The 2003/04 campaign

In It's an Honour, featured first in the official matchday programme, we're looking back at the seasons that have brought silverware to north London. We re-live the 2003/04 Invincibles campaign.

The beauty of English football is its sheer depth of history. Back when the rest of Europe was still trying to work out which way up the ball went, English clubs that today can’t get near the Premier League were winning trophies for fun.

Take Preston North End, who won the very first League Championship in 1888/89. In fact they won the title without losing a game, and thus were crowned the ‘Invincibles’, an achievement that by 2003 had never been repeated, and seemed unlikely to be given that Preston had won the title in a league that consisted of only 11 teams. But it was, of course, and it was Arsenal who did it in 2003/04.

The historic achievement looked a long way off when, in the sixth game of the campaign, Ruud van Nistelrooy stepped up to take an injury-time penalty at Old Trafford with the score at 0-0 – but the Dutchman famously missed, and the Gunners went from strength to strength, winning nine games in a row in early 2004 to gain a stranglehold at the top of the Premier League table.

There was a wobble in April, when Arsenal lost their FA Cup semi-final against Manchester United and went out of the Champions League to Chelsea in the space of four days, but when a Thierry Henry hat-trick inspired the Gunners to a 4-2 win over Liverpool the natural order had been restored.

It was perhaps fate that Arsenal should clinch the title at White Hart Lane on April 24. Robbie Keane’s injury-time penalty came too late for Spurs to find a winner, and a 2-2 draw wasn’t enough to stop the Gunners from winning their 13th league title at the home of their neighbours.

There were still four games to go, but no one could stop the new Invincibles from repeating Preston’s feat, and Arsenal completed their unbeaten season with a 2-1 win over Leicester City at Highbury. Arsenal had completed a 38-game league campaign without defeat, a record that would of course stretch to 49 the following season. But nothing was sweeter than winning the title at the Lane.

Premier league appearances: Lehmann 38, Henry 37, Toure 36+1, Campbell 35, Pires 33+3, Cole 32, Lauren 30+2, Gilberto 29+3, Vieira 29, Ljungberg 27+3, Bergkamp 21+7, Parlour 16+9, Edu 13+17, Cygan 10+8, Wiltord 8+4, Reyes 7+6, Clichy 7+5, Kanu 3+7, Keown 3+7, Aliadiere 3+7, Bentley 1, Hoyte +1

Premier league goals: Henry 30, Pires 14, Bergkamp 4, Gilberto 4, Ljungberg 4, own goals 4, Vieira 3, Wiltord 3, Edu 2, Reyes 2, Campbell 1, Kanu 1, Toure 1

Way Back Then: 2004
FA Cup Final: Manchester United 3, Millwall 0
League Cup Final: Middlesbrough 2, Bolton Wanderers 1
Premier League top scorer: Thierry Henry (Arsenal) 30

Also that season... Greece pulled off a huge shock to win the 2004 European Championships in Portugal. They beat the hosts 1-0 in the final, the same score they had beaten the Czech Republic and France in the semi-final and quarter-final respectively.

And... While the Gunners celebrated the title, Great Britain won nine gold medals at the Athens Olympics. Champions included Kelly Holmes (in both the 800m, 1,500m), Chris Hoy, Bradley Wiggins, Ben Ainslie and Matthew Pinsent.