In 1946, Cliff Bastin played his last match for Arsenal and had set the first-team goalscoring record for Arsenal with 178 goals to his name. In 1997, another Arsenal legend, Ian Wright, was getting close to breaking that record.
On 13th September 1997 Wright was in the Arsenal line-up for the Premier League match against Bolton Wanderers having scored 177 goals for the Gunners.
After 20 minutes Ian Wright scored and immediately removed his Arsenal shirt to reveal a T-shirt underneath with the message printed on it '179 Just Done It'. Except that he hadn't done it. 177 plus 1 = 178 and so he had equalled the record not beaten it! Poor arithmatic Wrighty?
Mind you, the T-shirt was on show again five minutes later when he scored a second.... thus breaking that record and he later increased his total to 180, when he completed a hat-trick. He then increased the record total to 185 goals (128 League, 12 FA Cup, 29 League Cup, 15 European comps and 1 Charity Shield) - the record was bettered by Thierry Henry in 2005!!
Arsenal v Bolton Wanderers, 13 September 1997
| Score | 4-1 to Arsenal |
| Referee | Neale Barry |
| Competition | Premier League |
| Venue | Highbury |
| Attendance | 38,138 |
13th September 2006
The shirt worn by George Best when he scored six goals in Manchester United's 8-2 victory FA Cup 5th Round tie in 1970, at Northampton in February 1970, was sold at a football memorabilia auction at Christie's in London for £24,000. Best came back from a six-week suspension to score six goals in Manchester United's 8-2 demolition of Northampton. The football shirt worn by George Best during one of his greatest games sold for £24,000 when it went under the hammer yesterday.
At the same memorabilia auction, two other shirts sold for more modest amounts. The top worn by Bobby Moore in his final Football League appearance (for Fulham v Blackburn in May 1977) and Eric Cantona's shirt which he wore in his last League match for Manchester United (v West Ham in May 1997), each sold for £3,600.
No comments:
Post a Comment