On this day in 2001, it was supposed to be a routine signing announcement at London Colney.
Newspaper journalists and photographers had arrived at our training ground to cover the unveiling of Richard Wright, who had joined from Ipswich Town that week and was set to speak at his first press conference alongside Arsene Wenger.
But then Sol Campbell, whose contract at Tottenham Hotspur had just expired, walked into the room.
The England international was one of the best centre-backs in the world at that time, and all the elite clubs were clamouring for his signature. But clandescent talks with Arsene Wenger swung discussions our way, and that cloak-and-dagger approach continued right until the final moment when a highly controversial, but hugely beneficial, transfer was completed.
Revealing when he first heard about our interest, Campbell said: "It was about two or three months before when Inter Milan were interested. A few other clubs were too - Barcelona came in and I think Bayern came in six or seven months before.
"We [Wenger and Campbell] would meet at night time and it helped because he doesn’t live in a built-up place. It’s not like an inner-city London place where David Dein lived, so it was quite easy to meet.
"I think there were trusted lines. Back then it was a little bit easier to be covert. One of the reasons why is because it wasn't done until late on."
"We walked together at one o’clock in the morning to talk about [signing]… because he was paranoid it would be discovered," Wenger added. "This is a transfer we made with David Dein, at his house, and sometimes we had meetings at 11pm so we could make sure no-one could see us. It is an unbelievable story.
“We had an agreement that never came out. Sol definitely knew before the last week [of his contract] that he was signing for us. At least, before that he promised to sign for us.
“I remember his press conference, when I said we will announce a player. Nobody turned up at the training ground. There were only two press people here.
"I will never forget the press’ faces when Sol came in. ‘Sol Campbell from Tottenham’, they couldn’t believe it!"
Hear more about how one of the biggest transfers in Premier League history unfolded by pressing play on the video above.
Copyright 2024 The Arsenal Football Club Limited. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source.