8 Feb 2007(Thu)

February 7, 2007: Anyone who has spent some time in the company of Thierry Henry will understand fully his recent appointment as global brand ambassador for Gillette.

Henry was one of three sportsmen named in the Gillette Champions programme, along with Tiger Woods and Roger Federer.

You cannot get much higher than that, can you, and it is a fitting reward for Henry's attitude and performance both on and off the pitch.

I was lucky enough to be given an exclusive interview with Thierry at Arsenal's fabulous training centre at London Colney, near St Albans in rural Hertfordshire. It was around this time of the year in 2001, and the interview was arranged at short notice by none other than...Arsene Wenger!

I had already set up a meeting with Wenger before leaving Japan, and after a long chat with the Gunners manager I asked him about the possibility of interviewing the charismatic Henry. With Wenger's support, the Arsenal press officer booked me an appointment with Henry a week or so later -- and that was that.

With a photographer and his assistant, we returned to London Colney for the Henry interview a couple of hours ahead of schedule, and after a nervous wait were greeted by the man himself, dressed casually and immaculately as if he had stepped off the training pitch straight into the pages of a fashion catalogue.

The interview was to take 20 minutes, but we were still talking an hour later after he had signalled to the press officer that he was happy to continue. And then came the extensive photo shoot in the quickly assembled "studio" the photographers had set up.

At this stage of his career, of course, Henry was already a World Cup winner from 1998 and a European Championship winner from 2000, although it is worth remembering that he did not actually play against Brazil in the '98 final. He was on the bench and would have come on, he said, until Desailly was sent off in the 68th minute and coach Jacquet had to change his plans.

During the interview Henry spoke of how France's World Cup success had united the country in a way the politicans never could, and how the French fans at Euro 2000 had been so much more noisy and passionate than at the World Cup on home soil two years earlier. He also said he would be forever in Wenger's debt for rescuing him from Juventus and transforming him from an orthodox winger to a centre forward.

Henry was friendly and funny, and serious and sincere -- the perfect global ambassador.

ends