The Bird Man Of North London

It has only been in recent years that I have realised how lucky the Arsenal have been with goalkeepers. Growing up I knew all about Jack Kelsey, hell  I even had his book, and would see him in the club shop on the rare occasion I visited that primitive emporium. I got to see Bob Wilson, Jimmy Rimmer, Pat Jennings, John Lukic and David Seaman, I went through life thinking every goalkeeper in England was blessed with talent and everyone who signed for the Arsenal was a cut above the rest.

Some keepers of course made no impression on the first team even though I was familiar with their  names from my avid reading of the match day programmes. Geoff Barnett was 'my' first proper second choice keeper. Famous for his hair (!) he did play a few first team games but was never able to dislodge Bob Wilson and was allowed to leave. Brian Parker and Martin New made even less impression than Barnett and it wasn't until the signing of Rimmer from Manchester United in 1974 that we had a successor for Wilson.

After a couple of years where Rimmer, along with the goals of Brian Kidd, almost single handedly kept us from relegation, new gaffer Terry Neill decided to let Rimmer go to Aston Villa and he signed Pat Jennings from that lot up the road and for a while the genial Irishman was untouched as our number one.

In 1978 we signed Paul Barron as understudy and from the little I saw of him I liked what I saw. However he was never going to take over from Jennings who was still a model of consistency despite being in his mid 30s and when Neill sought to swap Clive Allen for Kenny Sansom in 1980 Barron was added to the deal as a sweetener.

With Barron leaving there was a need for an experienced keeper to standby in case Jennings was interested so Neill, perhaps feeling 18 year old Rhys Wilmot was not yet ready to step up to the first team, went back in the transfer market to sign 27 year old Scottish international George Wood from Everton.

The Scotsman didn't have long to wait for his debut, deputising for Jennings in an away game against Middlesbrough and although we lost the game 2-1 he was retained for the following week. The next game was against Nottingham Forest at Highbury and for many of us it was the first chance to see our new keeper. We won 1-0 and went home happy, not giving the new man between the sticks a second thought. He played the next nine games before Jennings came back to the first team and his record was: Played 11, won five, drew three and lost three. He also played in a couple of League Cup ties away to Stockport County and Spurs.

The 1981/82 campaign saw Wood even more involved as he played in 26 league games and one League Cup tie, a replay at Anfield, and with Jennings not getting any younger it was looking like the former Everton keeper was being groomed to take over from the big man. From my place on the North Bank I was not convinced. Jennings had started the season with Wood not playing his first league game of the season until Janurary away to Stoke City. We won that game as we had won the previous five games but we as a team were not playing well and the confidence many of us supporters wasn't transfered to our new keeper.

Wood kept his place from the Stoke game onwards  and we lost one game in our last seven but we weren't playing that well, it was only in our last game of the season at home to Southampton that I felt we played with any kind of fluency or confidence. We had lost players like Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton over recent years and their replacements, be they Paul Davis, Graham Rix, Brian McDermott or John Hawley weren't felt to be up to the task. With Jennings absent for much of the campaign we were missing a core of the late 1970s team which had reached four finals.

Wood started the 82/83 season playing in our opening 13 games when we only won three games. We had been promised big signings and Terry Neill had certainly spent big but Tony Woodcock and lee Chapman were facing their own problems adapting to their new surroundings. Jennings and Wood alternated between the sticks for a while but the Scotsman's number was up. He was involved in the 5-0 debacle at White Hart Lane and played just one FA Cup tie, the semi final against Manchester United which we also lost.

A few days later George Wood pulled on the Arsenal number one shirt for the last time in a midweek league game away to Norwich City four days after that semi final loss. We lost 3-1, Jennings saw out the season and Wood was allowed to leave during the summer.

Personally I was glad to see him gone. I never took to him as an Arsenal player even though he was experienced and had a good background. He never felt like an Arsenal player and I never felt safe when he was playing. No disrespect to the lad but for me he was the worst keeper we had...until Manuel Almunia.

Still, there was one thing I always remembered about George Wood. He wasn't what you would call a party animal and with Charlie Nicholas arriving in the summer to team up with Woodcock, Alan Sunderland, Kenny Sansom and the other drinkers in the club he would most definitely have been the odd man out. For Wood was no party animal. He was in fact a twitcher. A bird watcher.

The programme for Liverpool at home in September 1982 had a profile with Wood and we were told Wood had grown up in Scotland spending his free time with a game keeper learning about animals and birds. He would lie on a river bank with his arm in the water trying to find trout for example and if he got lucky, as he frequently did, he sell the surplus to local restaurants or hotels.

Even as an Arsenal player he never lost his interest in the countryside and would carry out a survey of birds in Hertfordshire as well as counting the winter birds in his area. While most players of that era were listening to U2 or Level 42 Wood was most content listening to recordings of bird songs, preferring a bit of 'cheep,cheep' to 'Sunday Bloody Sunday'. As for his football ambitions? He was happy enough being a professional footballer. Anything beyond that was a bonus he felt.

While I never rated him I did like the fact he was more eclectic than your average footballer and am happy that whenever it comes to listing Arsenal's worst ever keepers Arsene Wenger has provided me with a number of alternatives to push Wood the Birdman down the list.