Leicester at home, on paper, looked a breeze.

But of course, in typically dramatic style, the underdogs took the lead on 26 minutes through former Arsenal striker Paul Dickov. Arsenal threw everything at Leicester, but couldn’t find a way through in the first half.

Things changed quickly in the second half.

Ashley Cole latched onto a trademark Bergkamp pass and was bundled over by Frank Sinclair in the penalty area. Henry stepped up and planted the ball into the bottom corner, becoming the first Arsenal player to score 30 league goals for 56 years in the process.

In the 66th minute, Vieira fittingly gave Arsenal the lead, running onto a Bergkamp through pass, rounding the keeper and passing into an empty net.

The game ended. Arsenal’s record stood at won 26, drawn 12, lost 0.

It’s been argued that the achievement wasn’t all that special, because the standard of opposition wasn’t as high as it is now.

However, there’s one very simple reason why it was a very special and incredible achievement: no team had done it for over 100 years.

There have been too many great teams in that time to count, but none of them were able to do what Arsenal did.

Having reached such a significant landmark, it would have, again, been so easy for Arsenal to relax and get complacent. The summer came and went, and the team regrouped to target a new record: Nottingham Forest’s 42-game unbeaten run, the longest run without defeat in English football.

Arsenal needed to avoid defeat in just three more games.

A 4-1 win at Everton got the 2004/05 season off to a flier. Middlesbrough then visited Highbury for the first home game of the season. Henry’s deft lob over Mark Schwarzer gave Arsenal an expected lead, but then the unexpected happened: Arsenal looked like losing. Middlesbrough equalised before half-time. Then, in the second half, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink gave the visitors the lead. Three minutes later, Franck Queudrue took advantage of some dubious Lehmann positioning to put Middlesbrough 3-1 ahead. It looked like Arsenal were going to slip up right at the end.

This, though, was a side of hardened winners possessing bundles of ability.

Bergkamp got a goal back straight away. 10minutes later, Pires grabbed the equaliser. Resurgent, Bergkamp set-up Reyes to hammer Arsenal into the lead before Henry sealed the result with a fifth. The following week, Arsenal broke Forest’s record in rather more relaxing fashion with a 3-0 win over Blackburn.

The run continued for six more games, reaching 49 – the number that is proudly sung by Arsenal supporters on the road.

It came to an end in highly controversial circumstances at Old Trafford, but nobody has come close to threatening it since.

Billions of pounds have been spent on players, and top class managers have come and gone, yet still the run endures.

Until a club manages to get close to matching it, and halfway or even ‘almost’ is not ‘close’, nobody should ever underestimate what an achievement it was.