The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Arsenal’s second season back in the 1st division: Aug/Sep 1920.
This daily review of Arsenal anniversaries is from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society. We expect by the end of this year to have approaching 6000 entries in our anniversaries list. If you spot an error please do write in below and we’ll get it corrected. Today’s headline comes from 1919.
22 February 1910: George Hunt born. He was one of the team that won the league in 1938 and also as the first ever player to move from Tottenham (then of the second division) to Arsenal (about to become champions).
22 February 1913: Gillespie Road named in the press for the first time as the site of the new ground. There had been rumours for weeks that the site would be somewhere in Islington, but no one quite knew where.
22 February 1919: The English league debated the size of the league for the forthcoming season and recognising the sentiment of the day, voted for 22 clubs in each League with the recommendation that Chelsea FC should be elected into Division One despite their relegation in 1915 – in recognition of the fact that they had suffered from the match fixing antics of Liverpool.
22 February 1930: Not all Chapman purchases turned into masterstrokes, and Albert Humpish was one that failed. In all he played 3 league games, or which the second was Grimsby 1 Arsenal 1 on this day.
22 February 1933: Arsenal had the chance to wear their new strip, having just been granted permission so to do by the League, but chose to hold back for the next home game. This was a 2-2 away draw with Derby. Jack and Bastin scored
22 February 1936: Having signed as an amateur in April 1931 and as a professional on 9 May that year Sidney Cartright made his debut on this day against Portsmouth. Arsenal lost 2-3 to make it just two wins in seven.
22 February 1947: Stoke 3 Arsenal 1. Ronnie Rooke made it 11 goals in 8 games. This was part of a run of just one win in six.
22 February 1949: John Radford born (some sources say 1947). He went on to play 475 games for Arsenal and scored 149 goals. In 2016 John kindly wrote an article for Untold Arsenal
22 February 1964: Tottenham 3 Arsenal 1, start of seven game sequence without a win – a run that suggested that manager Billy Wright did not know how to rectify the situation. He did however last until the end of the following season. Laurie Brown, signed by Tottenham from Arsenal the day before, played for Tottenham.
22 February 1992: Tottenham 1 Arsenal 1, As a result Arsenal were 6th, 18 points off the top of the table although they climbed back to fourth and cut the game to 10. Ian Wright got the goal.
22 February 1997: Nic Anelka arrived from PSG for approx £250,000. The story is that PSG did not want to sell him, but Arsenal arranged the signing on a technicality. He was later sold for 100 times the cost to Arsenal.
22 February 1998: The death of George Male. Arsenal was his only professional club and he played 285 games for the club.
22 February 2003: Manchester City 1 Arsenal 5. Arsenal went four up in 19 minutes in the 11th match of a 12 match unbeaten league run. It was Arsenal’s last game at Maine Road. Alex Ferguson ordered the radio on the Man U bus to be switched off as they drove to their match (according to the Guardian).
Yesterday’s anniversaries:
The media gets excited with the sensational new Arsenal strip
What’s on the Arsenal History Society site
Our current series is “Henry Norris at the Arsenal” An index to the various series that contain over 1,900 articles on this site concerning the history of Arsenal appears on our home page. Previous series have covered Arsenal in the 1930s, Arsenal in the 70s, the Royal Arsenal years, and many individual players.
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