Arsenal beat Everton 100 years ago to the day

This is a series of articles commemorating the birth of the modern Arsenal in 1910.

The book MAKING THE ARSENAL which tells the full story is available from the links below where you can read extracts and further information about the book.

 

http://tiny.cc/RHd9k – if you are in the UK

http://tiny.cc/Fsc6p – if you are in the rest of Europe

http://tiny.cc/KfzsD – for the rest of the world

23 October 1909: Arsenal 1 Everton 0

 

At last!  Ten games in and Arsenal finally get a second win.   After nine the club were bottom of the first division having drawn 1, won 1, and lost 7.

 

Worse, they had just come out of four defeats in a row, including a 0-7, 1-5 and 2-6.

As we’ve discussed before three of these games were controversial in that for one McDonald, the goalkeeper played despite being so seriously injured that he could not jump or dive down for the ball.   He then missed the next two games, during which a rookie keeper made his only two appearances for the club.

 

But even so, only six of the team who played in the opening match of the season on September 1st were still in the team, and one of those, M Thompson played at centre forward despite being the regular centre half for most of the season.

 

Everton were a solid 1st division team at the time, having been one of the founders of the league, becoming champions in 1891 and FA Cup Winners in 1906, and defeated finalists in the following year.

 

So, a ray of sunlight for Arsenal – but if they were dancing in the streets of Plumstead a bit of realism should have been added to the celebrations.  Everton came into this match on the back of three defeats, 2-3 at home to Liverpool, 1-3 away to Villa, and 1-2 at home to Sheffield United.    They had their troubles too.

 

There’s more about the modern Arsenal on www.blog.emiratesstadium.info

(c) Tony Attwood 2009.

 

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