The Sun
A Royal Fixture For Arsenal
By TOM HARVEY
February 15, 2007
THE Queen hosted a reception for the Arsenal football team today - at her home ground, Buckingham Palace.
The monarch finally met the players, four months after a bad back forced her to cancel a trip to see the club’s new Emirates Stadium in north London.
Gunners captain Thierry Henry, Theo Walcott and Freddie Ljungberg, swapped their club strip for smart suits and toured the palace’s impressive state rooms with their manager Arsene Wenger - the first time a club side has been invited to the royal residence.
The players spent around 40 minutes being shown the historic building’s rooms used for hosting major events.
Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms, including 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms and 78 bathrooms.
After the tour, the players and staff involved with the Emirates stadium project, met the Queen at a reception.
The players enjoyed a traditional English tea - drinking from bone china cups alongside the Queen - and tucked into a selection of delicacies from red onion and baby spinach wraps to pistachio macaroons.
Henry introduced his team-mates - a team assembled by Wenger from across the globe - to the monarch, who told him: “You have a very international side.”
The Queen missed the opening of the Emirates Stadium after she strained a muscle in her back while holidaying on the Balmoral estate in Scotland last summer and royal doctors wanted her to take it easy.
The Queen told the Arsenal captain: “Sorry I couldn’t come - I had a bad back.”
The monarch was also joined at the reception by four of her dogs, Linnet, a corgi and three dorgis - a cross between a corgi and a dachshund - called Vulcan, Berry and Cider, who were stroked by the Arsenal team and wandered around the room surveying the guests.
Henry spent time during the reception admiring the gold gilt plasterwork in the palace’s Bow room and said afterwards:
“It was just a major honour to come here and be able to meet the Queen and have a look around.
“We were more than over the moon and we knew the Queen was a bit sad she couldn’t come to the Emirates and she allowed us to come here and have the chance to look around and when I go home, I’m going to say to my little girl that I’ve been here.
“Even though I’m not English, it’s a pleasure to come here.”
