John Jensen
John Jensen is a footballer from Denmark, born on the 3 May 1965.
His playing career lasted several years, during which time he played most famously for Brondby in Denmark and then, after a successful European Championship in 1992, where he scored the opening goal in a final Denmark would go on to win, he was signed by George Graham for Arsenal.
Jensen's time at Arsenal was both highly successful and highly disappointing. He would be part of the 1992-93 side that won the FA Cup and Coca-Cola Cup in the same season, the 1993-94 side that won the European Cup-Winners Cup and the 1994-95 side that lost in the Cup-Winners Cup final. However, many Arsenal fans had seen Jensen's Euro 92 final goal (an excellent first-time strike from the edge of the area) and were expecting more of the same. He played 132 games for Arsenal, but the abiding memory of his time at Arsenal was his attaining cult hero status, somewhat akin to Perry Groves before him. Jensen's hook was that, no matter how hard he tried (and, for a defensive midfielder, he tried exceptionally hard), he could not score. He had a song "We'll be there when Jensen scores!" and by 1994, Jensen's search for a goal was such a cult cause that whenever he got the ball, no matter whether he was inside his own penalty area or bearing down on goal, the Arsenal fans would implore him to "Shooooooooooooooooooooooot!", the loud, insistent cry of "shoot!" not ending until he either passed the ball on, got tackled, or succumbed to public pressure and had a shot (which would invariably, as the jokes went, fly so far high and/or wide that they would raise local residents' insurance premiums because of the not-inconsiderable danger of having Jensen put a ball through their car windows). The practice has now passed on to be directed at any Arsenal player who picks the ball up facing the opposition goal between 35 and 18 yards away with nobody in front of him.
Jensen finally got his goal after 98 matches, on a cold and wet night against Queens Park Rangers on New Year's Eve 1994. Arsenal were losing 1-0, when Jensen picked the ball up just inside the area near the left-hand corner, about 16 yards from goal. The crowd gave the obligatory bellow of "shoot!", and shoot he did, the ball curving beautifully into the net in a manner that Arsenal fans would soon get used to when Dennis Bergkamp arrived in 1995, and the reaction was quite unlike any other goal celebration ever seen at the Arsenal Stadium before or since. Somewhat fittingly, a defensive error and then a goalkeeping error (from understudy Vince Bartram) resulted in Arsenal eventually losing 3-1.
A few months later, it would be revealed that Jensen's transfer to Highbury was at least partly motivated by George Graham's involvement with agent Rune Hauge, who had been giving Graham backhanders in exchange for signing players he represented. The first player involved in this 'bung' scandal was Pal Lydersen, the second was Jensen. Graham was immediately sacked from his job when the story broke and subsequently banned from football for 12 months.
Jensen departed Highbury in the summer of 1996 and returned to Denmark, with still only that lone goal against QPR to his name. He retired from playing in 1999 and accepted the manager's job at Herfogle, a small Danish club, and immediately made his name for himself by winning the Danish Superleague at his first attempt. Herfogle were punching above their weight and were relegated from the Superleague in 2001, but Jensen's reputation was enough to secure him a move back to Brøndby IF as assistant manager to Michael Laudrup, a position he still holds today.
