As a new documentary, 89, is released the former Arsenal manager recalls that night the destiny of the league title changed in the last seconds of the season, and bemoans the decline in the art of defending in today’s Premier League

‘Everything changed in a second,” George Graham says as he remembers the sweetest moment of his life bursting into life at Anfield on a Friday night in May 1989. Twenty-eight years later, on a November morning in a brasserie on Hampstead High Street, Graham’s bacon sandwich lies half-eaten on his plate amid flickering memories of the goal Michael Thomas scored for Arsenal in the last minute of the final match of the 1988-89 season.

It was a season scarred forever by the tragedy of Hillsborough, when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on 15 April 1989. Forty-one days later the title decider between Liverpool and Arsenal was played at Anfield. Liverpool had made their usual surge to the top of the table and could even afford to lose. To win the league Arsenal had to beat Liverpool 2-0 – a seemingly impossible task at Anfield.

“In the last minute we were 1-0 up and I was a little low,” Graham recalls. “I was thinking: ‘What a fantastic performance to come up here and get so close. Fucking hell.’ I was actually thinking of how to praise the guys to the media when we scored.”

Graham laughs at an unforgettable moment which is captured in 89, a gripping and entertaining documentary about that match. “Everyone on the bench was going crazy but I was still halfway down. Then, 100% changed in a second. They had won the title, and then lost it in a second.”

There is a riveting build-up to Thomas’s goal in 89 – when it seemed as if time slowed before an explosion of euphoria for Arsenal and desolation for Liverpool. As Graham returns with relish to his bacon sandwich, it seems a delicious irony that a manager often reviled for his defensive football should have helped produce the most extraordinary climax.

Sergio Agüero supplied an incredible end to the 2011-12 season, scoring the last-minute winner in a 3-2 defeat of QPR to secure Manchester City’s first league title in 43 years. Martin Tyler went suitably ballistic when commentating: “Agüeroooooooooooooo! I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again.”

Graham, Arsenal and English football had already witnessed a seismic moment when Thomas snatched the championship from Liverpool. The two teams were locked together on 73 points, with an identical goal difference of 37, but Thomas’ languid, clinical chip meant Arsenal were champions because they had scored more goals. It was a finish like no other – especially considering Liverpool’s imperious status and the tragic backdrop.

There are moving scenes in 89 – from Nigel Winterburn’s haunted expression when recalling Hillsborough to Arsenal’s players walking out with flowers for Liverpool’s supporters. “Ken Friar [Arsenal’s managing director] came up with the idea,” Graham says. “It was a phenomenal gesture. The Liverpool supporters were also phenomenal – clapping us when we ran around with the trophy. That took guts.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest It’s up for grabs now: Michael Thomas wheels away after scoring the improbable injury-time goal that saw Arsenal win 2-0 at Anfield, and take the title off Liverpool in 1989. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock

The 72-year-old Graham points out that: “Arsenal took a big chance with me [in March 1986]. That wouldn’t happen today. Arsenal wouldn’t appoint the Millwall manager. When I first came to Arsenal I’d not seen a first division game for two years. But my secretary would bring in the local Saturday papers every Monday morning and I’d read the local journalists to see who played well in the lower divisions. I went to see Lee Dixon – player of the year twice on the trot at Stoke. How would I know that? By doing my homework.

“When I went to see Lee play I also saw Bouldy [Steve Bould]. I thought: ‘I could do with a big centre-half like that.’ I bought the two of them. I bought Nigel from Wimbledon, little Kevin Richardson from Watford. My first signing was Perry Groves from Colchester for £75,000. Perry had pace – even if he talked himself into the ground. I used to put Elastoplast across his mouth in training.”

Graham instilled fear in his squad and Anders Limpar once said that playing for him was like living under Saddam Hussein. “It never bothered me. There’s got to be a feeling of ‘Oh…!’ when the boss walks in. To some of the boys I went over the top but my head was on the line.”

Could a manager speak to a player today in the way Graham did at Arsenal? “There’s this myth that because players are earning fortunes they can do what they want. I disagree. Most players, most people in fact, want to be led. Now, because they are strong financially you have to be even stronger. These new managers are great. Conte is strong. Guardiola too. Klopp is another.”

We discuss José Mourinho, who sneers at “the poets” after he nullifies the opposition. “Someone said to me: ‘José’s just like you. He sets up his team to win rather than entertain.’ I always thought sport was about winning.”

Before the 1988-89 season Arsenal were 16-1 outsiders while Liverpool were an even money bet to be champions. By the time the odds were stacked against them once more, at Anfield, Graham’s conviction was plain. He even predicted the correct outcome to his players. “I told them the way I foresaw it. I don’t know whether they thought I was mad but they listened. We had a tough team and this reputation of being hard to beat. If Arsenal score first, forget it. The game’s finished. Everybody wrote us off and I took that philosophy to Anfield. Graeme Souness, the best pundit on television today, had the whole back page of the Mirror. He said: ‘What a waste of time.’ But I knew if we got the first goal they’d be nervous. I said: ‘Everyone’s expecting us to go out and attack. Forget it.’ I had my plan.”

You could see them thinking: ‘No one beats us 2-0 at Anfield.’ They sat back and we sat back. I thought: ‘This is going all right’

That plan entailed the unusual decision to travel up to Liverpool on the morning of the match. “Someone recommended The Naked Ape by Desmond Morris because it was partly about the fight for territory. When you go to Anfield it’s a fight. The Naked Ape helped me think about hostile territory. I thought: ‘Right we’ll go up on the morning of the match, do the business and get out.’ People couldn’t believe it.”

