Brian Dawes
Highbury legends often wore the number 9 shirt because it’s what centre forwards do, or at least did. Great players including the likes of Ted Drake, Reg Lewis, David Herd, Joe Baker, John Radford, Frank Stapleton and right through to Alan Smith all graced the number 9 shirt and banged in the goals.
That is up until the 1994-95 season when under Premiership rules it became just another squad number. Since then it has had a rather chequered history. The incumbent in 1994-5, who had worn the shirt quite heroically for no less than eight seasons, was Alan Smith. However in the one season he wore it as a squad number he had a miserable injury prone time and netted just four goals. When Smudger retired through injury the following season he was replaced by another legend. But Dennis Bergkamp didn’t want the 9 shirt; he wanted and got the number 10, which rather forced the Merse to take over Smudger’s old number.
Now Merse is a much beloved Gooner and rightly so, but he certainly wasn’t without his problems and most of us, I imagine, still regard him as a number 10 which was his allotted number for so many seasons. After his addiction problems he had a resurrected career at Highbury but the 9 shirt did him no favours. Had it done so he wouldn’t be permanently stuck on his tantalisingly annoying 99-goal tally with the Arsenal.
We were surprised to see a young French kid handed the 9 shirt next, however Arsene quite often 'knows' and for a couple of seasons Nicholas Anelka was challenging Wrighty for his place in the team. Anelka was an ace footballer but was also a totally miserable sh*t. Surely the only player in the history of the Premiership to sport a longer face than Van Nistelroy and certainly the sourest-faced moaner to ever wear Arsenal’s 9 shirt. In all fairness it has to be said he top-scored for us with nineteen goals in a season wearing the 9 shirt, but as despised ex-Arsenal men go he’s well up there with the Cashleys of this world. Real Madrid were welcome to him and if there was a consolation for Arsenal it was the huge profit margin on a youngster Arsene had stolen from France. Two sesaons in the 9 shirt at least paid for a state of the art training faciity.
To replace the Horse, Le Boss landed us Davor Suker, seen as a short-term purchase due to his somewhat advanced years. Suker was a world class striker in his time, but not for us. He’d been the darling of the Bernabeu and top scored in the 1998 World Cup tournament but he couldn’t hold down a regular place at Arsenal. His 11 goals in thirty-nine outings can at best be described as meagre. One season at Highbury was more than enough before he departed to West Ham. A fallow season for the nine shirt followed, which was hardly surprising really since the squad number remained vacant.
Next up we got the ‘Fox in the box’, or at least we thought we had. Franny 'Glass Ankles' Jeffers came along to adorn our treatment table and pick up a few medals by virtue of being a squad member. He was a calculated gamble that didn’t come off and so was shipped out on loan before being moved on. To replace him we picked up an expensive grinning Spaniard who looked the part but flattered to deceive. Jose Antonio Reyes who when he was good was brilliant, but unfortunately the Premiership was not for him. His family couldn't settle, plus either he couldn’t be bothered or he was too thick to learn English. His desire to return to the Spanish sunshine was obvious despite his signing an extended contract. So Real Madrid did a deal on the eve of the transfer deadline and although technically only on loan to the Galaticos, no one seriously believed that Jose Antonio would ever return.
So the swap deal for Reyes saw a new number 9 appear on loan with a view to purchase. Julio Baptista a.k.a. 'The Beast'. Quite why anyone would call this pussycat a beast is beyond me. His party piece as I recall was trundling along like a runaway steamroller before crashing to the ground and damaging the turf. One decent game at Anfield was his lot and we can only be thankful that he was only on loan and not another failed over-priced purchase.
Next up we got a sprightly and much loved centre-forward with a massive smile and the ability to find the net with all the instincts of a natural poacher. Unfortunately this number 9 was the unluckiest of them all and had his career wrecked by a vicious Brummie thug. As horrific injuries go this one was seriously career threatening and he was out for well over a season. Eduardo was never the same again and so he too unfortunately departed. His departure saw yet another fallow season for the 9 shirt with no one deemed worthy enough to wear it.
So who have we got now to wear it? No less a person than the captain of Korea namely Ju-Young Park, so you would think all might be well this time around. Well it might well have been if it wasn't for the fact he has to bugger off to do his national service in a couple of years’ time. So the number 9 shirt is still not the perfect fit. Despite that we can only wish him well of course and hope he can do the number 9 shirt justice whilst having much better luck than most of the shirt’s more recent wearers.
