At first, he played sporadically during the early 1960s, getting between 10 and 20 games a season through the first half of the decade, though on one occasion he became the youngest Arsenal captain in the club's history at 20 years of age.
[4] Neill left Hull a year later to succeed Bill Nicholson as manager of Arsenal's fiercest rivals, Tottenham Hotspur.
[5] With new signings like Malcolm Macdonald and Pat Jennings, and a crop of talent in the side such as Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton, the club enjoyed their best form since the 1971 double, reaching a trio of FA Cup finals (1978, 1979 and 1980).
With the game poised for extra time, Alan Sunderland scored a last-minute winner for Arsenal to end the match 3–2.
[6] In 1979, Neill came close, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to pull off a major transfer coup for Arsenal by signing Diego Maradona as a highly rated teenager from Argentinos Juniors.
The retirement of Malcolm Macdonald at the premature age of 29 due to a knee injury, and the departures of stars such as Brady and Stapleton, hampered Arsenal's league title ambitions.
[citation needed] In the 1980–81 season, Neill guided Arsenal to a third-place finish in the final table – the closest in 10 years that they had come to winning the league title.
[15] Liverpool and Manchester United had also been keen to buy Nicholas, who had scored an impressive total of 50 goals in all competitions for Celtic in the 1982–83 season.
[citation needed] Neill headed up the business development department of The Hub (London), a total media management company in the City.