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Bertie Mee OBE (25
December 1918 –
October 22,
2001) was an
English
football player and manager, most famous for managing
Arsenal
to their first
Double
win in 1971. Born in
Bullwell,
Nottinghamshire, Mee played for
Derby County as a young man, but his playing career was cut short by injury.
Mee joined the
Royal Army Medical Corps and trained as a
physiotherapist, and spent six years, rising to the rank of
sergeant.
After leaving, he worked for various football clubs as a physiotherapist, before
joining Arsenal in 1960,
succeeding
Billy
Milne.
After the sacking of
Billy Wright in
1966, the club asked Mee to become manager, a highly surprising move,
perhaps even to the man himself; Mee asked for a get-out clause for him to
return to physiotherapist after twelve months if it didn't work out. Mee
recruited
Dave Sexton and
Don Howe as
his assistants, in order to make up for any tactical shortcomings of his own.
Arsenal hadn't won a trophy since
1953, but under Mee,
with a crop of players from the
1966 FA
Youth Cup-winning side, such as
Charlie George,
John
Radford and
Ray
Kennedy, began to show promise. Arsenal reached two successive
League Cup
finals in 1968 and
1969, but lost them
both to
Leeds United and
Swindon Town respectively. However, the following season, the club won its
first European trophy and its first trophy of any kind for 17 years, beating
Anderlecht to claim the
Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, 4-3 on aggregate; after being 3-0 down in the away
leg, Arsenal grabbed a late consolation and then beat the Belgian side 3-0 at
Highbury.
The Fairs Cup was only the warmup for the main act, namely the
FA Cup and
League Double win in
1971. The League
title was won at
White Hart Lane, home of their deadly rivals
Tottenham Hotspur, on the last day of the season; five days later Arsenal
beat
Liverpool 2-1 at
Wembley after extra-time, the winning goal scored by Charlie George.
Mee's Arsenal could not build on this success, however, they lost the
1972 Cup final to
Leeds and gradually drifted into mid-table obscurity. Mee announced his
resignation as Arsenal manager in
1976. He would
later join
Watford
as assistant to
Graham Taylor in
1978 in charge of scouting (where he was credited with discovering
John Barnes), and later became a director of the Hornets before retiring in
1991.
Mee was made an
OBE in 1984 for
services to football. He died at the age of 82, in
2001.
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