Millwall After retiring from playing in 1978, Graham became the youth team coach at
Crystal Palace but on 12 May 1986 his chairman at Millwall, Alan Thorne, told him that Arsenal wanted to speak to him about the manager's job. After an interview with
Peter Hill-Wood,
David Dein and
Ken Friar at Hill-Wood's home, the Arsenal directors appointed Graham as their new manager on 14 May 1986. A month after arriving at
Highbury, Graham was himself linked with the
Scotland national team, possibly combining it with the Arsenal manager's job, but that role went to
Andy Roxburgh instead. Arsenal had not won a trophy since the FA Cup in
1978–79, and were drifting away from the top teams in the League, having not finished in the top five during any of the previous four seasons, during which the major honours were picked up by an all-conquering
Liverpool as well as the likes of
Manchester United and
Everton. Graham quickly discarded the likes of
Paul Mariner, who already had been released on a free transfer,
Tony Woodcock,
Stewart Robson and
Tommy Caton, and replaced them with new signings and youth team products. He also imposed much stricter discipline than his predecessors, both in the dressing room and on the pitch and told the team he expected them to be dressed in club blazers on match day. This was proven to be correct as Arsenal finished fourth in Graham's first season in charge, but they went on to win the
1987 League Cup, beating Liverpool 2–1 at Wembley on 5 April. The key players in the upturn were young defender
Tony Adams and high-scoring winger
Martin Hayes. While Arsenal lost the
League Cup final the following year (a shock 3–2 defeat to
Luton Town), they remained consistent in the league. Graham's side featured tight defensive discipline, embodied by his young captain Tony Adams, who along with
Lee Dixon,
Steve Bould and
Nigel Winterburn, would form the basis of the club's defence for over a decade. However, contrary to popular belief, during this time Arsenal were not a purely defensive side; Graham also built up an impressive midfield containing
David Rocastle,
Paul Davis,
Michael Thomas and
Paul Merson, and striker
Alan Smith, whose prolific goal-scoring regularly brought him more than 20 goals per season. this included just 40 in 1992–93, when the club finished 10th in the inaugural season of the
FA Premier League, scoring fewer than any other team in the division. Graham's Arsenal became cup specialists, and in 1992–93 they became the first side to win the FA Cup and League Cup double, both times beating
Sheffield Wednesday, 2–1 in the
League Cup Final and 2–1 in the
FA Cup Final replay. The next season they continued in the same vein, winning the
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, their second European trophy; in the
final Arsenal beat favourites and holders
Parma 1–0 with a tight defensive performance and Alan Smith's 21st-minute goal from a left foot volley. The 1994 Cup Winners' Cup proved to be Graham's last trophy at the club. It was on 21 February 1995 that Graham, who had led Arsenal to six trophies in eight seasons, lost his job after a Premier League inquiry found he had accepted an illegal £425,000 payment from Norwegian agent
Rune Hauge following Arsenal's 1992 acquisition of
John Jensen and
Pål Lydersen, two of Hauge's clients. At the time, Arsenal were struggling a little in the league, had lost a League Cup quarter final to Liverpool, been dumped out of the
FA Cup after a third round replay by Millwall, and (as Cup Winners' Cup holders) had also lost the
Super Cup to
AC Milan. Regardless, Graham's sacking was more down to the illegal 'brown envelopes' of money, as the word "bung" embedded itself in the football lexicon.
Leeds United After serving his ban, Graham's return to football management came with
Leeds United in September 1996. After the fifth game of the season he replaced the long-serving
Howard Wilkinson. Graham was swiftly appointed but found himself unable to make an immediate impact, leading Leeds to five losses from his first six in the league and another defeat to Aston Villa in the League Cup. Going into November, Leeds hovered just above the relegation zone with the worst defensive record in the league, having just lost 3-0 to an Arsenal team now coached by
Arsene Wenger. Thereafter, however, Graham's defensive-minded strategies began to bear fruit; Leeds kept six clean sheets in their next seven matches, including a club-record five in a row. This was followed by a run of eight clean sheets in nine matches between 11 January and 12 March 1997, albeit with the sole exception being a 4-0 defeat at
Anfield. By the end of the season, Leeds had climbed to 11th, having scored just 28 goals (the joint-lowest of any Premier League team to have escaped relegation) yet conceded just 38, fewer than eventual champions
Manchester United, as well as accumulating 20 clean sheets, a club record for a 38-game season. In the
1997–98 season, by contrast, Leeds scored 57 goals, in a season that laid the groundwork for their success in the following seasons.
Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink was signed in the summer of 1997, scoring 16 Premier League goals and 22 in all competitions, as Leeds finished 5th in what would prove to be Graham's solitary season in charge. Graham left Leeds in acrimonious circumstances, returning to London to take over at Tottenham on 1 October 1998. Following Leeds' UEFA Cup first-round penalty shootout victory over Portuguese side
Maritimo on 29 September 1998, Spurs chairman
Alan Sugar telephoned Leeds chairman
Peter Ridsdale, who admitted that after a brief telephone conversation a deal was done, with compensation agreed which would allow Graham to fulfil his wish of returning to London. Graham had made no secret of his desire to head back to the capital following Leeds' 3–3 draw with Tottenham three days prior, citing family and personal reasons.
Tottenham Hotspur Five months after taking charge of
Tottenham Hotspur, he guided the club to victory over
Leicester City in the
1999 League Cup Final, and with it a place in the
1999–2000 UEFA Cup. Despite guiding the club to its first trophy in eight
seasons, Graham could not achieve a finish higher than tenth in the Premier League. Tottenham reached the last four of the
2000–01 FA Cup with a 3–2 victory over West Ham United on 11 March 2001 and Graham was looking forward to pitting his wits against his former club Arsenal in the semi-finals. He was sacked five days later, on 16 March 2001, soon after the club had been purchased by
ENIC, for alleged breach of contract.
Since 2001 After Spurs, Graham never returned to management. He was a pundit on Sky TV for several years, in particular their
PremPlus channel. He also commentated on the 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2005 FA Cup Finals featuring Arsenal. However, he was linked with several managerial vacancies after leaving Tottenham. In October 2001, following the dismissal of
Peter Taylor at
Leicester City, he was linked with that vacancy, but it was filled by
Dave Bassett instead. The
following season, with
Glenn Roeder under fire at the helm of a
West Ham United side heading for Premier League relegation, Graham's name was mentioned as a possible replacement, but Roeder actually lasted until the opening weeks of the
2003–04 season and this time there was little mention of Graham's name in the hunt for a successor, which ended with the appointment of
Alan Pardew. In the 2003 close season, the resignation of
Graham Taylor at
Aston Villa saw Graham's name mentioned by the media as a possible successor, but again nothing came of it, with this vacancy being filled by
David O'Leary, who had played under Graham at Arsenal and worked as his assistant at Leeds. He and O'Leary had both been mentioned as candidates for the job at
Sunderland twice during the 2002–03 season following the departure of
Peter Reid in October and
Howard Wilkinson in March. ==Personal life==