OVER A COFFEE, Gary and Colin Lewin are attempting to explain just how much Arsenal took over their lives.
Gary summed it up: “I didn’t have a Christmas day off for 25 years. My first one off was when I went to the FA and Colin had his first one off last year.
Gary (left) and Colin Lewin (right) have set up their own pyhsiotheraphy clinicCredit: Louis Wood – The Sun
The pair spent a combined 45 years as Arsenal physiosCredit: Louis Wood – The Sun
“On my first one off, we opened all the presents with the kids in the morning, and I turned to my missus and said: ‘What do we do now?’ I had no idea.
“I would normally get in the car and go to work and my kids would not see me until the following night.
“Holidays you’re on the phone all the time. You become completely engulfed in that environment.
“Coming back from Russia at 3am and sleeping on a settee at the training ground so you’re there for the injured players at 9am who didn’t travel.
“You miss out on life by being involved in a club, especially with your kids growing up. I have grandchildren now.
“My granddaughter was a bridesmaid for a wedding two years ago and my wife turned to me and went: ‘You do realise our three girls have been bridesmaids five times and you’ve never seen it once’.
“That is when it hits home and how much you sacrifice to do what you do, but because we are loving it and loving life you don’t feel it at the time and don’t understand.”
Colin chipped in with a much briefer synopsis: “Weddings, stag dos, I have missed them all.”
From 1986 to 2018 there was at least one Lewin in the Arsenal physio department, beginning with Gary after he failed to make it at the club as a goalkeeper.
He was joined by his younger cousin Colin in 1995, and the pair worked side by side with the Gunners until 2008 when Gary took up a full-time role as England’s head physio.
Colin remained at Arsenal until the departure of Arsene Wenger in 2018.
Colin remained alongside Wenger until his departure in 2018Credit: Getty – Contributor
Together, they built a reputation as two of the country’s leading, most committed and respected physios, and were an integral part of Arsenal’s development into one of Europe’s finest clubs.
After over a decade apart, they are back working alongside one another once more in a new business venture: ‘The Lewin Clinic’.
An all-round, complete physio service from diagnosis to rehab to recovery, helping both elite athletes and the average person on the street – the latter needing them most, they both argue.
Gary explained: “People take up sport, get injured, it affects their day to day life and they pack it up because advice is not at hand. We don’t want people to fall out of love with a sport because of it.”
A jump into the unknown world of business start-ups was softened by some expert help.
Visits to former Arsenal owner David Dein’s house, chats with Arsene and nine-hour phone calls with ex-transfer negotiator Dick Law out in Texas.
Colin admitted: “Without those people we would have got it wrong and we would have paid a fair bit in idiot tax.”
The recent launch of the east London-based physiotherapy clinic – fitted with treatment rooms and a custom-built gym – saw more Arsenal greats in Alan Smith, Pat Rice, Ray Parlour and Jack Wilshere attend.
Gary and Colin built their state of the art clinic thanks to help from Arsene Wenger and David DeinCredit: Louis Wood – The Sun
The Lewin Clinic is open for business after their recent launchCredit: Louis Wood – The Sun
Shirts signed and donated from the likes of David Seaman, Hector Bellerin, Ashley Cole and Patrick Vieira hang from the clinic walls.
While Tony Adams has already booked an appointment to sort out his dodgy knees.
The adoration and respect they attract is clear for all to see – even if Gary and Colin still struggle to comprehend it themselves.
Colin chuckled in disbelief: “Some of them just pop in for a chat. Former keeper Stuart Taylor works around the corner and he said he will pop in.
“It actually makes us laugh when some of the old players ask to come in and have a chat and we are like: ‘Really?’ It’s odd.
“The reason they trusted or liked us so much was probably because we were at Arsenal so long that they didn’t have the chance to be with anyone else! That stability under Arsene helped us.
“There are certainly better physios out there than us, without doubt.”
Regardless, you would do well to find two legends of the game with as many fascinating tales of years gone by, and with a better way of telling them.
For example, getting Cesc Fabregas to sit by Eduardo’s head as a translator after his horrific leg break at Birmingham because the Brazilian-born striker was screaming in his native tongue.
Some quick-fire Q&A throws up further intrigue.
