Arsenal Invincible, triple league champion, and the Romford Pele himself
FootballRay Parlour was never supposed to be a star. That was the point. While the bigger names in the Arsenal midfield of the late nineties and early two thousands collected the headlines, Parlour did the running, the tackling, and the quiet damage.
He came through at Highbury under George Graham, played more than 460 games for Arsenal, and won everything domestic football could offer. Three Premier League titles. Four FA Cups. A place in the Invincibles side of 2003 to 2004 that went an entire league season unbeaten, a feat that has not been matched since. His 45 yard strike in the 2002 FA Cup final against Chelsea, delivered into the top corner of Carlo Cudicini's net, is one of the most replayed goals in the club's modern history. Marcel Desailly described him afterwards, in three words, as the Romford Pele, and the name stuck.
Parlour was an England international ten times under three different managers. Off the field he was Arsenal's unofficial morale officer, a dressing room presence Patrick Vieira once called as important as any of the team's foreign stars. His autobiography The Romford Pele is full of the kind of tour stories you cannot get from a press conference.
These days Parlour is one of talkSPORT's most listened to voices, a regular television pundit, and among the most booked after dinner speakers in corporate London. The stories from the Arsenal training ground alone could fill an evening, and usually do.
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