David Seaman first realised something was wrong when he kicked a ball during training one morning and his heart started pounding furiously.
Seaman was 39 years old, had played hundreds of games, won several trophies, spent 15 years with the England team, including four major tournaments as No 1, yet had never experienced anything like this in his life. He was extremely fit and ate and drank in moderation – a beneficiary of the sports science and nutrition revolution years under Arsene Wenger. But what was happening to his body was terrifying.
“When your heart starts racing like that you’re like, Woah, what is this? It’s a really strange feeling,” Seaman says.
He went to see the club doctor immediately and was hooked up to wires and machines while a series of tests were performed, including lying on a bed having adrenaline pumped into his veins. Then he was sent to Harley Street where he met a heart surgeon called Dr Wyn Davies.
Seaman was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat – and decided to undergo a surgical procedure known as an ablation. Seaman was awake while Dr Davies entered his veins via the groin to access the heart, where he tried to “freeze” areas to break the electrical signals that cause the problem.
“It’s a weird feeling,” Seaman says. “I was watching it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Unfortunately for me it didn’t. The heart surgeon said to me, We can try again but it can be dangerous. Or you can just take two tablets. So that’s what I do.”
Seaman has lived a healthy life for two decades since, celebrating his 60th birthday this month. “Still going strong at 60!” he says, with a deep booming belly laugh that provides a joyful backdrop to much of our interview. How does it feel to hit his sixth decade? “It’s all right. It’s just a number – but it’s a big number! Hahahahaha!”
Seaman has decided to discuss his heart condition in-depth for the first time in a national newspaper to encourage others to get checked out and not to feel uncomfortable discussing the subject.
He is the face of the British Heart Foundation’s Spotlight On campaign, posing at the centre of a powerful image showing 180 empty seats, at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park stadium, shaped into a heart to represent the number of deaths in the UK caused by coronary heart disease every day.
“Luckily, I had a sign that told me something was wrong,” Seaman says. “But we all saw what happened with Christian Eriksen.” The midfielder collapsed during Denmark’s Euro 2020 game against Finland and received CPR after his heart stopped. “This guy is super fit, but if you don’t have any symptoms and it’s not diagnosed how are you going to know?
“That’s what the campaign is about, making people aware what could go wrong. Most of the time it’s too late. That’s the thing about hidden heart conditions. If there’s any family history, get checked out.”
Latest BHF statistics reveal that while 88 per cent of people worry about developing a heart condition, 85 per cent were unable to identify all factors that caused heart disease, such as smoking, insufficient exercise and obesity. Almost a quarter still consider discussing a heart problem as taboo.
“Nobody has any problems servicing or MOTing their car,” Seaman says. “Why not sort yourself out? I think the main thing is people are scared. It’s your heart, if that’s not working properly then there’s going to be trouble.”
Following Arsenal during the past two decades can’t have been good for the heart, but Seaman’s enthusiasm for his former club has not dimmed since he retired. And it is perfect timing to discuss the new innovation in his department at his old club.
Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta made the surprise decision to sign Brentford goalkeeper David Raya in the summer despite already having Aaron Ramsdale, voted the best goalkeeper in the Premier League by his peers last season, as first choice.
Arteta then threw a curveball into goalkeeping theory when he said he could rotate his goalkeepers during matches. Seaman is watching with interest, although he isn’t convinced yet.
“Would I have liked it? No. I wouldn’t have played as many games. It’s a totally different way of looking after your goalkeepers. If I’m puzzled then everybody else should be!”
He recalls a conversation he shared recently with Peter Schmeichel, the legendary Manchester United goalkeeper. Schmeichel didn’t even like having a good backup goalkeeper, Seaman explains, let alone someone who might replace him during matches.
“Peter wanted to know he was always going to be No 1. When Arsenal signed Richard Wright while I was there it made me more determined. There’s two different ways of thinking there.
“Now Mikel is talking about rotating the goalkeeper. Aaron came off the back of a great result with England against Scotland, then he finds himself on the bench.”
Ramsdale played Arsenal’s first five games, Raya played the next three and was replaced by his counterpart for the Brentford game on Wednesday.
“Then what happens? Does David stay out or come straight back in?”
I point out to Seaman there are parallels between his own arrival at Arsenal from Queens Park Rangers for a British record £1.3m – “£1.3m – they’re earning that in a week now aren’t they? Hahaha!” – and Raya’s move.
By 1990 John Lukic had played more than 200 times for Arsenal and was popular with supporters, but manager George Graham wanted Seaman. “The Arsenal fans didn’t want me at the time,” Seaman recalls.
“I remember playing for QPR against Arsenal while all this speculation was around, the Arsenal fans were singing to me ‘You’ll never play for Arsenal!’ and I was thinking, I bet I do because I’ve already signed the contract! Hahaha!”
Even stranger was that Seaman and Lukic, two years his senior, were close friends. “We came up together through the Leeds academy. Then a few years down the line I go and nick his job at Arsenal. It was a really weird situation.
“It helped that in my first season we won the league and I only let in 18 goals. The fans saw what I could do.”
He adds: “Goalkeeper a position where mentally you’ve got to be so strong. You can play great all game, make one mistake, and everybody remembers that one mistake. I’ve got that experience, I’ve got a couple of them. It can be lonely. But you need to be playing.
“This is where the conflict comes in with the two goalkeepers at Arsenal. They both want to play. Will that bring the best out of each other? If all of a sudden one guy is getting more games than the other how’s the other one going to feel? That could lead to problems.”
Following a season in which Arsenal led the Premier League for 248 days only to fall away at the end, whether the goalkeeping tactic is a stroke of genius or the overthinking that can afflict Pep Guardiola, Arteta’s mentor, remains to be seen.
How, then, does this current Arsenal squad compare to the best teams he played alongside?
“I’ll let you do that comparison,” Seaman says. “I’ve got nine winners’ medals mate!”
The British Heart Foundation and David Seaman are shining a spotlight on hidden heart conditions. To find out more or donate, visit spotlighton.bhf.org.uk
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