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Arsenal legend Ian Wright has come out to reveal how he nearly threw away his football career by smoking cannabis.
The former Arsenal player says that his career in football was almost halted before it began, due to his use of cannabis during his early days in the game.
Wright scored 185 goals in 288 games at Arsenal and was also capped 33 times for England, having burst onto the scene with Crystal Palace, but his career could have worked out very differently had his name been randomly selected by drug testers in 1987.
In his column for The Sun, the 52-year-old admitted he smoked cannabis as a young player as an 'end-of-the-week ritual', with the habit continuing during his early days in the Palace first team.
Wright vividly remembers the moments after his side's 4-1 victory over West Brom in September 1987, when he was struck by panic as post match drug testers arrived in the dressing room.
He had smoked the substance less than 24 hours earlier, but felt a sense of relief when Mark Bright and Phil Barber's names were called instead.
It was at that moment he vowed to never smoke the drug again.
Ian Wright helped the Gunners win a Premier League title, two FA Cups and the Cup Winners' Cup during his time at Highbury and was the last player to win the First Division Golden Boot before the launch of the Premier League.
He later played for West Ham, Nottingham Forest, Celtic and Burnley before retiring in 2000, and has since lost his Arsenal record to Thierry Henry in 2005.
After his retirement from professional football Ian Wright went on to work in the media.
