On This Day – 7th May
Arsenal played their final match at Highbury on this day back in 2006, beating Wigan Athletic 4-2 and securing a Champions League in the process.
Highbury had been Arsenal’s home since 1913 and the club had celebrated their time at the ground over the course of the season. Each home match during the 2005/06 season had a theme, including Dennis Bergkamp Day to celebrate their Dutch striker.
Arsenal changed their home shirts from red and white to a redcurrant colour in their final season at Highbury. This was the colour that the club wore in their first season at the ground.
Every fan who was lucky enough to get a ticket to the Wigan game were given a free tshirt on their seat. They were coloured red and white for the Arsenal fans and blue for the Wigan fans. This made for a wonderfully coloured backdrop for the historic match.
Arsenal were competing with bitter rivals Tottenham to finish fourth in the Premier League. Whoever finished fourth would take the final Champions League spot. Arsenal had reached the Champions League Final during the season, with that matches due to be played ten days later in Paris against Barcelona.
With Tottenham playing way to West Ham United, Arsenal knew that they had to get a better result than their North London rivals to secure fourth place. With that added pressure and the fact that the fans wanted to give their old ground the send off it deserved, the Arsenal players were under a lot of pressure to win the game.
Robert Pires opened the scoring after eight minutes to put Arsenal in front, but Wigan scored twice from set pieces to give them a shock lead after 33 minutes.
Thierry Henry then took matters into his own hands and scored a memorable hat-trick. His first came two minutes after David Thompson had scored Wigan’s second goal to make the score 2-2 at half time.
Henry scored his second of the game in the 56th minute after capitalising on some poor Wigan defending. He completed his treble with a penalty with a quarter of an hour to go, sinking to his knees and kissing the Highbury turf in celebration.
After the final whistle was blown, there was a lap of honour from some former players and managers from Arsenal’s past. Arsene Wenger then did a countdown using a clock that had been ticking down above the video screens in the North West and South East corners of the ground. As the clock went to zero, fireworks exploded into the North London sky and streamers flew all over the pitch.
There was one final part to the show. The Who’s Roger Daltrey sung a song in tribute to the club called ‘Highbury Highs’ as the fans made their final goodbyes to the stadium for one last time.
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