After her “amazing” first encounter with Arsenal icon Ray Parlour, Laura Woods is still “overawed.”
Laura Woods has admitted that she still gets a rush from seeing former Arsenal players, such as Ray Parlour, who she used to work with on talkSPORT.
Working with a variety of current and former football stars, the Gunners supporter has made a name for herself as one of the sport’s top broadcasters.
During her time at talkSPORT when she hosted the Breakfast show, she worked with Arsenal legends including Parlour and Martin Keown.
And despite working in the industry for such a long time, it seems as though the magic of meeting her favourite players hasn’t gone.
Whilst on TNT Sports presenting duties with Rio Ferdinand, she spoke about the time she visited the Arsenal training ground and was left in awe.
“I think it was 1998, I think it was the double year,” she said. “I think they’d already won the league and feel like the FA Cup used to come later didn’t it, so I don’t think they’d done the FA Cup yet.
“So where they used to train at the old London Colney, which Watford have now, my dad played cricket there one day.
“Me and my brothers were having a little wonder around. I was so young, I didn’t really know what was going on and we came out to the pitch where they were training, and Arsene Wenger was literally just standing there watching them all train and I was like, ‘Wow’.
“There were no photos, there were no cameraphones or anything like that, we just watched. It was amazing.”
Woods also revealed how long it took for her to finally meet Parlour before they shared the airwaves at talkSPORT, adding: “I think when you’re really little and something like that happens, I’m still really overawed by it.
Therefore, despite the fact that we work in football every day, there is still something I notice in the former Arsenal players. Even with Martin Keown—and it took me a very long time to meet Parlour—he was most likely the last player I ever encountered.
“I was really ashamed of Petit after meeting Emmanuel Petit and Thierry Henry. [Parlour] He was the one, and I met him at random on a Portuguese beach.
“Of course he did [hold a drink in his hand]—I was presenting the Sir Bobby Robson Celebrity Golf Classic.” Alan Brazil was riding this cart the entire time, and the golf buggies were completely filled with empty beer cans that were flaming red and hot.
“Do you guys need some suntan lotion?” I asked. Then they remarked, “No, that’s not fair!” However, it was my first encounter with him, and it was incredible.
On talkSPORT, Woods and Parlour had a good time. During one program, they had a humorous conversation over the absurd subject of pajamas.
The former started her new position at TNT Sports not long after leaving the station at the end of June.
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