At the beginning of December, it was announced that Thierry Henry would be leaving his current club, The New York Red Bulls. Today saw the official confirmation that he has retired from professional football. At the age of 37, after twenty years of first-team football and 411 goals for club and country, New York’s, Arsenal’s and possibly the Premier League’s greatest ever player has decided to call it a day.
I remember when I first came across him, barely a schoolboy. So far as I know, it wasn’t a live game, but a match which had been recorded by my grandfather. I watched that tape a number of times over, and every time I did my eyes were drawn to Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp (one individual eye was not drawn to one individual player, as that would not have been healthy).
From the way he moved, to the way he passed and controlled the ball, to the way he glided past defenders with frightening ease, as well as the fact that he scored a lot of goals and did that iconic little “shake” dance after his goals—he stopped doing that altogether around 2002, and it may well have only been after that one goal on that tape—I idolised him immediately. The idolising would not stop as he scored more and more goals, won more and more trophies and made more and more iconic moments at Arsenal; it has not stopped at all.
When I was six years old, I was fortunate enough to be taken on a tour of Highbury. Along with almost scaring the life out of the tour guide with the number of questions I had to ask, and sitting in Arsene Wenger’s press-conference seat, my fondest memory of the tour was when I got to sit in Thierry’s seat in the Arsenal dressing room. The guide invited everyone to sit where they pleased, and he went around the dressing room telling everyone whose seat they were sitting in. When it came to me, and he said that I was sitting in Henry’s seat, I couldn’t maintain my excitement, to the extent that I got out of the seat and did the aforementioned “shake” dance of Thierry, much to the amusement of the surrounding adults. Embarrassing it may have been, but I didn’t care, as I’d got the chance to “be” Thierry in the Arsenal dressing room.
Then came the Invincibles season. I may have only been a young boy, but I doubt I’ll enjoy a football season more. Whatever the other team tried, Arsenal would win and Henry would score. Yes, a select few managed to hold Arsenal to draws and fewer still managed to prevent Thierry from scoring, but the remainder were simply blown away by Wenger’s perfect team. I’ll have two abiding memories of the 2003-04 season. The first is the game I went to live: my first Arsenal game. Arsenal beat Bolton 2-1, and although Henry didn’t score, Pires scored a truly special goal. So many great goals were scored that year that Pires’s goal—a long-shot set up by a sweet backheel from Dennis Bergkamp—has been forgotten, but it was certainly unforgettable for me. Dennis Bergkamp scored the second, courtesy of a Thierry Henry assist, so I left the ground very happy.
My other memory is even more special, though I was not there to witness the game live. Arsenal played Liverpool at Highbury, and it really looked like they were going to go the whole season unbeaten. However, Arsenal went 1-0 down, and nerves started to creep in. Henry quickly equalised, but before half-time Michael Owen scored to give Liverpool the lead going into the break. At that point, it looked like Arsenal’s invincible dream would not be realised, and the concept of a team going a whole season unbeaten would remain an impossible one.
Thierry Henry had other ideas. Four minutes after the break, Robert Pires equalised for Arsenal, and a minute after that, Henry scored one of the greatest solo goals seen at Highbury to put the Gunners in the lead. Thierry received the ball near the halfway line, and ran into the penalty area, ghosting past Liverpool players as if they weren’t there (“side-stepping one, side-stepping two! The famous commentary goes), and slid the ball home to make it 3-2. The Frenchman wasn’t finished. He bundled home Dennis Bergkamp’s through-ball, at the second time of asking at least, to end the game 4-2. A week later, Henry scored another hat-trick, scoring four as Arsenal cruised past Leeds 5-0. Arsenal went on to win the league at the home of their rivals, Tottenham Hotspur, and Arsenal remained unbeaten for the rest of the season. Played 38; Won 26; Drew 12; Lost absolutely none.
Perhaps the Invincibles season could’ve been even more “invincible.” Arsenal were not at all far away from winning the treble, or even the quadruple. Two semi-final losses in the two domestic cup and a cruel late goal against Chelsea in the Champions League quarter-final meant that Arsenal could not quite answer Manchester United’s treble-winning side of 1999, and debate will rage on between both sets of supporters as to which team was better. The most diplomatic way I can put it is that neither achievement is likely to be matched in this country ever again, and Manchester United’s three trophies is better than Arsenal’s one (technically two; Arsenal were awarded a gold trophy for going the season unbeaten), but even the most ardent United supporter must admit that the players on the pitch at Arsenal that year will never be matched.
Things never got better than that year for Arsenal and Thierry. Henry continued to score plenty of goals—he scored at least twenty goals in a league season for five consecutive years between 2001-02 and 2005-06—but injuries and a slide in fortune for Arsenal in general meant that a solitary FA Cup in 2005 was the last trophy Henry won at Arsenal. Europe’s ultimate prize, the Champions League, eluded Henry in his time at Arsenal, and the devastating 2-1 loss to Henry’s future club Barcelona, with whom he won the Champions League in 2009, will continue to haunt Arsenal and its supporters until they finally win the competition.
Henry left Arsenal for Barcelona in 2007, but he came back for one last bow in 2012, on loan from the New York Red Bulls. He added yet more memories to his time at Arsenal, as he came on to score a late winner in the FA Cup vs Leeds, and scored a delicious volley from an Andrei Arshavin cross in injury time to secure a 2-1 win away to Sunderland. Until Henry’s arrival, Arsenal’s 2011-12 season had been a dire one. It is no coincidence that things started to turn around during and after Thierry Henry’s second stint at Arsenal.
In Thierry Henry’s time at Arsenal, staggering things were achieved. It could’ve been even more, but it’s best to remember just how good the Arsenal team of that era were and just how god-like Thierry was. Arsenal are unlikely to have a striker like Henry ever again and if they do it’s hard to even imagine what they’ll achieve. Supporters of other teams will try to claim that they’ve had better, but it is unlikely that the Premier League will ever see a striker like Thierry Henry ever again.
Thierry Henry has done an endless number of things to warm the hearts of Arsenal supporters, even whilst he hasn’t been at the club, and though he has retired and will spend his time as a pundit for Sky Sports for the time being, I wouldn’t be too surprised if we see Henry back at Arsenal soon. My dream is that he manages Arsenal, with Bergkamp as his assistant, at some point in the future. Until that day comes, I will continue to dream and watch the videos of his Arsenal career endlessly as I have been for the last seven years.
There are so many more things to talk about when discussing Thierry Henry’s time at Arsenal, but I think I’ll need a few books to do it in its entirety.
“I’ve seen most things in this league in the last 25 years. I haven’t seen anything like him.”—Andy Gray
This article has been largely from an Arsenal point of view, but expect to see plenty more on Thierry Henry from all other perspectives of his career in our “Last Word on Thierry” series over the next few days.
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