Lee Dixon dropped into Sunday's Off The Ball to chat all things football, including his incredible time at Arsenal.

Dixon formed part of one of the era's defining defensive units with the Gunners.

In a thoroughly varied chat with Off The Ball's Joe Molloy, the ex-England international mentioned the player-led dressing room in the early stages of the Arsene Wenger reign at Highbury.

In that time, club skipper Tony Adams announced he was an alcoholic. Dixon spoke about how Adams told the team and their subsequent reaction.

'There was a drinking culture back then.

"If you got into the dressing room and said who were the big drinkers, you would probably have said 'Oh, Tony likes a pint'" but Dixon makes it clear Adams wasn't the only one.

'My name is Tony Adams and I am an alcoholic'

When Adams described himself as an alcoholic to his teammates, Dixon says they were shocked: "He stood in front of us in the dressing room and said 'my name is Tony Adams and I am an alcoholic' we kind of all looked around and went 'no, you're not.'

"To us, an alcoholic is on the side of the street with a dog on a piece of string, who's drinking a bottle of meths, back then I mean.

"Tony is not one of them, he's captain of Arsenal, captain of England, he's not an alcoholic. So there was very little understanding of his life outside of football.

"When he wrote his book, I remember reading his book and reading a story about us going out on a Tuesday after training and I remember the scenario and going down the page. It clicked with me, 'I went home around then,' but there were another five pages.

"Tony was still going, two days later on the same night out. I'd gone home on Tuesday evening at seven or eight o'clock and Tony had gone right through the night, right through Wednesday, and arrived into training on Thursday in the same clothes from when he went out Tuesday.

"We didn't know that at the time. We knew he liked to drink and go to his local so it was a shock to us. It genuinely was a shock."

Dixon believes there are several reasons why there won't be a case like Adams now, where a modern-day footballer would not be able to hide that level of alcoholism.

"That doesn't happen now, because there isn't the drinking culture like there was. The game is so much quicker and faster and more professional in that respect. You would notice somebody in the game who had an alcohol problem.

"There are lots of problems in modern football such as gambling and other things but I think drinking now would get flagged up really early on."

Get away with it a bit more

Dixon paints a picture into the level of deception Adams went and how he used to conceal his drinking activities. Although, the desire to catch an offender didn't seem high in comparison to the modern game.

"In those days," recalled Dixon, "you could get away with it a bit more, they had a big drinking culture at Liverpool (in the '90s) but you wouldn't get away with it now.

"Tony and a few others used to come in some days, we'd get weighed on a Friday. Tony used to put a bin-bag on to sweat it out because he had been drinking all week.

"We'd go to get weighed and he'd put his finger on the scale to try make it go a little bit lighter.

"Pat Rice who was taking the measurements didn't quite notice, that was about it back then. Get weighed on a Friday and the physio says 'you're fit to play' and off you go.

"There's so much recording of data now on the players as soon as you start to dip on one of your levels, they will ask what is going on?"

Dixon finished with a tribute to his good friend Adams who has since dedicated much of his life to helping those with addiction.

"He lives his life sober; he has been since 1996. He is an inspiration to a lot of people and quite rightly so."

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