Tony Adams wore number 5 on his Arsenal debut in 1983 and it wasn’t until April of 1986 that he started what would become an unbroken 16-year sequence of only wearing 6 as a starter.
The previous month, Adams had worn 2 against Coventry City and then had five games wearing 5 before claiming 6 – in those games, 6 had been worn by another young Arsenal defender, Martin Keown.
A dispute over wages led to Keown leaving for Aston Villa and from there he would move to Everton but, in the spring of 1993, he returned to Highbury. By that stage, he was an England international and had worn 4 for his country at Euro 92. For the rest of 1992-93, his number chart resembled something from horse racing odds: he wore every number from 2-7 except 4.
Keown was cup-tied as Arsenal won both the Coca-Cola and FA Cup finals against Sheffield Wednesday – the two games serving as trials for the introduction of squad numbers in England – with Adams completing the domestic set in terms of captaining the Gunners to glory.
By that stage, he had returned to being a first-choice centre-back for England. While he had started every game for England at Euro 88 as a 21-year-old, a tough outing against Marco van Basten in the loss to the Netherlands precipitated a fall from favour and, between November 1988 and October 1992, his only starts for his country were the two Euro 92 qualifiers against the Republic of Ireland, wearing 4 as Graham Taylor went with a sweeper system.
On his return to the fold, he wore 6 as he partnered Des Walker at the back but, with Gary Pallister usurping Walker at the beginning of the 1993-94 season, he was in 6 – which he wore for Manchester United – with Adams wearing 5. Incidentally, Pallister had made his England debut against Germany in 1991 with 5 on his back – 6 was worn by Paul Parker, who had just joined United, for whom he generally wore 2.
Thereafter, Adams would wear 5 for England, with two exceptions – appearing in 6 in friendlies against Greece and Norway in the spring of 1994.
The reason for that was that he was partnered by his Arsenal colleague Steve Bould, who wore the 5 with which he was more familiar, though 12 was his club squad number at the time.
Keown was allocated 14 when the system was introduced at the start of 1993-94 and he would retain it until Bould’s departure in the summer of 1999 allowed him to switch to 5. That in turn allowed the newly-vacated 14 to be worn by Thierry Henry when he joined from Juventus.
Like Adams, Keown had undergone an international exile – after the 1993 US Cup, he didn’t represent his country again until 1997 and, when he did return, he featured more at right-back than centre-back over the next two years.
His first time to partner Adams in the England defence was against world champions France at Wembley in 1999. Arsenal were in the midst of a season that would see them concede just 17 Premier League goals and England caretaker manager Howard Wilkinson – in charge following the resignation of Glenn Hoddle – rewarded the Gunners’ defence en masse as full-backs Lee Dixon and Nigel Winterburn earned recalls to the squad.
While Dixon started his first game for England in six years, Winterburn stayed on the bench and so the back four and goalkeeper David Seaman did not get to appear together.
Notable from a numbers point of view, though, was that, unlike Bould’s final two caps, Adams stayed in 5 this time with Keown wearing the number that his colleague had at club level.
That would continue to be the way even after Keown’s switch from 14 to 5 for Arsenal and the pair were numbered thus at Euro 2000, with their future clubmate Sol Campbell given 4 (one of five different tournament numbers for him).
Thereafter, the only time Keown wore anything other than 6 for England was his final cap, against Paraguay in April 2002 – he had 5 with Gareth Southgate in 6.
