The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
November 1919: Arsenal solid but in debt, Labour advances, another goalscorer, Norris honoured.
Below is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society. We expect to add 1000 new anniversaries to our files this year.
If you spot an error please do write in with the correction and as much detail as possible so we can keep enlarging and upgrading what is the largest database of Arsenal events that has ever been produced.
The headline story comes from 1989
27 January 1894: Woolwich Arsenal suffered their first cup defeat: 1-2 at home to Sheffield Wednesday.
27 January 1916 conscription was finally introduced through the passing of the Military Service Act. Unmarried men aged 18–41 were conscripted from 2 March with married men added to the list the following month. All players were thus called up either to fight or work in wartime industries. Henry Norris’ moved to work in the regional organisation of conscription for the War Office.
27 January 1919: As general strikes over wages were called in Belfast and Glasgow, the FA met in London and confirmed that there would be no FA Cup for 1918/19 (which was obvious, since the preliminary rounds then as now needed to start in September for the Cup to take place, and no room had been left in the league schedule even if only the league clubs took part.)
27 January 1934: Alex Wilson played his first game: Arsenal 7 Crystal Palace 0 in the FA Cup. However the result was not remarkable for on that day five of the FA Cup games had six goals or more in them. See also here
27 January 1948: Arsenal had gone the first 17 matches unbeaten, playing most of the home games in front of 60,000 but on this day Don Roper was injured.against Aston Villa and although the team initially did well without him (winning the next three games) a run of seven games without a win took its toll, as Arsenal ended up 5th.
27 January 1951: Arsenal 3 Northampton Town 2 (FA Cup) in front of 72,408 – the all time FA Cup record at Highbury. (Lewis 2, and Roper got the goals). See also here.
27 January 1977: Bristol City 2 Arsenal 0, in front of 26,282. An Arsenal team including Brady, Hudson, Rice, Nelson, Storey, O’Leary, Macdonald and Stapleton hardly had a shot. It was City’s fifth win of the season
27 January 1979: Arsenal had played five matches and progressed one round in the FA cup before this fourth round tie which ended Arsenal 2 Notts County 0, with a respectable 39,195 in the crowd. See also here,
27 January 1989: Bermuda 2 Arsenal 4 (friendly). (Richardson 2, Smith, Winterburn), during a two game winter break, arranged quickly after Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup in the third round.
27 January 1997: Andy Linighan sold to Crystal Palace. Two versions of this transfer are told, one citing 21 Jan for £500,000 and one citing 27 January with a much lower fee.
27 January 2001. QPR 0 Arsenal 6 (FA Cup round 4). Wiltord scored two goals, and there were two own goals. Pires and Bergkamp got one each en route to the final.
27 January 2002: Arsenal 1 Liverpool 0 (FA Cup 4) en route to the 3rd Double. Having beaten Watford in the third round Arsenal saw off Liverpool in the fourth with a goal from Bergkamp in 27 minutes.
27 January 2015: Joel Campbell loaned to Villareal for the remainder of the season. He had made his debut for Arsenal in the Community Shield game, and that and his world cup exploits in 2014 had suggested he might now play regularly for the first team but it was not to be until the following season.
Yesterday’s anniversaries:
Arsenal’s ground to be shut for the rest of the season
“Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” are both available on Kindle, and we have a small number of copies of the printed edition available at £10 each. Details are here.
What’s on the Arsenal History Society site
An index to the various series that contain over 1,800 articles on this site concerning the history of Arsenal appears on our home page. Our current series is “Henry Norris at the Arsenal”
