Written by Jamie

When Thierry Henry scored in Madrid in 2005, the ITV commentator, Peter Drury, I think, called him “the gunner galactico” and since we have now given our record scorer a statue, it seems a fair representation of his greatness.

In April 2004 I stood in the lower east stand, just over an hour before kickoff. The gates were open for a morning kick off against Liverpool. A game which after losing and FA Cup Semi Final to Manchester United and a Champions League quarter final to Chelsea only days before had taken on increased significance.

If Arsenal were to fail now, that would surely be the end.

There were probably only a hundred gooners in the ground. Henry was making a joke of the fitness test Gary Lewin was asking him to perform.

Jogging round cones with all the enthusiasm of a teenage boy doing the washing up. Gary Lewin shakes his head with a wry smile. As the five/ ten minute session ends on the sundrenched Highbury pitch both Lewin and Henry walk for the tunnel, Henry seeming to plead like a kid who had not done enough to earn his pocket money.

Henry...