Crystal Palace (England),
Arsenal (England), West Ham United (England), Nottingham Forest
(England), Celtic (Scotland), Burnley (England)
Honours
At Crystal Palace
FA Cup runner up (1990)
ZDS Cup winner (1991)
At Arsenal
Golden boot (leading scorer in top division) 1991/2 and 1992/3
FA Cup winner (1993, 1998)
Cup Winners Cup Winner (1994) Runner Up (1995)
League Cup winner (1993)
League championship (1998)
Arsenal all-time record goalscorer with 185 goals.
With England
33 caps, 9 goals
Debut February 6, 1991 vs Cameroon at Wembley
Last cap November 18, 1998 vs Czech Republic at Wembley
Biography
Ian Wright, MBE (born November 3, 1963, Woolwich, England) is a
former professional footballer who achieved fame playing as a
striker for Crystal Palace, Arsenal and England.
Since his retirement in 2000, he has become a popular media
personality, appearing on Match of the Day, where his slightly
eccentric and over-the-top style of match analysis (most notably,
when covering all games played in Japan during the 2002 World
Cup, he wore a kimono in the studio) has gained him equal
amounts of praise and derision. He is also a popular presenter
having had his own chat show, Friday Night's All Wright, which
began in 1998 while Wright was still playing and was noted
mainly for the inclusion of a cage of Tottenham Hotspur fans (traditionally,
Arsenal and Tottenham are hated rivals). Since then, he has gone
on to present programmes such as the National Lottery broadcasts,
Friends Like These, radio show Wright & Bright (with old
footballing friend and Crystal Palace strike partner Mark Bright),
An Audience with Lennox Lewis, and Guinness World Records. He
was awarded the MBE in 2000 for services to football.
Ian came to professional football relatively late, signing for
Crystal Palace in 1985 at the age of 22. After rejections from
Millwall and Brighton, he played for amateur and non-league
teams, culminating at Greenwich Borough, where he was spotted by
Palace scout Peter Prentice.
At Crystal Palace, he scored twice in the 1990 FA Cup final
against Manchester United, having only recently recovered from a
broken leg. The eventual score was 3-3, but Palace lost the
replay 1-0.
He signed for Arsenal in 1991 for £2.5m, which was at the time a
club record fee. He scored on his debut against Leicester City,
and went on to play a major part in the club's success during
the 1990s. He is the club's all-time leading goalscorer.
His stepsons, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Bradley Wright-Phillips,
currently play for Manchester City F.C.
Wright is also the patron of the African-Caribbean Leukaemia
Trust.
