“Somebody told me I’m the answer to a quiz question…” laughs Steve Morrow, who joined us as a schoolboy back in 1984 and went on to make 85 first-team appearances between 1994 and 1997.
And the question Morrow is referring to? “Who was the first player to collect a winners' medal before an FA Cup final?”
Morrow scored the winning goal against Sheffield Wednesday in the League Cup final in April 1993. In the post-match celebrations, Tony Adams attempted to pick up the Belfast-born player and parade him on his shoulders. But Morrow fell and landed awkwardly, which resulted in him breaking his arm and being rushed to hospital.
He – and Arsenal – returned to Wembley Stadium in May that year for the FA Cup final, also against Sheffield Wednesday. Prior to kick-off, Morrow climbed the iconic 39 Wembley steps to collect the League Cup winners’ medal he was unable to receive a month earlier.
While match-winner Morrow is inexorably linked with the 1993 League Cup final, his contribution to our 1994 European Cup Winners’ Cup final triumph was every bit as significant. Handed an unenviable task by manager George Graham of trying to keep the likes of Faustino Asprilla, Gianfranco Zola and Tomas Brolin quiet, the Northern Irishman passed the assignment with flying colours and we ran out 1-0 victors.
After 13 years with the club, Morrow joined Queens Park Rangers in 1997 before moving to the United States in 2002 to join Dallas Burn, later renamed FC Dallas.
He later managed them before returning to Arsenal in 2008 where he held various roles in our academy until 2019. Nowadays, he works for FIFA alongside former manager Arsène Wenger, who is the organisation’s chief of global football development.
Steve, to ask a question you’ll have been asked countless times before: how do you reflect on the 1993 League Cup final?
The main memory is scoring the winning goal. It feels like so long ago now but everyone who bumps into me reminds me of that day because it was so infamous. Even though it was memorable for other reasons, my main memory is scoring the winning goal in a cup final and how amazing that felt for a young kid from Belfast to get to that stage. It was what dreams are made of.
Can you tell us a bit about that journey from being a promising young footballer in Northern Ireland to eventually becoming an Arsenal first-team player?
I was playing for my local team in Belfast, which was coached by my father. I was 14 at the time, and we were doing well in the leagues when an Arsenal scout happened to attend a couple of our games. He approached my father after one of the games and I was invited over to London for some trials. I can remember my first weekend there very well, playing for the under-16s against Spurs. I happened to score a goal in a 2-2 draw and things all went from there.
I had quite a few offers from clubs after getting into the Northern Ireland schoolboy team, the under-15s. But Arsenal were very persuasive. They invited me back to London a second time and brought my parents over too. Someone from Arsenal even flew over to Belfast to meet us. So I signed schoolboy forms but, rather than join straight away, I stayed on at school to finish my O-levels. I was 16, nearly 17, when I then moved to London.
I was very homesick when I first moved to Arsenal, but from a footballing perspective I couldn’t have hoped for a better start. We won the FA Youth Cup in my first year there and in that team were the likes of Kevin Campbell, Alan Miller and David Hillier.
Pat Rice was my youth team coach and he was brilliant. Everything came together to provide me with this really solid foundation to allow me to progress quickly and play some reserve games and then, eventually, make my first-team debut.
I had a few loans, with Reading, Watford and Barnet, and when I came back, I was more than ready for my Arsenal debut [which came as a substitute for Nigel Winterburn in a 3-1 win over Norwich City at Carrow Road in April 1992].
After a long period recovering from your broken arm and the associated complications, starting and winning in the 1994 European Cup Winners’ Cup final against Parma must have been incredible for you?
Absolutely. After coming back from the injury, I was starting to get myself in first-team contention again and the timing of the final was great from that perspective. People ask me what the greatest moment of my time at Arsenal was and I always say the 1994 Cup Winners’ Cup final, even slightly above the League Cup final.
It was obviously great to score a winning goal in the League Cup final but I felt a real personal and team satisfaction because of the way we carried out George Graham’s plan to beat a very good Parma team.
I remember the day before we had a team meeting and George said to me in front of the other guys: “Watch out for Asprilla because he drops deep. Make sure you keep an eye out for Zola too, because he played in that number 10 role. Get tight to him when he gets the ball. And watch for Tomas Brolin because he makes runs from the midfield.”
The players were laughing, listening to George telling me all this. It was quite a responsibility. But the team effort on the night was incredible and I class it as one of my best performances in an Arsenal shirt.
You’ve had a fascinating post-playing career. Can you tell us a bit more about that?
After Queens Park Rangers, I went over to America to play for FC Dallas in the MLS. I finished my playing career there and became assistant coach at FC Dallas. Then I was given the opportunity to interview for the manager’s job after Colin Clarke left, and I became the youngest head coach in the MLS at the time. I had an incredible two seasons doing that.
One day I got a call from David Dein, inviting me back to Arsenal. I jumped at the opportunity. That started a new journey of 11 wonderful years with Arsenal working in various roles in the academy and as head of youth recruitment and building an excellent relationship with Arsène Wenger during that time.
I stayed through until 2019, when I joined the Football Association, working alongside John McDermott as head of player selection for all the England youth teams from the age of 15 right up to senior level.
I always kept in touch with Arsène after our time together at Arsenal and I spoke to him regularly. Two years ago, the opportunity came up to work with him at FIFA and I’ve been doing that for the last two years. My job title is Talent ID Specialist. Arsène started the FIFA Talent Development Scheme. It’s a global initiative to give a chance for each individual that might not have previously existed because of a lack of resources. There are 211 member nations of FIFA and more than half of those don’t have the sort of resources that the leading nations do.
The objective for FIFA is to develop FIFA Academies within these smaller footballing nations. I go in at the beginning of those projects and set up talent identification systems. I look to give individuals within the associations the expertise they need to find and develop the best talents in their countries.
What is it like working with Arsène?
Every interaction with Arsène is fascinating. He has always been demanding and sometimes that’s not always easy. But that’s part of his success. I think back to my days with him at Arsenal and one talent would come through the ranks and he’d want to know where the next was coming from.
He was never satisfied. He is like that today. After I visit one country, he wants to know how that went and where I’m visiting next. He wants to know how we’re impacting them and setting up structures. He wants to ensure we help nations have a better national team and will be able to compete on a global level better in the future.
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