adminLONDON. — Ray Parlour has revealed he and his Arsenal team-mates once drunk 35 pints in an afternoon — before going on to win the Premier League and FA Cup double. The former Gunners midfielder was describing a pre-season tour ahead of Arsene Wenger’s first season in charge of the club in 1997. And his former team-mate Nigel Winterburn defended Jack Wilshere in light of the criticism he received for smoking a cigarette outside a nightclub earlier in the season.
“I’ll always remember the first pre-season tour with Arsene Wenger,” Parlour told Sportlobster TV.
“New French lads had come into the team like Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit and Gilles Grimandi. We worked our socks off and at the end of the trip Wenger said we could all go out.
“You know what we were like, we went straight down to the pub and the French lads went to the coffee shop.
“I’ll always remember the moment Steve Bould went up to the bar and ordered 35 pints for five of us. After we left the bar we spotted all the French lads in the coffee shop and they were sitting around smoking, I thought how are we going to win the league this year?
“We’re all drunk and they’re all smoking, and we ended up winning the double that year.” Winterburn admitted that Wenger soon put an end to the antics but insisted the odd cigarette won’t do current star Wilshere any harm. —Mailonline.
Online Reporter