ARSENE’S UP FOR A TASTE OF PORRIDGE

ARSENE WENGER was speaking at the launch of former Arsenal vicechairman David Dein’s Twinning Project, an initiative to send Premier League and EFL coaches into prisons twice a week to help cut reoffending rates.

Dein, 75, was the man who plucked Wenger from obscurity in Japan’s J-League and gave him the platform to become Arsenal’s greatest manager.

After an exhaustive tour of 106 prisons to gauge support for his scheme to engage convicts on coaching and refereeing courses, Dein has the support of all the major football bodies.

West Ham vice-chair Karren Brady has pledged the Hammers’ support for a major social crusade to bring down national rates where 64 per cent of adult prisoners and 41 per cent of juveniles reoffend within 12 months of their release. Wenger has promised to join Dein on one of his future goodwill visits behind bars.

Former Arsenal striker Ian Wright – who served two weeks at HMP Chelmsford as a teenager for motoring offences – hosted the Twinning Project launch.

Wright called on English football’s big guns to help Dein achieve his target of getting at least 20 clubs signed up to the scheme by the end of the year.