Sol Campbell was a commanding centre-back who spent the majority of his playing career in London. After a spell at West Ham as a youngster, he joined the Spurs set-up where he made his professional debut, before going on to captain the side towards the end of his time at White Hart Lane.

Following that was the controversial transfer across north London to the Gunners, where he became an integral part of a very successful Arsenal side.

In 2001, the big transfer news was you making the move from Spurs to Arsenal. Being at Spurs for so long, what sort of things were going through your head when Arsene Wenger said he was interested in you?

SC: Are you sure? Haha. For me, it was a massive move. Back then, there was a huge play and in my head, I had to think to myself, can I be successful? I don’t want to make the move and then not be successful because that’s the worst thing that can happen, you know. A big move and nothing happens, we win nothing and it doesn’t happen.

But it does happen to some players, absolutely tries his best, gets close but never wins or gets to be a part of an amazing squad, so that was definitely one thing I was thinking about.

Then, obviously I looked at the players and who they were, what they stood for and that kind of eased me a little bit, and then I said to myself ‘if I can’t win anything here, then God help me’.

Campbell enjoyed instant success with the Gunners, winning the league title in his first season. He would go on to win another five trophies in the five years he spent at the club, and played all but three of the league games in the ‘Invincibles’ season.

Thankfully you did win quite a few trophies, the Invincibles undoubtedly being the highlight. Around 30 games into the season, was there the feeling among the squad that maybe you could go the whole league season unbeaten?

SC: Well, the first thing we were concentrating on is winning the league, and then, I don’t know if you’ve spoken to other people about it but we never really spoke about it. There was only one player who was always talking about it because he always read the newspapers, loves talking and that was Thierry [Henry].

All of us were kind of only concentrating on winning the Premiership, and then it was only three-four games left when we started thinking to ourselves ‘well, this could actually happen’, and we had some really scary moments.

Once we’d won the Premiership, you almost, not deflate but you’ve got to go again, and that’s where a couple of results, good saves here and there, even in the Leicester game when we went 1-0 down, to an old boy from Arsenal playing for Leicester and you said to yourself, you know, is this going to be your night or is it not going to be our night? Thankfully it was our night!

The last two seasons with the Gunners saw his game time limited with a number of different injuries plaguing the defender, and his contract eventually ran out in June 2006. His final game in his first spell with the club was in Arsenal’s first-ever UEFA Champions League final, with the Gunners huge underdogs despite such an impressive campaign.

In your last season at Arsenal, there was the Champions League run when you got to the final. Being in the final itself, but then scoring the opening goal must’ve been quite an amazing feeling, thinking you could’ve scored the goal that wins Arsenal their first Champions League?

SC: I just knew that we had to sustain it, you know. We needed one more goal to kill the game, and in the back of my head, I’d love to roll back the times and 1-0 is enough to win it, but it wasn’t. We needed one more to really kill the game, then [Henrik] Larsson came on and really changed the game and the dynamics of their front line.

But we had enough chances to win the game and sometimes that’s how it goes. Sometimes, the other team gets the luck and they get that second goal to kill the game and we didn’t get that.

Sol was speaking at the Europcar Fans Of The Season launch event. Go to https://www.europcar.co.uk/arsenal-fan-of-the-season for your chance to win five tickets to Arsenal vs Chelsea plus more great prizes.