Arsenal title winner, Sky Soccer Saturday fixture, and football's most honest voice
FootballFew footballers have been as loved for what happened after the final whistle as Paul Merson. 'The Merse' was a graceful, gifted playmaker for Arsenal in the late 1980s and 1990s, and then became one of British television's most watched and most quoted pundits.
He came through the Highbury youth system and made the breakthrough under George Graham, winning the First Division title in 1989 and 1991, the FA Cup, the League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. Twenty one England caps followed, along with spells at Middlesbrough, Aston Villa, Portsmouth and Walsall. The elegance on the ball was always there, even when everything else was falling apart.
The 'everything else' is what sets Merson apart. He has spoken with remarkable candour about decades of addiction to alcohol, gambling and drugs, about the rehab stays, about the relapses, and about the slow rebuilding. His two autobiographies are among the most honest accounts of a sporting life ever written by an English professional.
On Sky's Soccer Saturday he became part of the furniture, the pundit whose reactions you waited for, whose predictions you teased him about, and whose unfiltered warmth carried the show. These days he is an Advanced Voices ambassador for the gambling charity Gordon Moody and a regular newspaper columnist.
A Merse lunch at Steam is funny, moving, and unlike any other football speaker on the circuit. Expect stories you have not heard before, told by a man who holds nothing back.
Two decades of world class speakers in the basement at EC3. Want to book Paul Merson or someone like them? Tell us what you need and we will come back with a plan.
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