing pressure for his place from the emerging and improvingRio Ferdinand, Adams retired from international football, having made 66 appearances,[31] before Eriksson picked his first squad. He was the last England player to score at the old Wembley Stadium when he scored England's second goal in a 2–0 friendly win overUkraine on 31 May 2000. This was also his first goal since he scored in a friendly againstSaudi Arabia in November 1988, thus making the record for the longest gap between goals for England.
Described as a "stopper" (or man–marking defender) by Tom Sheen ofThe Guardian in 2014, Adams played as a centre-back. A tall, brave, rugged, physical, and committed defender, his main traits were his leadership, aerial prowess, and his ability to read the game and time his tackles. While initially he was not known to be the most gifted player on the ball from a technical standpoint, he developed this aspect of his game under Wenger, and he later excelled as a ball-playing centre-back, in which he became known for his ability to carry the ball out from the back, as well as his penchant for undertaking individual runs.[25][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] However, he was also known for his lack of pace.[39][40]
After starting asports science degree atBrunel University, Adams became the manager ofWycombe Wanderers on 5 November 2003. He took over the team that were in last place in theFootball League Second Division (third tier).[41] On his debut three days later, he won 4–1 at home toSwindon Town in the first round of the FA Cup.[42] After a 2–1 loss atTranmere Rovers on 12 April 2004 left the Chairboys 12 points inside the relegation zone with four games remaining, Adams said that his team would carry on fighting; unbeknown to the club, they were already relegated as two teams above them still had to play each other.[43]
Wycombe began 2004–05 in the fourth tier, renamedLeague Two. Although the club were top of the table in August 2004, a loss of form saw them fall down the table. Adams resigned from Wycombe on 9 November 2004, with the club in 17th, citing personal reasons.[44]
In July 2005, Adams accepted a trainee coaching role with Dutch sideFeyenoord with special responsibility for its Jong team, which is a reserve/junior side. Adams later had a short spell seconded toUtrecht as a first team trainee coach in January and February 2006. While at Feyenoord he also worked part-time as a scout for Arsenal, watching games in Italy, France and the Netherlands.[45]
Adams joinedPortsmouth as assistant manager toHarry Redknapp in June 2006, a position left vacant by the departure ofKevin Bond. In his first season as assistant, Portsmouth finished ninth in thePremier League – their highest standing since the 1950s and won the2007–08 FA Cup. Adams was appointed caretaker manager of Portsmouth in October 2008, alongsideJoe Jordan,[46] following the departure ofHarry Redknapp toTottenham Hotspur. He was subsequently appointed full-time manager.[46][47] He was sacked in February 2009 after just 16 games in charge in which Portsmouth picked up only 10 points.[48]
In May 2010, Adams signed a three-year contract to manageAzerbaijani clubFC Gabala of theAzerbaijan Premier League.[49] He departed as coach of Gabala due on 16 November 2011, before the end of the2011–12 season.[50]
In October 2012, Adams returned to Gabala in the capacity of Sporting Director.[51]
Whilst sporting director at Gabala, Adams suffered from acute chest pain whilst exercising. At the Baku Medical Plaza he was diagnosed with a severely blocked vein and underwent a successfulangioplasty. After disclosing the surgery, Adams said the minor heart operation saved his life.[52]
On 10 April 2017, Adams was named as manager ofLa Liga strugglersGranada CF until the end of the2016–17 season.[53][54] At the end of the season, Granada were relegated fromLa Liga ending their six-year stay in the top division. Adams lost all seven games as manager and was subsequently sacked.[55]
Adams married Jane Shea in 1992, after they met at a nightclub inIslington; the couple had two children together, a son and a daughter. They divorced in 1997 amid the couple's substance abuse. Following his recovery fromalcoholism, Adams married Poppy Teacher in 2004 and had three children together.[56] Poppy is a fifth-generation descendent of whisky firm founder William Teacher.[57]
In September 2000, as a result of his own experiences with alcoholism and drug addiction, Adams founded theSporting Chance Clinic, a charitable foundation aimed at providing treatment, counselling and support for sports men and women suffering from drink, drug orgambling addictions. The clinic is modelled on the substance-abuse rehabilitation facilityCrossroads Centre, founded by music artistEric Clapton.[58] The registered charity is supported byElton John,Kate Hoey,Lee Dixon,Tony Smith,Tony McCoy, andKelly Holmes.[59] Adams' Arsenal testimonial match in May 2002 also raised £500,000 for the foundation.[25]
