Ken Friar, who has died aged 92, was the embodiment of Arsenal Football Club; in a career that lasted 74 years he was ticket-office manager, club secretary, managing director and eventually life president.

His time at the club encompassed eight league titles, 12 FA Cups, 13 first-team managers and two stadiums. He was too young for the Arsenal team that dominated the English game in the 1930s but made up for it by working at a desk that had belonged to Herbert Chapman, the architect of that success.

It is, however, Friar’s first and most menial job at Arsenal that is commemorated in a statue on the bridge named after him which links the Emirates Stadium to the Arsenal underground station. He is depicted as a 12-year-old schoolboy at Highbury County Grammar kicking a football just outside the ground on Avenell Road.

The ball disappeared under a car belonging to the Arsenal manager, George Allison. As he tried to retrieve it, Friar heard a call of: “Boy, what are you doing?” It was Allison, who, impressed by Friar’s enthusiasm, told him to come to the ground at nine the following morning. Allison asked Ken if he would like to be a messenger boy on matchdays. The rest is history – both Arsenal’s and Friar’s.

Kenneth John Friar was born in Islington on August 13 1934. After leaving school he trained to become a stockbroker but was persuaded instead to join Arsenal full-time, running the ticket office. By 1965, he was deputy secretary, and eight years later, secretary, a job that effectively made him the club’s managing director, a title that was officially bestowed on him in February 1983.

Friar’s value to the Hill-Wood family, who provided three club chairmen between 1927 and 2013, was his acute judgment and his discretion. It was his recommendation that led to David Dein’s appointment to the Arsenal board. As vice-chairman, Dein became the principal force in the Highbury boardroom.

Shortly after Friar’s appointment as managing director, Dein, who had noticed that 15 per cent of Arsenal’s shares were unissued, was taken to a Spanish restaurant off Avenell Road. There, he recalled: “Discreetly, as only Ken can, he checked my credentials, undressed me financially, and formed a view as to whether or not I was worthy to be involved in the club.”

In 1986 Friar accompanied Peter Hill-Wood to Spain to meet Terry Venables, who had won La Liga with Barcelona. Venables agreed to succeed Don Howe as manager but changed his mind, fearing intrusion by the British tabloid press into his disintegrating marriage. George Graham, who had just taken Millwall up into the Second Division, was chosen instead. Their judgment was rewarded when Graham took the League Championship back to Highbury after 18 barren years.

In 1994, it was to Friar that Graham confessed that the Norwegian agent, Rune Hauge, had privately paid him £425,000 for the transfer of two players. This led directly to Graham’s dismissal.

Despite his love for Highbury, Friar was convinced that Arsenal needed to move to a bigger, more profitable arena. In December 1977 the boards of Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur met to discuss moving to a joint stadium at Alexandra Palace.

The Greater London Council backed a proposal to turn the 192-acre site into a complex of shops, restaurants and an ice-rink with a 75,000-seater stadium at its centre. Wembley’s contract with the FA would expire in 1982 and Alexandra Palace would be pushed as the national team’s new home.

The venture failed principally because, although a monorail to Finsbury Park was proposed, the venue had rudimentary transport links to central London. Friar did, however, keep a photo in his office of the only joint board meeting between Arsenal and Tottenham.

Friar proved a key figure in Arsenal’s move to Ashburton Grove, a 50-acre light industrial site which was 80 per cent owned by Islington Council. Friar, who described himself as “an Islington lad”, was the perfect link man between club and council. In 2004, just before Arsenal decamped to what is now the Emirates Stadium, Friar was granted freedom of the borough. He had been appointed OBE for services to football four years before.

Friar had stepped down as managing director to concentrate on the ground move but remained on the Arsenal board until 2020, when he was appointed life president. Outside the confines of Highbury and the Emirates, he was known as “Mr Arsenal”; within the club he was always “Mr Friar”.

He married Gwen Deacon in 1957, and on her death after a 63-year marriage that produced two children he raised more than £44,000 for Pancreatic Cancer UK.