Fabregas translated for Eduardo after his horror leg breakCredit: PA:Press Association
Player with the most talent but hampered by injury? Colin: “Tomas Rosicky. He missed a lot of football with a really weird and rare injury. I will never see one like it again.”
Gary: “Abou Diaby never actually fulfilled his potential after that horrible injury at Sunderland.
“The other one is Remi Garde. He had two cruciates before we signed him. What a player, but his body struggled with professional football.”
Most distraught you have been after a game? Colin: “Champions League final. We were 20 minutes away from winning it with 10-men. Everyone just felt sick.”
Gary: “The 1988 League Cup final, losing 3-2 to Luton in the last minute, and then the 1991 FA Cup semi-final against Spurs when Gazza scored that unbelievable goal.”
Colin and Gary were, and still are, passionate Arsenal fans, something that they had to learn to control.
The phrase Colin used is ‘flat line’ – but argues that passion is often needed to get the best out of yourself and the players; something which he feels is missing today.
He said: “As the merry-go-round keeps spinning and throwing people off into other clubs, physios barely have time to be emotionally invested in their club and so, do they care?
“Does it ruin their weekend when that team loses? Does it ruin their weekend when the right back gets some bad news about an injury? I don’t know if it does.
“Winning and losing meant so much to us, especially in the massive games, because we cared so much about the players because we were so passionate about the team doing well.”
Alongside them on the bench was perhaps the most passionate Arsenal fan in Arsene Wenger.
Gary spent decades alongside Wenger on the Arsenal benchCredit: News Group Newspapers Ltd
Colin felt the heat of Arsene during his latter yearsCredit: Getty – Contributor
His arrival made Gary and Colin both re-evaluate what they thought they knew about recovery and nutrition as his methods brought early success on the pitch.
A piece of Arsene’s advice in his early days still sticks with Gary now: “You will learn very early which players want to be in your treatment room. Don’t waste your time on them.
“If they want to be in the treatment room, I need to move them on. Focus on the ones who want to get out on the pitch and want your help. They are the ones that we need.”
And his stubbornness arguably shone brightest when he forced architects to completely tear up plans for the dressing room at the newly-built Emirates because of an unwanted pillar.
Colin said: “He wasn’t an unreasonable man. And when he was being unreasonable, he was probably still being reasonable.”
But he recalled: “In the last 10 years, perhaps when he was a bit older and crankier, he was a different man in that 90 minutes.
“He was under pressure and extremely stressed. He would want decisions from us made far too quickly and although he was a very good man to work for, you definitely felt under pressure.
“But he wasn’t a shouter. Every new member of staff or player that came to the club would sit and look at each other at half time and ask: ‘When is he going to have a pop?’
“We had to educate them that it isn’t his way.
He added: “The pressure had become so great on his shoulders that inevitably he knew his departure would happen. It was sad, but not shocking.”
The pressure to get players fit was met with a popular myth that Arsenal players were notoriously injury prone – especially ones that had just joined the club.
Colin sighed: “I hated the bad luck excuse when it came to injuries at Arsenal.
Colin says there was nothing they could do about Arsenal’s injury-hit yearsCredit: AFP
“Moving to the stadium, and funding it, meant Arsene had to take risks on players. Buying players who probably weren’t top end resilient but you take a gamble.
“They would come in and they wouldn’t be able to cope with our training and then got injured. They then came back and couldn’t cope with the rehab and got injured again.
“There were a couple of years where we were injury hit. 2006 to 2010. We had more when we would have liked.
“But physios don’t create injuries, training creates injuries. Physios can help it a bit, but injury lists and rates follow coaches around, not physios.
“It was difficult for us to have to listen to it but in a couple of years we were okay again.”
Gary added: “The disappointing thing for me, more with England than with Arsenal, was that we don’t have a right of reply. We have a code of confidentiality.
“We cannot pass comment on injuries. And you get the so-called experts that will come out and say we did that wrong and that wrong. But they don’t know what the injury actually was.”
Colin continued: “The politics and the media pressure did affect you.
“It’s amazing how, coming out of the game and then a year later, you realise how unimportant it is. But at the time it felt the world was ending. You had no defence.
“Other than that, I would take it all back and do it again.”
Website: https://www.lewinclinic.co.uk
Arsene Wenger has been appointed Fifa Chief of Global Football Development
Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk
