Ex Arsenal left back Nigel Winterburn is one of those players who bridges the divide between old and new.
Nigel Winterburn was at Arsenal for the start of Arsene Wenger’s revolutionary reign. He was a part of the famous English back five who credit Wenger’s modern methods with extending their careers.
At Arsenal, he played with Thierry Henry, Patrick Viera and Dennis Bergkamp, all proponents for Arsene Wenger football.
However, Nigel Winterburn was forged in the fires of Plough Lane, home of the old Wimbledon F.C and the infamous ‘crazy gang’.
Read: Where Will Jose Mourinho End Up Next?
The likes of John Fashanu and Denis Wise were proponents of truly old school English football. By modern standards their style of play verged on, in fact was violence at times. Winterburn told Luke Moore of the Football Ramble that other teams were scared to play Wimbledon.
“Nobody wanted to play us, particularly at Plough Lane. When you’ve got some of these players in your team, Fashanu, Denis Wise – come on.
“Some of these guys would come in, particularly Vinny and Fash and they would like to mix it up. I think our reputation as a team and the way we played long ball into the corners, people hated playing that way. They knew they were in for a physical battle, had to be very committed and a lot of players didn’t want to match that.”
“I loved it at Wimbledon. It mirrored the start of my career where everybody hated Wimbledon and expected Wimbledon to lose. We were always tipped as relegation favourites.
“Then it was a team that was put together by players who’d been rejected. Dave Bassett put together a team with such togetherness and boy did it work hard. It scared a lot of teams and teams couldn’t deal with it. That drove me to want to be successful within that team. I just kept pushing and pushing as hard as I could.”
