Arsenal legend Ian Wright breaks down in tears on Desert Island Discs as he recalls beloved teacher who shaped his life
ARSENAL hero Ian Wright broke town in tears when recalling how his primary school teacher changed his life, calling him the “greatest man in the world”.
SunSport columnist Wright, 56, was speaking to Lauren Laverne on the BBC’s Desert Island Discs when he made the touching disclosure.
Wright had been a naughty eight year old kicked out of class when he first met Sydney Pigden – Mr Pigden to Wright at the time.
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The England icon praised his old teacher – who passed away in December 2017 at the age of 92 – for being the first to give him a sense of responsibility.
A tearful Wright, who attended London’s Turnham Juniors in Brockley’s Honor Oak Estate and unveiled a plaque at the school in Mr Pigden’s honour last year, said: “I know he loved me. I don’t know why he chose me. I’m glad that he did. Once he come in, everything was so much better.
“I used to collect the registers from the teachers. Then they made me milk monitor. I really liked that. It was really good. I just felt important.
‘I KNOW HE LOVED ME’
“Then what he’d do, he’d put me back into the classroom, and then my writing got better.
“He wouldn’t let me play football if he’d heard I’d been naughty in class.
“He just gave me a sense of feeling like I had some use.”
Incredibly, Wrighty was mistakenly told that Mr Pigden had passed away back in 2010.
But his old teacher surprised him the very same year when they reunited in a video that has been seen more than two million times online.
Wright, who dedicated his 2016 autobiography A Life in Football to Mr Pigden, said: “I couldn’t find him. I’d been doing a television show and there was a bit in it where I had to go back to the ground.
“We were sitting there in a reflective moment and he just came over my right shoulder.
“The first thing I remember doing is I ripped the hat off the top of my head. Then I said to him, ‘Oh my gosh. I thought you’d died’.
“He said, ‘I’m very much alive, Ian’.
“He said how proud he is of me. Then I hugged him and because he was three or four steps up, I felt like I was seven again.
“He was one of the youngest pilots in World War II. He was one of the pilots chosen to do the flyover at Buckingham Palace.
“I remember him saying he was more proud of the fact I played for England than him flying over Buckingham Palace. I love that man. Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry for people listening, I’ve just turned into this bumbling, crying guy.
“When he said that, he changed my life just by recognising… I don’t know what it was when I was standing outside that classroom, that I needed more – and he gave it to me.”
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Listeners were touched just as much by Wright’s heartfelt words.
One said: “Brings a tear to my eye.”
Another posted: “Brilliant footballer and top man. He cried, I cried, we all cried.”