Even now, all these years later, David Dein still has The Unpleasant Dream. It is 5pm and he is sitting in his office. A man comes in and presents him with a sheet of paper. Sometimes it is a death warrant. Sometimes a death certificate. Either way, it signals the end.
The man is Peter Hill-Wood, the late Arsenal chairman. And the dream isn’t much of a fantasy really. It’s a sub-conscious recreation of a true event, from April 18, 2007, when Hill-Wood, Arsenal director Chips Keswick and an employment lawyer from Slaughter and May terminated Dein’s employment at his beloved club.