Arsenal icon Thierry Henry was named alongside Alan Shearer as as an inaugural member of the Premier League Hall of Fame on Monday morning – and reacted to the news live on talkSPORT.
Henry is one of the finest players the English game has seen and netted a club-record 175 Premier League goals in 258 matches for Arsenal.
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The Frenchman won the league title twice and was a key member of the ‘Invincibles’ team that went unbeaten through the 2003-04 campaign.
Henry and Shearer are the first two players to be inducted into the Premier League’s newly-formed Hall of Fame.
“Wow! I’m going to be honest with you, you don’t think about this stuff when you’re playing football,” Henry told talkSPORT Breakfast when asked what it meant to him.
“The only thing I wanted to do was make my dad happy. That was the start and that was the end for me. Everything that came after that was a plus and never a minus.
“Although I had great moments in career and bad moments, the only thing I wanted to do at the beginning was to make my dad happy and put a smile on his face.
“Once I’ve done that, trust me it was hard, everything was a plus.
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“I will take this opportunity to thank all the guys I played with as you don’t achieve anything alone.
“I had the opportunity to play against some great players who made me better, but the hardest thing I had to do was train at Arsenal Football Club.
“The competition at the training ground… wow. It was hard playing against Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure or Martin Keown biting you everywhere when he couldn’t grab me.
“Patrick Vieira, Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires – the list is long. I have to talk about the old guard as well. The likes of Tony (Adams), David Seaman, Lee Dixon and Ray Parlour because those guys were Arsenal and made me understand what Arsenal was about.
“I took it on board and the rest was history.”
Joining him was Shearer – the league’s all-time top scorer having netted 260 goals for Blackburn and Newcastle between 1992 and 2006, while he lifted the title with Rovers in 1995.
Shearer said on premierleague.com: “When you look at some of the unbelievable players to have graced the Premier League, I feel very honoured to join the Hall of Fame. I have to thank all of my team-mates, as well as the managers and coaches that I’ve worked with.
“All I ever wanted to be was a professional footballer. It was my dream to do that, my dream to win trophies and my dream to score at St James’ Park, to wear the number nine black-and-white shirt and it was fantastic. I enjoyed every minute of it.”
A further six inductees will be selected by a fans’ vote from 23 nominees announced on Monday evening. Voting will be open until May 2.
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