Wednesday. Charles offered to work at a second job to remain at Swansea with their strict wage limit of £14 a week, but this was not permitted, and instead he put in a transfer request. He employed Neil Harris to act as his 'business manager' in his pending transfer move, thereby making him the first ever agent in the English game. In one of his last games for the club, he helped Swansea record their first ever league win over rivals Cardiff City at Ninian Park. Arsenal Chased by Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, Charles was eventually sold to Arsenal in March 1959 for a fee of £42,750 with two other players, David Dodson and Peter Davies, going the other way. This was at the time the highest ever transfer between two British clubs as Juventus had paid Leeds United £65,000 for John Charles in 1957. Aiming to use him as a centre forward, Arsenal manager George Swindin and captain Tommy Docherty managed to persuade Charles to take the move, and as Charles was convinced by the Arsenal men, Tottenham decided to withdraw their offer. Spurs manager Bill Nicholson was forced to sign Dave Mackay instead, as the White Hart Lane club would become a major force in the game in the 1960s. Due to this success, in his autobiography, Charles wrote that "signing for Arsenal was the most terrible choice I ever made". Though he also wrote that "I'll always have a place in my heart for Arsenal, and it was an honour to have played for them." He was paid £20 a week, and set up with a house and car by the Arsenal management – a Sunbeam-Talbot with the license plate 'MEL 9'. Not used to the complexities of a rapidly modernising game, he endured a frosty relationship with coach Ron Greenwood after numerous humorous mix-ups over new terms such as 'blind-side run' and 'marking space', and embarrassed himself in front of the TV cameras when he fumbled and said "I'm okay, I've just got clitorises in my eyes", instead of cataracts. He made his debut against Sheffield Wednesday on 22 August 1959, in what was a difficult 1959–60 season for the "Gunners". Though they ended up in thirteenth place, Charles managed to bag himself a hat-trick at Highbury in a 5–2 win over Blackburn Rovers on 6 February. A fortnight later he missed a chance to make