This is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society.
Here are the stories from this day in history…
20 December 1890: Arsenal’s game against Old Westminsters in London Senior Cup abandoned. Generally it was the fog that caused games to be stopped rather than any concerns about the state of the pitch.
20 December 1902: Arsenal lost 1-4 to Manchester City; the crowd of 25,000 smashed the ground record set on October 11. The defeat left Arsenal in third place with Man City five points ahead at the top of the table.
20 December 1902: William Linward joined Arsenal from WHU. An outside left he made his début on Boxing Day and then on the following day he played again against Burnley – a match which marked a major upturn in Arsenal’s fortunes.
20 December 1924: In a rare success in Knighton’s final season, Leeds were beaten 6-1. The result left Arsenal 10th, but a terrible second half to the season saw them end up 20th, escaping relegation by one place.
20 December 1970. Birth of Patrick Kwame Ampadu. He made his debut as a sub in March 1990, but after just two appearances moved to West Brom in 1991.
20 December 1998: Arsenal 3 Leeds 1 (Vieira, Bergkamp, Petit). From this game to the end of the season Arsenal lost only one game, going the next 19 unbeaten in the league losing finally to Leeds on 11 May.
20 December 2003: Bolton 1 Arsenal 1. The 17th league match of the Unbeaten season. After the game Mr Wenger said, “Provided Bolton keep playing like that, we will look back at this result and feel very happy. They are as good as a team as we have played.”
The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Arsenal, 11 – 31 December 1918. A 9-2 victory, the chairman becomes an MP, footballers unionise.
Yesterday’s anniversaries:
One player’s birthday, one player imprisoned, and new contracts for the British spine
Special feature:
Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.
What’s on the Arsenal History Society site
An index to the various series that contain over 1,700 articles on this site concerning the history of Arsenal appears on our home page.
