No sooner had Wenger set foot in England than a grotesque rumour swiftly mushroomed on the internet that the new saviour of Islington had a highly deviant sex life involving not only women, not even just men, but also children. Without repeating the content of the rumour itself, newspapers passed on the fact that a rumour of a plainly damaging nature was in circulation.
According to one eye-witness, Wenger was "incandescent with a white-hot rage" when he heard about it. But at least in France one of these rumours was in fact old hat. "During the seven years we were here we were always together, except at night, and people thought we were homosexuals!" says Jean Petit, his assistant coach at Monaco, and one of his closest friends.
There was a home game for the reserve team that day. Fans were gathering outside the stadium, and they congregated around a group of press - some football writers, other news reporters, and a television news team - who were waiting outside the stadium for an official comment from within the club. Meanwhile, inside, it was made clear to a distraught Wenger that in England he could not simply sue the newspapers for libel unless they specifically published the charge made against him. He did, however, rapidly take on board, when it was explained to him, that he could sue for slander if any of the reporters outside could be persuaded to put a name to the rumour in front of witnesses. Against the advice of Dein, and to the alarm of the press officer Clare Tomlinson, whose own first day in the job this was, he went outside onto the steps of Highbury's famous old marble hall and confronted them.
This was an act of considerable bravery. According to Adams, Wenger "hates confrontation", and here was a confrontation before he had taken charge of a single game. For all the press knew, he was about to resign. Instead, he asked them why they were there. When someone referred to unspecified rumours, Wenger said, "What rumours?" No one spoke. The journalists, feeling hampered by the presence of the fans, asked if they could come inside the stadium and have a private press conference. Tomlinson refused. Facing the realisation that they had nothing to go on, the press slunk away. Wenger had killed the story stone-dead.
