September 25 – Ian Wright Wright Wright

FOR the thousands of non-league footballers who ply their trade every week on cut-up mud baths that pass for pitches there is always the hope, however small, at the back of their minds that one day they might make it big.

For the vast majority of them this will always just be a dream, but every once in a while it does happen.

This was exactly what happened to today’s subject Ian Wright who was playing for non-league Greenwich Borough and working as a plasterer when he was spotted by a scout from Crystal Palace and signed as a professional in 1985 at the age of 22.

After six prolific years with the Eagles as one half of the Wright/Bright strike duo (the other half being Mark Bright obviously), Wrighty was on the move again, this time in vastly different circumstances to his move to Palace.

Arsenal boss George Graham paid a then club record fee of £2.5m to take the forward to Highbury and it was on this day in 1991 that Wighty marked his Gunners debut with a goal, popping up with their only goal in a 1-1 draw with Leicester City at Filbert Street in a League Cup tie.

He clearly started as he meant to go on as he bagged a hat-trick in his league debut against Southampton, and went on to win the Golden Boot in his first season with 29 league goals.

In the next seven years Wright scored 185 goals for the club to become their record scorer – a record he would keep until a certain Frenchman va-va-voomed his way to the record some years later.

In 1998 Wright left his beloved Arsenal and wound down his professional career at West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Celtic and Burnley, before finally hanging up his boots in 2000 – he had scored 323 club goals in all competitions.

Wrighty now spends his time cluttering up the pundits sofa on the BBC’s England match coverage Match of the Day pleading with Steve McClaren to play his adopted son Shaun Wright-Phillips in every game.

Here is a selection of Wrighty’s best moments and come back tomorrow to read about the player who has been involved in so many contentious incidents we think his name actually begins ‘controversial Italian forward’.