When Thierry Henry came home (2024)

Other contributor: Phil Hay

Looking back, the notion that Thierry Henry signed a contract to be around as cover for Marouane Chamakh and Gervinho seems like an absurdity. Something about that concept is upside down, logic turned inside out. When Henry rejoined his favourite club on loan in January 2012, his iconic status had recently been cast for posterity outside their stadium with the unveiling of his statue.

Henry wept at the ceremony. He had left Arsenal in 2007 for Barcelona and then moved on to New York Red Bulls. The intervening years didn’t alter Henry’s affection. Instead, that bond reconnected in a way he never imagined. When the opportunity came along during the MLS close season to appear once again as an Arsenal player, he couldn’t resist. Some counselled him not to do it. “Beware the risks of going back.” It is one thing to rock up to London Colney for a bit of fitness training; something quite different pull on the shirt, in front of an intrigued audience, for real.

Aged 34, he was eager to temper any romantic reverie that he would roll back the years and dazzle. He was, he stressed, just there to assist the cause in any way he could. “I’m not coming back to be a hero or to prove anything,” he said. “I hope people are not going to compare to what I did before. I’m going to be most of the time on the bench. It’s a helping process.”

He didn’t want the story to be about him. But there was not much chance of avoiding that. Three days after he was officially re-registered, he was in the squad for an FA Cup third-round match against Leeds United. Chamakh started the game but all eyes gravitated towards the legendary presence on the bench.

Stuart MacFarlane (Arsenal photographer): On his first or second day back, I had to photograph his head and shoulders picture for the Premier League. I remember setting up my lights in the room at Colney and he walked in and we both started laughing. We just couldn’t believe that we were back where we were all those years ago.

During warm-ups for training, a lot of the younger players would try to run next to Thierry. So when I was photographing him, they would get in the picture and then would message me after training: ‘Have you got a picture of me with Thierry?’ A lot of them were massively starstruck. Certainly, he raised the level because everyone knew what a great player he was. It wasn’t like he walked in with a big attitude like, ‘I’m here now’. He was just one of the lads.

Thierry Henry (speaking at the time): When I left this club, I cried. I haven’t cried a lot in my career but when I do, it seems that something is happening with Arsenal. I can be a pain at times but I love the club. They say love is blind but it is difficult for me to say no to Arsenal. When the club you love asks you just to be a squad player, so be it.

Arsene Wenger (speaking at the time): He felt some pressure. He’s a proud guy and doesn’t want to disappoint people. That’s what champions are all about. He wants to be seen as someone who always does well. What is good for the club and the young players is a guy who has done it all but still prepares 100 per cent, is focused and motivated, with an immense desire to do well.

Nico Yennaris (Arsenal midfielder): You could see he still had it and how competitive he was straight away. I was on his team one time for a small-sided game. We were on the break. The attack broke down in the final third but he sprinted back to win the ball. And he was shouting at me — not in a horrible way — ‘come on, let’s go!’ You could see that will to win, that desire. He was 34, he’s won it all, he’s got all the money in the world, he could probably sack it off. He doesn’t have to do that in training. But to see him doing that showed me: that’s a winner. There’s a resemblance with Michael Jordan there. You can see it in most athletes in the world that have won and have that real passion and desire.

He supported me as a youngster. He always had time for me if I had questions. That was great to see because you do get players who don’t want to bother. But he never gave me that impression. He was demanding, he was pushing everyone. But I just saw a winner.

Colin Lewin (Arsenal physio): For the staff, it was great to have him back. When you’re sat together in the medical room or on the team bus or in a hotel, all the old classic stories get regurgitated. One million conversations started with, ‘Do you remember when…’

If you’re paying someone to be an influence around the place, even if he never plays, it’s still worth it. It was a bit of a no-brainer. A six-week loan. The fitness coaches were working with him but for someone like Thierry, when you get to that age, you know your limits, you know your own body. You’re not going to cheat yourself. Thierry knew he was not about to produce 90 minutes after 90 minutes but he knew he could be effective for 30 or 40 minutes.

Vic Akers (kit man): It was amazing to have him back in. At the time, everyone thought, ‘Would it work? Would he be anywhere near where he was?’, as you would. It was a few years since he went. He was a proper professional and saw himself as coming in as a father figure, hoping his experience would rub off on one or two of the lads. Just having him around the place was a massive boost. It was joyful to see him.

January 9, 2012: Arsenal v Leeds United, FA Cup third round

Jon Champion (commentator): I was wandering to the ground about three hours before kick-off and saw the statue. It made me pause and think: ‘Have I ever commentated on a game where there’s a statue of one of the players playing outside the ground?’ I couldn’t think of one. It was a Monday night game. From my recollection, it wasn’t the ordinary Emirates crowd. My impression was that there were more kids there than usual. For their parents, it must have been like buying a ticket for a run-of-the-mill West End show — just a chance for their kids to experience what the Emirates is all about — and then in that West End show, they suddenly find out they’ve parachuted in Laurence Olivier out of semi-retirement to play one of the lead roles.

Amy Lawrence (Arsenal writer, The Athletic): The prospect of seeing Thierry Henry playing again transformed the sense of anticipation. From a relatively ordinary home cup tie against a lower-league opponent, this got hearts fluttering. I watched the game with old friends in the North Bank, people who go back to watching Supermac (Malcolm Macdonald) or Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charlie Nicholas) as the star striker. They knew where Thierry stood in the pantheon. Among the season ticket holders, there was the nervous excitement you might have if you were hoping to rendezvous with an old flame. Nobody could take their eyes off the bench. Everyone was hoping he would come on. The rest of the game felt like a bit of a sideshow.

Ian Stone (Host of The Athletic’s Handbrake Off podcast): I had mixed feelings about it if I’m honest. I wanted to see him again but I thought, ‘Well, it’s not going to be the same player’. It sort of felt like we were a little bit desperate. ‘Let’s get Thierry Henry back’ — it felt the same as if I was to see The Jam play again. It was a time and a place and you can’t be singing songs about being young when you’re 65 years old. It’s just ridiculous. Thierry could still play, of course, but he’d been such a hero and such a shining light for us, and I didn’t want him to tarnish his reputation.

Michael Brown (Leeds United midfielder): Me and Alex Bruce started doing a bit of stupid stuff, playing silly buggers and seeing if we could hit anyone with the ball during the warm-up. I ended up hitting Martin Keown smack on the head. That was probably the only thing that took any attention away from Thierry Henry in the build-up because it was all anyone was talking about. What else were people going to speak about? He was a global superstar. He was the man. I was actually pleased that I might get the chance to play against him.

Colin Lewin: I remember everyone had that funny smile. Everyone was kind of looking at each other. The fans couldn’t wait.

Vic Akers: It was a real moment in time to get the shirt with his name on the back ready for him to play again. When he went, nobody could have imagined he would be back.

Simon Grayson (Leeds United manager): It was inevitable that people would be talking about nothing else. I think, with hindsight, we wished he’d maybe signed a week earlier, just to take that part of the game away. People saying it was great to have him back — well, not for us.

James McNicholas (Arsenal writer, The Athletic): I’d been at Thierry’s statue unveiling in December 2011 and the raw emotion of that day took me back. We so rarely saw that side of him. Given that, I was especially gutted to have to miss out on seeing his comeback. I was in my other line of work, performing in a play elsewhere in London. It was a production of The Importance of Being Earnest. I figured I could get away with popping my mobile in the inside pocket of my costume dinner jacket and checking it every time I left the stage (if the production had not been set in the 1800s, I probably would have been checking it on stage, too). Every time I did, it was the same: 0-0.

Ian Stone: We all knew he was on the subs’ bench and the whole of the first 60 minutes felt like a sort of hors d’oeuvres. We were waiting. ‘When is the main course coming?’ I have never heard anything like it in a stadium, the excitement; the man has arrived, the star is here. It was like Michael Jordan. I don’t think I’ve ever felt excitement like that at a game, genuinely, not for a player to come on. It did feel like a rockstar, like Springsteen. I got quite emotional that night. I think a lot of us did.

Colin Lewin: We had an early problem in the game. Francis Coquelin came off and Nico Yennaris, a youngster, came on. I remember everyone thinking, ‘Oh no, we are a sub down. That limits his chances’.

Nico Yennaris: Francis got injured 10 minutes before half-time. It was a quick substitution, I didn’t really have a warm-up. Thierry put his arm around me and said, ‘Listen, get yourself in the game. Take your time, don’t do anything stupid’. Obviously, you’re at risk of getting injured yourself if you go on without a warm-up and he said, ‘Just build yourself into the game’. Those little bits of advice meant a lot to me.

It’s funny. I was a mascot when I was seven. I had just joined the academy. My family are Arsenal through and through, so I was in the Junior Gunners and was always going to little events and stuff with the club. I remember one day, my mum and dad got a letter in the post and it said I was going to be a mascot for the Coventry game.

I remember getting taken down to Highbury with my mum and dad — they gave me a kit that was way too big. I remember being in the photo with the players. Tony Adams was captain at the time. I had my picture with Dennis Bergkamp on the pitch. I took penalties against David Seaman. Think I scored a few, too. Funnily enough, Thierry was on the bench that day, too.

As a kid, I idolised Henry. Every kid loved him.

68 minutes. Substitution. Off M Chamakh; On THenry.

Stuart MacFarlane: I was at the North Bank at one of the corners. I could see him warming up on the bench and as soon as he stood up to take his tracksuit top off to come on, I thought, ‘Here we go. This is it’. The atmosphere in the stadium just lifted massively.

Ian Wright (Arsenal goalscoring legend): I was so excited listening to the ovation. The return was something I dreamed could have happened for me. So I was kind of living that through him.

Colin Lewin: He came on with Theo Walcott. They were both chatting to each other on the sideline ready for the substitution. On the bench, everybody was looking at each other smiling, wondering — ‘could he?’ It might have been tempting to wave at everyone when he came on like a testimonial but it wasn’t like that. He was coming on to do a job.

Jon Champion: He came on to replace Chamakh at 0-0 in what was fairly a moribund game, in what was, in all honesty, a fairly moribund season. The initial impression was: more facial hair and a slightly fuller figure than before. He’d had a couple of years in Major League Soccer at that stage and you just wondered whether he could still cut it.

Michael Brown: You’re thinking he’s the sort of player who can do something brilliant in a moment. There was talk about his fitness and whatever but I didn’t listen to that. Players like him, they back themselves and they can always deliver.

Nico Yennaris: When he came on, it was the loudest I’ve ever heard a stadium in my life. As a fan, I’ve been to quite a few games — I travelled with my dad to the San Siro when we won 5-1. But that atmosphere that night at the Emirates was unbelievable. I was playing right-back. I had Theo Walcott maybe 10 or 15 yards in front of me and I was shouting at him to try and get him to drop back. I don’t even think he heard it. The place was electric.

78 minutes. Goal. Arsenal 1-0 Leeds

Ian Stone: He gave Alex Song the eyes. Alex song plays a lovely pass. And we went, ‘No, surely not…’

Amy Lawrence: You could see the finish coming in your mind’s eye even before he drew his foot back to shoot. It was like a flashback in real-time.

Arsene Wenger: When he was in this position to score, I thought, ‘Oh, that’s your angle but it’s a bit too close’. That’s where he surprised me. He didn’t force the shot and still made it look easy. I thought he was a bit too far to the left to pull it off but he always had that special finishing. That was Thierry Henry finishing. It was a written story a little bit. Thierry brought his class but it showed how much it means to him to make the finish.

Ian Wright: Song played it from quite a distance through quite a lot of players, so it was travelling at a rate of knots. The touch had to be fantastic. He killed it instantly, in the right place where he doesn’t need more touches, the defenders can’t get nowhere near him. A trademark Henry finish. To be honest, I was very, very emotional. You could see all the love and how much he wanted to do it. It was an empowering thing. The eyes! It was perfect. A proper hero moment. Black superhero, man.

Stuart MacFarlane: It was like taking a step back in time. As soon as he got the ball, I thought, ‘Goal’. He scored so many goals like that where he received a through ball and dropped his shoulder to tuck it in the far corner. Then he just went mental. It was rare for him to go so mad after a goal. Normally, he was so cool but he looked like the fan who scored the winning goal in a cup final.

Nico Yennaris: The place erupted. We were just letting him do his own thing because obviously, he had his own ball of emotions. We were all just chasing him.

Colin Lewin: I was a bit of a pessimist a lot of the time and looked straight at the linesman wondering if he was going to get flagged offside. That was my first thought. It was a bit of a delayed reaction for me but no one could believe it. The disbelief on his face was fitting. We all knew it was a landmark goal and it was nice he came down the side of the pitch to see Arsene.

Aidy White (Leeds United left-back): His goal was fantastic. He caught Zac Thompson ball-watching a bit. I think I was playing him onside on the other side of the pitch. His first touch was ridiculous and the finish is in just like that.

Michael Brown: That’s what he did. You knew with Henry that he was great at coming in off the left and finishing with his right. But even though you know that, it’s so difficult to stop it. It happens and while it’s happening, you’re still trying to react.

Simon Grayson: We’d gone head-to-head with a lot of big sides in the cups and done pretty well against them. We weren’t there to make it Thierry Henry’s night. But sometimes, these occasions are written in the stars. It had to be him. That’s the difference between really good players and world-class players. The world-class players can do something out of nothing and execute it perfectly.

Jon Champion: At that moment, you realise it’s really significant and you’re slightly taken aback that it’s happened. My commentary on the actual goal was pretty simple. It was something like, ‘Henry — chance — goal!’and there was just a hint of amazement in the way I shouted ‘Goal!’ in retrospect, which was in no way planned. It was just a reaction to the moment as it unfolded. This has actually happened! Wow. Then I said something like, ‘He may be cast in bronze but he’s still capable of producing golden moments!’. You don’t plan something like that. The best commentary is spontaneous. I’d noticed the statue on the way into the ground and it just came out that way in the emotion of the moment.

His celebration was instructive. We were used to him just being Mr Cool on so many occasions when he scored a wonderful goal and yet he went haring off around the corner flag and then leapt into Wenger’s arms. It meant so much to him and it was uncontrolled emotion, rather than this very controlled figure that we’d got used to seeing over the years.

Stuart MacFarlane: When he came back onto the pitch, he was still shaking his fist and screaming at the fans. It was a very long celebration. I shot a lot of pictures of it.

Colin Lewin: I remember they had a big chance at the end. They should have equalised. Wojciech Szczesny made a good save. We did ride our luck. It wouldn’t have been remembered for what it is now had that gone in.

James McNicholas: My play finished after full-time. After the curtain call, I ran backstage and pulled my phone out of my pocket, half-expecting to see confirmation of a trip to Elland Road for a replay. Instead, there was a text from my brother. ‘He’s scored.’ He didn’t have to say anything else.

Aidy White: There was a queue of about 10 lads wanting his shirt afterwards. He just said, ‘Sorry boys, not this one I’m afraid. This was a special one’.

Thierry Henry: It’s kind of weird. I had only come back from a holiday in Mexico 15 days before and I didn’t think I was going to play for Arsenal again, let alone score a winner. The feeling when I scored was amazing. I rejoined the club as a fan. Scoring a goal as a fan is amazing and now I know how it feels.

Post-match. Home dressing room, Emirates Stadium.

Nico Yennaris: I had a picture with him in the dressing room because he was sat only a few seats away from me. It was obviously a once-in-a-lifetime thing for me and we didn’t know how many more games he would play for us. I remember we were all sitting there and all the players who didn’t play came in and congratulated him. I just remember him just sitting back, thinking to himself, ‘Wow’. Just taking it in. And even seeing him like that made you think: he’s still human. He won it all but it was amazing to see even him taken back by it all, almost blown away by it.

Colin Lewin: In the dressing room afterwards, everyone was buzzing except for Francis Coquelin, who was miserable because he damaged his hamstring. It’s not often players get the chance to come back and draw a nice line under everything. Patrick Vieira got it with the penalty to win the FA Cup in 2005 in his last kick for Arsenal. What would the likes of Santi Cazorla, Cesc Fabregas and Robin van Persie give to come and do something like that? You would probably give the world for it. Not everyone gets such an amazing send-off. It was magical.

Ian Stone: I heard he was in the dressing room in his kit until about 1am… it was hours, he was so excited. I have witnessed amazing things at football matches but nothing quite like that. Never. I know someone who lives on the Holloway Road and a couple of days later, they said to me, ‘What happened at the Emirates the other night? I have never heard a noise like it’. It was one of the most special feelings I’ve ever experienced at football and what is beautiful about it is that Thierry Henry felt the same way as all of us.

Vic Akers: Everyone was so happy. It was a special moment for all of us to savour. We had so many great players over the years but also they were great lads. That does get missed sometimes. I always feel that. I was there with them day in, day out, and would look after them. You could see when they were down and you would put your arm around them. But they didn’t need it that much as they were such great pros. They didn’t take liberties — if they did, someone like Patrick would grab them round the throat. They knew to be respectful. Titi was a proper professional. I valued the proper people underneath the shirt. They loved the shirt and felt the history.

Jon Champion: It was only in the moments after that it began to sink in what we’d just witnessed and perhaps where it might stand both in Henry’s personal history, and indeed in many people’s memories of watching Arsenal and even the FA Cup.

Stuart MacFarlane: The only thing I remember from that game is him. It was all about him. I took more pictures of Thierry than any other player that night for certain and he was not on the pitch for that long —not much more than 20 minutes.

After he left for Barcelona, a lot of fans felt it was a bit of an end of an era. It was very sad when he left. He said a lot of people told him not to go back, as if it might ruin his legacy. I was so pleased for him. One of the most memorable moments at Emirates Stadium so far is Thierry‘s goal against Leeds. I was very lucky to cover almost every game he played for Arsenal and I saw him score that goal so many times but it was a massive thing for the fans who had never seen him play live. It was like travelling back in time. I loved it.

Amy Lawrence: How much did it mean for people to see Henry play in front of their eyes again? They took a vote for man of the match and of course, he won it. But they counted the votes before he had even come off the subs’ bench. Imagine if he had not come on and still got man of the match. That’s how beguiled everyone was. That goal lives on as a symbol of why people feel drawn to go to a live sporting event — the chance you might witness something unexpected, startling, miraculous even. Something to sear on the memory. Something to catapult you out of your everyday emotions. Henry had done plenty of that the first time around. This comeback goal managed to bring a hit of nostalgia into the present which is pretty unusual.

Arsene Wenger: It was a little bit euphoric. It was a dream, a story you’d tell a young kid. Unfortunately, it’s not often like that in our game but sometimes, it happens. He’s done it all. You could see straight away that he had a presence on the pitch. He was already a legend here. Now he’s added just a bit more to the whole story.

A moment we'll never forget, a memory we'll always treasure, a player we'll forever adore ❤️

🗓 #OnThisDay in 2012: The King came home – and crowned his return in typical Thierry style 👑

Just WOW, @ThierryHenry 🐐 pic.twitter.com/JGKm5s7kuf

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) January 9, 2019

(Top photo: Tony Marshall, Getty Images)