Given our stuttering recent league form, our away match against Sparta Prague on October 18, 2005, in a Champions League group clash was a welcome break from our domestic upheavals. 

We'd already lost in the league to Chelsea, Middlesbrough and, three days before the game in Prague, let slip a 1-0 lead at West Bromwich Albion. "It wasn’t what we were used to," recalled right-back Lauren, "and it didn’t help that Thierry [Henry] had been injured for several weeks with a groin injury. We missed him."

The Champions League proved a needed distraction, as we beat Swiss side FC Thun and Ajax in our first two Group B games. Much of the media speculation focused on when Henry would return to fitness, and when (not if) he would break Ian Wright’s Gunners goalscoring record of 185 goals. 

"Football is a team game,’ recalled Gilberto Silva, "but sometimes there has to also be a place for individual records. Given Thierry’s high profile, it’s understandable that a lot of attention was given to the record as he got close to breaking it."

Going into the game, Henry’s goal tally stood at 184 goals – one behind Wright. He was named as one of our substitutes in the Czech capital. "Most people assumed that Arsene would give Thierry a run out with 15 or 20 minutes to go and ease him back in," explained Robert Pires, "but things didn’t turn out like that." 

Following an injury to Jose Antonio Reyes, Henry was thrown on after just 15 minutes, and made an instant impact. From a long pass by Kolo Toure, Henry killed the ball instantly, swivelled, allowed the ball to bounce once, and curled it home expertly with the outside of his right foot. 

Henry was now level with Wright. Despite the sparse crowd, it was a goal of absolute beauty. “Everyone forgets that I provided the assist,” laughed Toure during our interview.

Shortly afterwards, a perfectly weighted pass from Pires found Henry driving towards the Sparta box. After controlling the ball, he expertly swept it past the Sparta goalkeeper. The record was now solely his. “Of course we had the match to focus on, but it was wonderful to be on the pitch when Thierry reached such an amazing milestone,” Lauren recalled. 

The following weekend, prior to the home match with Manchester City, Henry was presented with a golden cannon by Wright to mark the achievement. While that game became infamous for the botched penalty pass between him and Pires, he would eventually notch 228 Gunners goals before leaving in the summer of 2007.

Although it may have lacked the theatre of a packed Highbury, Henry’s superb display in Prague’s sparsely populated Letna Stadium was testament to his unparalleled va va voom during that era.