The Man U pitch: a danger to spectators and players alike.

This is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day  files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society.

Our headline is taken from this day in 1909.


Special feature:

Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.

Below are the Anniversaries from  October 30.

30 October 1897: Woolwich Arsenal beat St Albans 9-0 in FA Cup.  This time there was only one hat trick (Hunt) with the other goals coming from Brock, Haywood, Steven, McGeoch, Davis, and Farrell.  The crowd was just 3,000.

30 October 1909: Man U 1 Arsenal 0; commentaries in the press focussed on the dangers of the pitch in terms of the health of players and spectators.  It was placed beside a chemicals factory.   Man U moved to Old Trafford in 1910. See also here.

30 October 1920: Debut of Dr James Paterson:  Arsenal 2 Derby 0.  This was the 12th league match of the season, but only Arsenal’s 3rd win.  Dr Paterson achieved the rank of major in the war and was awarded the Military Cross.  He joined Arsenal from Rangers (with whom he had won the league) sharing house with his brother in law, who was Arsenal’s club doctor.

30 October 1937: Arsenal 1 Middlesbrough 2 – a result that meant Arsenal had won only two of the last ten league games, despite winning the first three scoring 12 conceding two.  As a result of the run, this game marked the final appearance of Ray Bowden and Bobby Davidson (see below).  Also it was the final game for Herbie Roberts who broke his leg in this game.  Despite two more games after this without a win, Arsenal recovered and went on to win the league.

30 October 1937: Ray Bowden’s final appearance.   An ankle injury caused him to be sold to Second Division Newcastle United for £5,000. In all he played 138 matches for the Gunners, scoring 48 goals.  Later playing for Newcastle he scored a hat-trick against Swansea on the day before England declared war on Germany in 1939.

30 October 1937: Bobby Davidson’s last appearance.   The high point of his career at Arsenal was four goals in the 5-1 victory over Portsmouth in December 1936.    He was transferred to Coventry City in exchange for Leslie Jones.

30 October 1937: Herbie Roberts last appearance, in a game in which he broke his leg.  In all he made 335 starts for Arsenal including 297 in the league, and scored four league goals with one more in the FA Cup.  But above all he is remembered as the centre half at the heart of Chapman’s revised WM system in 1925.

30 October 1941: Bob Wilson born.  He went to Loughborough College (now university) to train as a teacher, played a few reserve games for Wolverhampton and made his début for us while still having the status of an amateur in 1963.  It is said that the £6000 we paid for him was the first transfer fee paid for an amateur.

30 October 1982: Arsenal 0 Birmingham 0, part of a run of just one win in seven.  Danny O’Shea’s first game.  was born in Newington, came through the youth system at Arsenal and was captain of the youth team.

30 October 1993: Arsenal 0 Norwich 0 – the fourth consecutive goalless draw.  Arsenal only scored more than one goal in a league game at Highbury this season in six games.

30 October 2009: Possibly having been encouraged by Tottenham fans, or possibly just through an unwillingness to do proper research, The Guardian reprinted the story about Arsenal gaining promotion in 1919 through some corrupt means.  As always there was no evidence presented to back up the case, and no serious presentation of the mass of evidence to the contrary.  The real  story of the 1919 promotion is told here and further research recently published on the Arsenal History site add more to support this evidence.

30 October 2012: Reading 5 Arsenal 7 in league cup.  Arsenal went 4-0 down before fighting back to become the first team ever to score 6+ in consecutive league cup games.  The goalscorers in order were  Walcott, Giroud, Koscielny, Walcott, Chamakh, Walcott, Chamakh

 


 

Elsewhere on this day: 

On this day in 1925 the first ever person was shown on a TV screen.  It happened when John Logie Baird pointed his newly completed camera at the office boy William Taynton and asked him to smile.

 

Yesterday’s anniversaries:


 

The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal

Arsenal Players in the wartime league, 1916/17

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *