HE'S got to be the proudest sportsman in Oxfordshire.

Martin Keown was reflecting today on the crowning moment of his career - when he lifted the FA Cup at Wembley on Saturday as part of Arsenal's Double-winning side.

The 31-year-old Oxford-born defender, who lives in Wheatley, said: "Once you become a professional the league championship is always the thing you aim for but my boyhood dream was to play in the Cup Final at Wembley and to win as well was very, very special.

"It was a scorching hot day, the atmosphere was great and our team were very focussed.

"Although we had already won a trophy we weren't there just to enjoy the day - we were there to win the Cup."

Goals from Marc Overmars and Nicolas Anelka gave the Gunners a 2-0 victory over Newcastle and capped a remarkable season for both Arsenal, their French manager Arsene Wenger and for Keown, who missed the first three months of the campaign with a broken shoulder.

"It was incredible to be involved in a championship-winning side myself," said Martin, the local boy who made it to the top.

"We had seven or eight games where if we'd lost we were out of it and kept winning those and then the league seemed to open up.

"Then on top of that to win through the Cup. In the final, the team certainly dominated the first half. My heart was in my mouth one time when I made a slip which let Alan Shearer in but I believed we well deserved to win in the end.

"We'd had a hard run with a lot of rounds where we came through by the odd goal or in a replay so we felt we deserved to be in the final. And once there we wanted to win it," he said. "The '71 Double-winning team are all legends so to have repeated what they have achieved is fantastic. It's the first Double I've won since we won the double with Garsington in the Oxford Boys Sunday League."

Keown is a former pupil of Edmund Campion School and played for Marston Saints - alongside Garry Parker, now of Leicester City - in the Oxford Boys League.

He represented Oxford Boys at every age group from under 11s to under 15s and won county honours with Oxfordshire.

He has been capped 16 times by England, has scored for his country and is in Glenn Hoddle's 30-strong party for three World Cup warm-up friendlies this month.

His next big ambition is to get into Hoddle's final squad of 22 for France.

"Most of the 30 are expecting to go. But we can't all go. Somehow eight are going to be unlucky. I'm just keeping my fingers crossed," he said.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.