Arsenal legend Ray Parlour left the Gunners in 2004 aged 31, signing for Middlesbrough in the Premier League.
Three years later he returned to Arsenal after being released by Boro midway through the 2006/07 season, keeping his fitness levels up while searching for a new club. A few weeks later Parlour signed for Hull City in the Championship, despite the Tigers struggling and facing relegation to the third tier.
The midfielder managed to keep them up in the Championship, though he didn’t actually train with Hull during the week from the date he signed his contract in February until the end of the season, instead remaining at Arsenal to continue training under Arsene Wenger.
Arsenal kept Ray Parlour fit while he starred for Hull
“I’m really pleased about that, because they should have gone down that year,” Ray Parlour exclusively tells FourFourTwo. “They were second from bottom when I signed. I was training with Arsenal and Steve Bould was good mates with Hull’s assistant manager.
“He said, ‘He isn’t doing anything at weekends – tell Phil Brown to see if he’ll come up there to play on Saturdays.’ Phil rang me and I said, ‘No disrespect to Hull, but I don’t want to move up north again because my kids are in London.’ He said that if Arsene Wenger didn’t mind, I could train all week with them and come up on a Friday.
“So, I lived in London, went up Friday morning, trained with the lads, played the game on Saturday and went back again. I said, ‘One thing I’ll do for you: if I get injured training with Arsenal, you don’t have to pay me.’ They tried to say no but I respected them and didn’t want to take their money for the sake of it, so they paid me by appearances.”
That short-term deal worked out perfectly for both parties, with Parlour making 15 appearances in total in his mid-30s. Results quickly turned around when he signed for Hull, and though he didn’t stay around for their 2007/08 promotion season, he did still play a part in the club’s success by helping them stay up the campaign before.
“Dean Windass signed at the same time,” Parlour adds. “We had Birmingham in one of our first games and they were top of the table, so people thought we had no chance. But we won 2-0; I set Windass up for one of the goals.
After that, the players got a bit of confidence. I said, ‘When I pass you the ball, if you’re in trouble, pass it back to me.’ I didn’t move a lot, but it was good. I really enjoyed Hull. They had great fans and I was like a messiah: I went out when we stayed up and they were like, ‘Ray, you saved us!’
“I was so pleased when Dean Windass scored that cracking goal at Wembley the year afterwards – what a goal to get promoted to the Premier League. Then they beat Arsenal at the Emirates as well, didn’t they!”
