When Shorts Were Short S2 E01 - Paul Davis

With guest Paul Davis.

Paul Davis was a mainstay of the Arsenal side for 15 seasons. In this interview, we discuss his breaking through under Terry Neill at the start of the 80s, a side in transition after losing its two outstanding Irish internationals, Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton in the space of a year. We look at the Don Howe era, the bridge between Terry Neill and George Graham, a quiet period for the club in many ways but an important one too as Howe was the man who blooded many of the youngsters who would go onto help Arsenal re-establish themselves as the country’s leading club, albeit intermittently, for several seasons under Graham. And we look too at why that hugely gifted George Graham team, despite knocking Liverpool off that perch despite Alex Ferguson’s largely unchallenged claims to the contrary, couldn’t stay at the top for longer.

Why did Arsenal go from that outstanding title success of ’91 that should have made it the team of the nineties to morphing into a very successful cup side that played dull football but had an incredible get out in the form of the talismanic Ian Wright up front, and we also look at Paul's complex relationship with the hard taskmaster that was George Graham. Paul was one of the few senior players at the club to challenge the Scot, but he would pay a heavy price at times.

When Shorts Were Short only concerns itself with what was actually a very narrow window in football history when teams wore, well, short shorts. The podcast will only cover football from 1954, when Umbro made their first England kit with shorter shorts, a design that was widespread within English football by the mid-fifties, to 1992 when short shorts were all but finished as Umbro's baggy shorts for Tottenham's new kit, ahead of the '91 FA Cup Final, quickly caught on.

If the shorts weren’t short, we don’t talk about it.

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Show Links

Paul Davis Testimonial

1987 Littlewoods Cup Final

Paul Davis goals

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