Wednesday, 8 October 2008

Footballing Heroes: Glenn Helder

Glenn Helder made his debut for Arsenal in 1995 having previously played for various Dutch clubs. Like the vast majority of players signed from the Dutch League he was useless and couldn't score.

When he first arrived at Arsenal he was compared to the great Liam Brady but only because he was left footed and foreign. He is most noted for being George Graham's last signing as Arsenal manager which could feasibly be seen as an act akin to a captain smashing a hole in the hull of his own ship on his final voyage.

Very little is known of Helder's childhood aside from the fact that at the age of five he ran away to join the circus. Originally the circus folk pitted him against other runaway children in bare-knuckle fighting contests, however this was soon stopped after Helder showed an innate inability to ever actually land a punch on his opponent.

In his last fight he was put up against Raymond Van Braincrusher the 8 year old, 16 stone bare knuckle legend. Helder took one look at the giant gypsy and ran. Really, really fast. From then on his circus family would capture wild animals and place bets on which ones young Glenn was faster than. He outran a stoat, a fox, a wild boar, a rabid dog and a bull. However he did lose to a wolf which put an end to his races when he had to be rushed to hospital for severe bite wounds. He was taken into care which is where he learned how to play football.

After making only 27 appearances for the Gunners he was sold off when Arsene Wenger brought in Marc Overmars who not only could run really fast but could also play football.

Nowadays Helder scrapes a living by betting tourists to Amsterdam that he can outrun anything. Unfortunately this is not usually very impressive as his only competition tends to be naked hookers or stoned students. He can be easily identified as the man wearing the t-shirt saying 'I played for Holland' and wearing all four of the caps that he actually, genuinely got upon his head.

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