Ian Grant attended the Hertsmere Council planning sessions on the new training facility, and sees those plans* come to fruition 18 months later.
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Adjacent to the Bell Lane site in London Colney, the £10m unit is based on research from clubs in Europe ranging from Milan, Ajax, Bayern Munich and the French national training complex at Clairefontein. Ideas from the Far East were also incorporated, but Wenger added his own, and came up with something unique.
The 2,500sq metre, glazed building houses a hydrotherapy pool, treatment areas, gymnasiums and individual rooms for a doctor, manager, coaches and youth officer.
At the centre of the site is the senior squad gymnasium, with an adjacent warm-up area. The wide variety of equipment ranges from exercise bikes to multi-stations.There are squad changing rooms and treatment areas, and a couple of pools and boot rooms.
Although the youth teams and the senior squad will be segregated, with separate entrances, gyms and changing rooms, they will share a common room as a means of fostering club morale.
On the first floor there is a semi-circular kitchen and dining area, where specially prepared meals are provided.
There are ten pitches between the trees and the training facility. Two are for high intensity use, the others for moderate and `recreational' use. All are under the watchful eye of award winning Arsenal groundsman Steve Braddock.
The high intensity pitches last three times longer than 100% grass pitches. They do not divot easily, so players and coaches are assured of a smoother surface offering less chance of injury.
On the heavy duty pitches, polypropylene strips have been inserted into the top 200-250mm layer (27,000 miles per pitch) to aid soil stability and drainage (there are PVC drainage pipes at 5-6 metre spacings). There is also underground heating for two of the pitches.
The site is within the catchment area of the club, who already work with 12 schools in the area. It will now be home to an academy for 16-to 19-year-olds. The planning conditions stipulate that only the youth team will play matches at the site.
Arsenal, during the planning process offered £40,000 for off-site improvements to nearby roads and public rights of way.
There has been extensive tree planting along the northern and western boundaries which will aid the local Watling Chase Community Forest initiative as well as ensuring privacy for the club.
The whole project has been very much Mr Wenger's. It will certainly cement the Continental system of training at Arsenal, where activities are regulated to the stopwatch, and a lot of emphasis placed on long warm ups and warm downs before and after training and matches.
Jogging and stretching are still key elements, but sessions are based on the science of counterbalancing static and dynamic flexibility and maintaining an equality between passive and active methods.
The new facility includes a hydrotherapy unit offering light swimming, jacuzzi and steam rooms. These play an important part in Wenger's warm-down routines, particularly the day after matches.
Hydrotherapy is also important in treating injuries: the water supports the body weight, enabling players to exercise muscles around the injury, stimulate blood flow and hence recover more quickly.
Equipment such as exercise bikes is also a fundamental part of the warm-up/warm-down routine.
Another aspect to the gym work is building up strength, power, speed and endurance, which is where equipment like the multi-station comes in.
It is understood that players have their own fitness routines and set exercises to reach personal goals.
The training methods are combined with a high-intensity diet of vegetables, carbohydrate and fat in the correct proportions. This was adhered to quite strictly when Wenger first arrived.
Far more attention is given to the correct amount of fluid intake with emphasis on still water rather than fizzy drinks. The order the food is eaten is important, particularly on match days; for example crudites followed by chicken, then pasta. No food is eaten in the last hour before a match. For away games, dietary sheets are agreed with hotels in advance. And, of course, adequate space has to be found for those obligatory stretches.
All this then ensures that recovery from matches and injuries is quicker, players do more work in training sesions, and are much sharper through the season.
And being in top shape physically, means they are mentally sharper.
Another benefit, of course, is that footballers' professional lives are extended up to another three or so years.
And a steady stream of Wenger trained young footballers will emerge, either pushing for a place in the first team, or to be sold on the open market.
So it could well be the most important and shrewd investment, Arsenal have ever made.
*This article is based on an original article in The Guardian (13/03/98) by the above author. The version appearing here has been re-written and updated.