I am very, very pleased for him first of all but also for the club. But he was told the only way to cure his groin problem was an operation.A spokesman for Arsenal confirmed: “Tony had a hernia operation on Tuesday. It went well and he is now back at home recovering.” Adams will not be able to return to full training until the end of August, leaving him short of fitness for England’s matches with Luxembourg at Wembley and Poland in Warsaw in early September.He will also miss the start of Arsenal’s campaign to recapture the Premiership title, which includes games in August with both Manchester United and Liverpool.Liverpool’s manager Gerard Houllier has refused to rule Michael Owen out of the opening game at Sheffield Wednesday following consultations with the club’s doctor.Reports suggested the 19-year-old would miss the 7 August opener at Hillsborough, but the club claim that scans on the striker’s damaged hamstring have revealed he has suffered no major setback in his fight for full fitness Houllier said: “Michael is all right The scans have shown up nothing. The 32-year- old defender is set to miss England’s two crucial Euro 2000 qualifiers against Luxembourg and Poland.
Adams pulled out of Arsenal’s pre-season tour to France in the hope that a rest would spare him from the surgeon’s knife. The defender had surgery on his troublesome groin on Tuesday and is expected to be out for at least six weeks.

His absence will be bad news not only for his manager at Highbury, Arsene Wenger, but for the England coach, Kevin Keegan, as well. THE ARSENAL captain, Tony Adams, will miss the start of the season after undergoing a hernia operation this week. And Henman, it should be remembered, is the product of generations of players, one of whom served underarm.. Britain has known a few dynasties, notably the Paishs and the Mottrams. Attracting players from the park courts, from other athletic pursuits, and from a variety of social backgrounds, is paramount. But the natural course to the local club has always been through a family involvement.Ivan Lendl’s mother tethered him to a net post while she played; Martina Navratilova’s grandparents had a court in their garden; Boris Becker’s architect father designed the local club pavilion.

Now we have a good rapport.”The majority of County Week spectators are family, friends, or fellow club members. The LTA, in its quest for talent, ought not to underestimate the power of the family in tennis. “It’s not just about a couple of old boys running around like me,” Hand said “We’ve got two 18-year-olds in our team At the start of the week, they were too shy to talk to me. What Henman, and others, have found, is that County Week, even in the lower divisions, provides a particular challenge for the newest recruits to prove worthy of battling alongside the seasoned campaigners. “The LTA are going in the right direction, producing a development programme, but the top 50 British players need to be seen to be making a living if we are to attract athletes who are going into other sports.”It is not the purpose of County Week to produce players for the international stage; that would be a welcome by-product of a competition originated in the last century to enable club players to make the most of their talent in a highly competitive but social environment (the very introduction of lawn tennis was, to quote Wallis Myers, one of the sport’s distinguished chroniclers, “an accident in the social life of placid Victorianism”).Some observers may be inclined to dismiss the event as an anachronism. “It’s a numbers game,” he said, underlining the point that, at the top level, the British game numbers two, Henman and Greg Rusedski. “I’ve been in the top 20 in Britain for about 13 or 14 years, scratching a living,” Hand said.