Arsenal legend Martin Keown speaks about his life, habits and what he enjoy most.

In an interview with Daily Mail, Keown discovered much about his sporting career and his daily life and his role in football.

There’s a charming little pub nestled on the northern edge of Oxford’s city center. It’s a favorite spot for a diverse crowd—university professors, players from the local ice hockey team, the Oxford City Stars, past and present students, and even folks from the Formula One world. On this day, Martin Keown is sitting at a small table along the pub’s corridor, enjoying a vegan pie.

The Martin Keown sitting here now is a far cry from the intense figure football fans might remember. He’s still focused and driven, but now he’s a humorous, reflective, and kind-hearted man, content in the city where he was born and raised. In fact, he admits he’s spent the last 20 years apologizing to former opponents for the way he used to be on the pitch.

Back in his playing days, Keown was known for his relentless, aggressive style—a defender you could never shake off, earning the nickname “The Rash” because, as a man-marker, he stuck to you like one. Sure, he could play, and with nearly 500 top-flight appearances, no one could say he wasn’t skilled. But his real job? It was to stop you in your tracks, to disrupt your game, to frustrate every creative thought you had.

Recalling his time at Everton, Keown shares, “In training, if someone was dominating, I’d make it my mission to shadow them for the entire session, just to get under their skin. If someone started getting too full of themselves, I’d bring them back down—fairly, of course.”

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Martin Keown with Arsene Wenger

I’ve always admired Martin Keown’s style of play. Nowadays, he’s not just a hero of mine, he’s also my neighbor, and we both frequent the same cozy little pub. Sure, I loved watching the elegance of playmakers like Glenn Hoddle, Ray Wilkins, Paul Gascoigne, David Beckham, and Dennis Bergkamp, but Keown? He showed me the beauty of a different kind of player—the “destroyer.”

In football, there’s a real art to shutting down the opposition, and Keown was a master at it. When teams tried to break down Arsenal with their slick passing, Keown was right there, delivering what can only be described as a “Picasso of pain.” Those days are behind him now, and on the table beside his glass of red wine sits a copy of his autobiography, On the Edge. It’s a fascinating look at his playing career, but more importantly, it digs deep into the inner conflict between his rebellious nature and his desire to be part of something bigger.

Keown’s story is about feeling like an outsider, looking in from the edges. It’s about those times when you wonder why, despite everything you’ve given to a club, your picture isn’t up with the legendary Arsenal back four at the Emirates Stadium. But, in the end, his book isn’t about regret—it’s about standing tall and knowing you’ve stayed true to yourself.

Martin Keown Autobiography

Throughout his career, Keown had his fair share of run-ins. Alan Shearer even joked recently that whenever Newcastle players saw Keown coming, they’d wind him up about how much more money they were earning. And at Arsenal, the big-city players used to tease him about his Oxford accent, asking if he’d parked his combine harvester nearby. But Keown took it all in stride.

Even when George Graham brought him back to Arsenal in 1993, he felt a bit like the odd one out. He wasn’t part of the iconic back four of Dixon, Adams, Bould, and Winterburn. One of the book’s best moments is a conversation between Keown and Tony Adams, who opens up about his struggles with alcoholism and explains why he seemed so distant during their playing days. In that conversation, Adams acknowledges Keown’s strength and principles, which, in a way, gave Keown the validation he had sought for so long.

For all his struggles on the pitch and off, Keown, now 58, has carved out a life filled with love and pride—he’s got a solid marriage, two sons he’s incredibly proud of, grandkids he dotes on, and a second career as a well-respected analyst. Despite the battles, he’s come out on top.

Keown’s journey wasn’t easy, and he often found himself standing apart. During his first stint at Arsenal in the mid-80s, when the club’s culture of heavy drinking was rampant, he saw teammates making bad choices and decided to steer clear. He recalls one particular moment on a team bus to Manchester United, where a young player was gambling with senior teammates. The stakes were small, but Keown saw the risk. When the player said losing money was “worth it” to fit in, Keown realized they were on different paths.

He wasn’t one to follow the crowd. Sometimes, he’d join teammates at the pub, but when the afternoon turned into boozy wrestling matches, Keown recoiled. He wasn’t “one of the lads,” and it wasn’t easy being the odd one out. But that decision—standing by his principles—shaped his career. It’s one of the reasons he left Arsenal in 1986 when the club refused to give him the same wage bump as others. Adams stayed, became a club legend, and led the team through its highs and lows.

Martin Keown Young

Keown, though, spent seven years fighting his way back. His time at Aston Villa and Everton was filled with challenges, from on-pitch scraps to disagreements in training. But his unyielding nature and commitment to defending eventually led him back to Arsenal, where he played a key role in winning the League and FA Cup Double in 1997-98.

Still, even during that triumph, he sometimes felt excluded. There’s a story about how, after the final game of the season, his teammates Dixon, Adams, Bould, and Winterburn took a photo with the trophies, leaving Keown out. Even now, it stings. But Keown knows that, despite the photo, he was part of that success. He’d broken into the legendary back four, and that’s something no one can take away.

In the end, Keown had the last laugh. While others from that back four faded, he continued to thrive under Arsène Wenger’s leadership and helped Arsenal evolve into a club where hard work and discipline were celebrated more than a night at the pub. He even made it his mission to mentor younger players, ensuring they didn’t face the same struggles he had.

Keown’s story is one of resilience and self-belief, and now, having earned a winner’s medal as part of Arsenal’s Invincibles, he’s firmly cemented his place in the club’s folklore. Conversations with Wenger, as outlined in his book, reflect how far Keown has come. Wenger praised his relentless drive for self-improvement, which Keown now recognizes as both his strength and his challenge.

In the end, Martin Keown may have fought hard, but he’s found peace—both on and off the pitch.