Graham also surprised everyone when, as the architect of Arsenal’s famous back four, he switched his defensive strategy. “We played against Man U with three at the back a few weeks before. Adams, Bould and O’Leary with the full-backs pushed up. It was my plan to use it at Old Trafford before Anfield. But Liverpool didn’t come at us. You could see them thinking: ‘No one beats us 2-0 at Anfield.’ They sat back and we sat back. I thought: ‘This is going all right.’ I told them to make sure it was 0-0 at half-time and then we’d get the first goal.”

Alan Smith scored the first and then Thomas burst through for the miraculous clincher which sealed the best moment of Graham’s life. “Yeah – but Copenhagen was almost as good.”

In May 1994, Arsenal beat Parma in the European Cup Winners’ Cup final in Copenhagen. “They were seriously good. Half their players were in the Italian national team and up front they had Zola and Asprilla. They killed us at the start. They were hitting shots against the crossbar, Seaman was saving them. Then Smith scored. The players came in afterwards and said: ‘Boss, with 20 minutes to go they jacked it in.’ 1-0.”

Graham, the defensive master, is almost purring. It sounds as if Copenhagen gave him more pleasure than Anfield. “It did in a way. Ian Wright was suspended. John Jensen was injured. Martin Keown failed a fitness test that morning. I put in the young boy [Ian] Selley and Steve Morrow in midfield to beat the top team in Italy. Phenomenal – even if that game is often forgotten.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Graham: ‘Arsène Wenger has been great for the English game, great for Arsenal’ Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Arsenal had already won another league title in 1991 – losing one match all season and conceding just 18 goals. “We also had a two-point deduction [after a mass brawl with Manchester United] and Tony Adams went away.”

Adams, Arsenal’s captain, was jailed for four months after a drink-driving offence. “Tony was on holiday, at Her Majesty’s pleasure. That was some season.”

Graham does not dwell on the past – which is why he prefers not to talk about the £425,000 bung he received from the agent Rene Hauge following Arsenal’s purchase of Jensen and Pal Lydersen. In February 1995 he was sacked by Arsenal and banned for a year by the FA. Graham would return to manage Leeds and Tottenham – but his reputation had been tainted.

“My record’s not bad at Arsenal,” he says of the club with whom he won the double as a player in 1971 and which he loves more than any other. “Six trophies in nine years as manager and I won a European competition which is underplayed. Look at the clubs in the quarter-finals of that tournament. Ajax, Real Madrid, Benfica, PSG [Bayer Leverkusen, Torino and Parma]. Against PSG in the semis we drew in Paris and won 1-0 at home when David Ginola and George Weah were flying for them.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Copenhagen was almost as good’: Graham, far right, and his Arsenal team celebrate after the 1-0 win over Parma secured the 1994 Cup Winners Cup in Copenhagen. Photograph: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Graham’s delight in his trademark 1-0 victory was forged in the relentless work he did with his defenders. “I was great at organising the defence and my ideal team was Milan. They were the best defensive team I’ve seen – and the only side that played offside better than us.

“The trouble is we have very poor defences now. There are few clubs in England that are good going forward in possession and good at defending. But I like Tottenham. They’ve got the best defence in the league. And I really rate [Mauricio] Pochettino. He’s quality and I like the way he goes about his business. He doesn’t go over the top because the club is more important than him. I love their intensity at Tottenham.”

He does not go to much football these days but Graham has been invited to watch Arsenal play Tottenham a week on Saturday. He will be in an Arsenal box but his disillusionment with the club’s stagnation is obvious when I ask if he followed the recent farcical AGM where the chairman Sir Chips Keswick refused to answer questions about Stan Kroenke’s ownership or future strategies.

“I don’t bother because nothing changes. What’s the point? There’s no board at Arsenal. There are questions they’re obviously not going to answer. I heard [chief executive Ivan] Gazidis say they were over-performing. Over-performing?” Graham snorts in disbelief. He also believes Alexis Sánchez and Mesut Özil should have been sold before the season started and that Arsenal need three marquee signings – but he is careful not to criticise Arsène Wenger. “He’s been great for the English game, great for Arsenal,” Graham says in acknowledgement of Wenger.

Yet it appears as if Wenger refuses to allow anyone to challenge him at Arsenal. “You’re right. Look at all the No2s Sir Alex [Ferguson] had. Brian Kidd. Steve McLaren, Archie Knox, Walter Smith, René Meulensteen. Why do you think he needed that?”

As a way of reinvigorating himself and the club? “Correct. A new injection of ideas. Fergie also got it right when stopping. He wins the league and packs it in. That’s a gift.”

It seems as if there is nothing else in Wenger’s life apart from football – despite him being so obviously intelligent. “What do you do? He loves it. I just think …” Graham pauses. “… we all have our time. You’ve had your period of success. Now move on. I’ve had my time. I can do without the limelight.”

Is Graham still watching three games a week in retirement? “No!” he exclaims. “I love golf. Even then I try to play defensively.”

He chuckles before talking about his love of gardening and how he once duped a journalist into writing that he planted his bulbs in formation with four at the back. As Graham keeps laughing I remember a line in 89 when he says: “Isn’t it lovely to have moments in your life when you think: ‘Oh, nothing can beat that.’”

89 is in OurScreen.com cinemas and on DVD and digital download this month