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Adams founded Six Mental Health Solutions (SIX MHS), an organisation that provides mental health and addiction services to employees across a range of partnered businesses.[60] SIX MHS has since formed partnerships with several organisations, including the building materials companyJewson in 2021,[61] and theFootball Writers' Association in 2024.[62] He is also a patron of theNational Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA UK),The Forward Trust,School-Home Support (SHS), and Saving Faces, a facial surgery research foundation.[63][64]
In December 2018, Adams was named as the 29th President of theRugby Football League, replacing politicianAndy Burnham;[65] he was succeeded in the honorary role by broadcasterClare Balding a year later.[66] Adams also took part as a celebrity contestant in thetwentieth series ofStrictly Come Dancing in 2022.[63] After partnering with dance professionalKatya Jones, the duo placed ninth after Adams was forced to withdraw due to injury.[67] Adams also advised novelistJilly Cooper on her 2023 bookTackle![68]
| Club | Season | League | FA Cup | League Cup | Europe | Other | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| Arsenal | 1983–84[69] | First Division | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 3 | 0 | ||
| 1984–85[70] | First Division | 16 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | — | — | 18 | 0 | |||
| 1985–86[71] | First Division | 10 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | — | 10 | 0 | |||
| 1986–87[72] | First Division | 42 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 9 | 0 | — | — | 55 | 6 | |||
| 1987–88[73] | First Division | 39 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 8 | 0 | — | — | 51 | 2 | |||
| 1988–89[74] | First Division | 36 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 0 | — | 3[a] | 1 | 46 | 5 | ||
| 1989–90[75] | First Division | 38 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 4 | 0 | — | 1[b] | 0 | 46 | 5 | ||
| 1990–91[76] | First Division | 30 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 2 | — | — | 37 | 4 | |||
| 1991–92[77] | First Division | 35 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 4[c] | 0 | 1[b] | 0 | 44 | 2 | |
| 1992–93[78] | Premier League | 35 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 9 | 0 | — | — | 52 | 2 | |||
| 1993–94[79] | Premier League | 35 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8[d] | 2 | 1[b] | 0 | 49 | 4 | |
| 1994–95[80] | Premier League | 27 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 10[e] | 0 | — | 42 | 4 | ||
| 1995–96[81] | Premier League | 21 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | — | — | 28 | 3 | |||
| 1996–97[82] | Premier League | 28 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1[f] | 0 | — | 35 | 3 | ||
| 1997–98[83] | Premier League | 26 | 3 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2[f] | 0 | — | 36 | 3 | ||
| 1998–99[84] | Premier League | 26 | 1 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4[c] | 1 | 1[b] | 0 | 36 | 2 | |
| 1999–2000[85] | Premier League | 21 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 11[g] | 0 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 1 | |
| 2000–01[86] | Premier League | 26 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 8[c] | 0 | — | 38 | 2 | ||
| 2001–02[87] | Premier League | 10 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | — | 13 | 1 | ||
| Career total | 504 | 32 | 54 | 8 | 59 | 5 | 48 | 3 | 7 | 1 | 672 | 49 | ||
| National team | Year | Apps | Goals |
|---|---|---|---|
| England | 1987 | 6 | 1 |
| 1988 | 11 | 3 | |
| 1990 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1991 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1992 | 2 | 0 | |
| 1993 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1994 | 5 | 0 | |
| 1995 | 6 | 0 | |
| 1996 | 7 | 0 | |
| 1997 | 2 | 0 | |
| 1998 | 8 | 0 | |
| 1999 | 6 | 0 | |
| 2000 | 4 | 1 | |
| Total | 66 | 5 | |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 11 November 1987 | Stadion Crvene Zvezde, Belgrade, Yugoslavia |  Yugoslavia | 4–0 | 4–1 | UEFA Euro 1988 qualifying | [89] |
| 2 | 23 March 1988 | Wembley Stadium, London, England |  Netherlands | 2–2 | 2–2 | Friendly | [90] |
| 3 | 18 June 1988 | Waldstadion, Frankfurt, Germany |  Soviet Union | 1–1 | 1–3 | UEFA Euro 1988 | [91] |
| 4 | 16 November 1988 | King Fahd Stadium, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia |  Saudi Arabia | 1–1 | 1–1 | Friendly | [92] |
| 5 | 31 May 2000 | Wembley Stadium, London, England |  Ukraine | 2–0 | 2–0 | Friendly | [93] |
| Team | From | To | Record | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| P | W | D | L | Win % | |||
| Wycombe Wanderers | 5 November 2003 | 9 November 2004 | 53 | 12 | 21 | 20 | 022.6 |
| Portsmouth | 28 October 2008 | 9 February 2009 | 21 | 4 | 6 | 11 | 019.0 |
| Gabala | 12 May 2010 | 16 November 2011 | 45 | 17 | 15 | 13 | 037.8 |
| Granada | 10 April 2017 | 3 June 2017 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 000.0 |
| Total | 126 | 33 | 42 | 51 | 026.2 | ||
.jpg)
Arsenal[94]
Individual
Orders
England squads | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||||
Awards | |
|---|---|
