Ian Wright has revealed the best moment of his seven-year-long career at Arsenal came during his very first match when he scored on his debut against Leicester City in 1991.
The former England striker joined for a then club-record fee of £2.5million from Crystal Palace, and in his maiden season won the First Division Golden Boot.
Wright went on to become the club’s record goalscorer with 185 goals in all competitions, before his total was surpassed by Thierry Henry.
Despite being part of the Premier League and FA Cup double-winning side in 1997-98, the 56-year-old maintains his most treasured memory is his first goal for George Graham’s side in a League Cup game at Filbert Street.
He told the Strikers’ Union: ‘My debut goal. Obviously the Premier League when I finally got to lift it, but I think the first goal [was my favourite] simply because of the pressure.
‘When I came from Crystal Palace, people were saying why are we buying him, we’re scoring goals? And it was a lot of money at the time.
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‘I had to play against Leicester and they were booing me, the Leicester fans were booing, so what happened is I slipped, but then I got up and then… then I started going like this [waving his arms] to the crowd!
‘Then Michael Thomas stopped me because he said you can’t do that at Arsenal! If you do that at Arsenal, you get in trouble.
‘I didn’t know I was playing until that afternoon, then when he said I was playing, we were playing in this kit [bruised banana], but I always wanted to play in the red kit, so when he said I was playing, I was so nervous man.’
Wright also recalled how he ended up with the No.8 shirt after scoring a hat-trick against Southampton on his Premier League debut.
He said: ‘They left Paul Davis out, who was No.8. And so then because I got the No.8 shirt in my second game for Arsenal and scored a hat-trick, I didn’t give it back to nobody.’
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