John Nicholson

Back in the early 70s Arsenal didn't do mavericks, they did ruthless efficiency and they won the double in the 1970-71 season with solid, remorseless, effective football.

So on the face of it, Charlie George had no place in that Arsenal era. A wiry, long-haired coltish kid, mercurial, fabulously talented and creative, he could and did score wonder goals. He could also play for ten minutes, drift out of game for an hour and then decide he fancied it again.

Perhaps the biggest maverick ever to play for the club, he was one of England's best and yet most over-looked strikers.

If you're not an Arsenal fan, the only thing you'll probably remember Charlie for was scoring the winner in the cup final at Wembley for Arsenal against Liverpool from 20 yards in extra time. After it went in, he lay down arms outstretched like a football Jesus and awaited his team-mates' adulation. That was what people loved about him; it's also what they hated: the arrogance, self regard and the general air of 'f**k you' that surrounded him.

He'd made his debut in 1969 and had impressed in their Inter Cities Fairs Cup winning campaign. He had vision, could run rings around defenders, could knock a 40-yard pass and possessed a fierce shot. He could play up front or as an attacking midfielder. He had it all. All except work-rate. And as we know in English football, work rate is valued above all else.

Arsenal boss Bertie Mee dropped him to the bench the following season saying, in effect, that he was lazy.

This struck many fans at the time as absurd. Arsenal were full of workman-like water carriers such as Peter Storey and Frank McLintock - asking Charlie George to play that kind of game was asking him to go against his natural game and deprive the side of much-needed creativity and unpredictability.

No-one was more frustrated than Charlie himself. He had been axiomatic in Arsenal's double-winning season, coming back from a broken ankle to score five in 17 at the back end of the campaign and hitting that famous winner in the cup final. But next season his disenchantment with the club and with Mee began to set in.

However, the fans love nothing better than one of their own on the pitch and Charlie was North Bank through and through. Considering he only played 179 games in six years he's still number nine in the club's Greatest All-Time Players, just behind Liam Brady. That's the mark of how loved he is.

Like all true mavericks, the genius that could score from just over the half-line against Newcastle also had a temper that could erupt at any moment. In 1972 in a newspaper column he said that he would 'nut' any player who kicked him or his team-mates and was as good as his word when he stuck the head on Kevin Keegan that year.

In a tackle on Stoke hard man Dennis Smith, he went in to 'do' him and broke his own elbow in the process. Naughty, naughty.

In 1973 he picked a fight with Chelsea's Steve Kember, causing a 12-man brawl during which he administered to Chopper Harris what was later described in The Sun as 'a series of demented kicks to the chest'.

Chopper, a fan of on-field violence in all its bloody forms, respected a man who could administer a brutal assault and didn't consider it a problem despite going to hospital coughing up blood and the referee didn't even book Charlie!

When he scored an equaliser against Derby at the Baseball Ground after being taunted by Derby fans all game with chants of 'where's your handbag Charlie George?' (historical note: it was widely assumed men with long hair were homosexuals because err...well...girls had long hair - well some of them did - and men with long hair were therefore like...err...well like girls and thus would like having sex with men - and by extension would therefore like handbags or err...something) promptly flicked that most 70s of insults 'the V's' up at them with both hands. He was slaughtered in the press with The Sun running a big headline 'Grow Up Lad' alongside a picture of Charlie with fingers aloft.

But that was Charlie; outrageous flashes of brilliance, audacious attitude and occasional explosions of violence.

He would deliberately wind players up by sitting on the ball or kneeling on it; taking the mickey and showing off. He was the tabloid press' favourite whipping boy for whom he was often called 'a loud-mouthed yob'; the terrace hooligan who had got on the pitch.

Off the pitch he was quiet bloke who was married to his childhood sweetheart and despite the on-field arrogance, he was sick with nerves before every game at Arsenal.

From 1973 to 1975 he spent as much time on the bench as on the pitch and his form suffered, so eventually he left for Derby County - then managed by Dave Mackay. At £100,000 he was great value but considered a risky buy because of his temperament.

Charlie celebrated this new opportunity by getting one of the most fantastic bubble perms of the 70s. Gone was the lank-haired streak of p**s that we'd grown used to and in came a new, more motivated, more disciplined curly-headed Charlie. He was still only 24 and quickly struck up a great partnership with Kevin Hector up front.

He became a goal in every three games man at Derby. No-one kept stats on assists those days but he most have made as many for the prolific Hector. Even the pre-match puking had stopped, possibly due to him having a fag before the game to calm his nerves. It was the 70s and smoking was compulsory for the working class.

He scored a legendary hat-trick against Real Madrid in the European Cup - a tie that The Rams lost 6-5! And despite the V's incident a few years earlier, the fans loved him.

His form was such that he was often compared to Johan Cruyff, which was the highest praise anyone could give a player at the time and it's not too fanciful a comparison. He really was that good. Indeed, Cruyff himself had said George was 'the most skilful player in Britain'.

Don Revie game him a hugely over-due first cap in 1976 in a game against Republic of Ireland. Incredibly, he played him out of position on the wing and then subbed him after an hour. Charlie wouldn't shake his hand, told him to f**k off and walked down the tunnel. It would be his only international cap.

It was illustrative of the conservative, unimaginative nature of England's post-1966 international football that a player such as Charlie wasn't made the focus of the England side. He should have had a long and brilliant international career.

The following year Ron Greenwood asked Charlie to play in an England B game. Disgusted at the invitation, Charlie refused, knowing it would be the end of any international possibilities but feeling, rightly, that he had proved himself good enough for the full team.

In March 1978 Ray Kennedy, a former team-mate at Arsenal caught his knee in a challenge and damaged the ligaments. Although he didn't retire until 1983, that injury effectively ended his career. There were spells in America and the Far East, at Southampton, Forest, Bournemouth and even 11 games at Derby but in those last five years the goals had dried up and Charlie himself had lost his passion for the game. A final injury after signing but never playing for Dundee United was the sign to hang up his boots.

He was at core an outsider who trod his own path and did things his own way for good or bad. Yes, he had disciplinary problems, even as late as 1980 he punched a photographer at Carrow Road, but fans loved him for his outrageous talent.

Even when returning to Highbury with Derby County, a fan ran out of the North Bank and presented him with a bouquet of flowers. He was still the local lad made good, and remains loved for it to this day.

The failure to indulge and accommodate our finest creative talents is a habit that England would repeat time and again.

At a time of prolonged England failure, Charlie George should have been one of England's biggest stars. The fact he wasn't was partly down to bad luck with injuries at crucial times, partly due to Bertie Mee's 'sweat-before-swagger' attitude and partly down to the narrow-mindedness of England managers who were frightened by his maverick reputation.

But the fans knew. Charlie was worth the ticket money all on his own.