This is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society. I am sorry the service is intermittent at the moment, as I am in Cyprus rather than England, but I will try and get some days’ anniversaries up while I am absent.
Our headline is taken from this day in 1902
29 November 1890 Jimmy Charteris had his leg broken in two places in a scratch match played in frost and snow and consequently never played again, highlighting the awful consequences of playing during a singularly bleak winter
29 November 1893: James Boyle signed from Celtic and played his first game against Vale of Leven on 24 January 1891. He also won a cup medal when he played in the Glasgow Cup Final in 1891, Celtic’s first major honour. He seems to have been one of the many engineers who travelled south looking for work at the Woolwich factories.
29 November 1896: Joseph Powell died after breaking his arm in a match at Kettering, as a result of tetanus and blood poisoning. After his death Arsenal played a friendly against Aston Villa on 7 December 1896. The proceeds of the match, £137 8s 6d (about £12000 in today’s money) were given to his widow who was pregnant with their second child.
29 November 1899: Alexander Main début in friendly v Eastbourne. Having played for four Scottish clubs in the previous season he travelled south and signed for Woolwich Arsenal. His first league game was 25 December 1899 away to Lincoln.
29 November 1902: On this day Arsenal organised an archery competition and raised about £1,200 largely because the board sold about 80,000 competition tickets at 6d each. To put his into perspective, the total income from the 1901-02 season was £5600. The police advised the club that as many of the competitors failed even to hit the target, they were organising a lottery (rather than a competition of skill), and this was illegal. Arsenal’s manager, Harry Bradshaw, was charged, found guilty, and fined £5. Woolwich Arsenal, though kept the proceeds from the “tournament” which certainly helped the club’s finances.
29 November 1913: First appearance for Robert Benson. He had played 19 times for Southampton before leaving to move to Sheffield United (then in the First Division) for a fee of £150 and played for them 283 times before joining Arsenal.
29 November 1924: First appearance by Sidney Hoar away to Cardiff – a 1-1 draw. Arsenal were a comfortable 11th in the league after this game, but a disastrous second half of the season saw them only just miss relegation.
29 November 1930: Chelsea 1 Arsenal 5 The third game in four in which Arsenal scored five. Across these four games the scorers included Lambert (7), Jack (5), Bastin (4).
29 November 1946: First appearance for Joe Mercer. Everton, his previous club, did all they could to stop him going back to say goodbye to friends at the club, even though the player continued to live in the north west and just travelled to Arsenal for games!
29 November 1947: After 17 games without a defeat Arsenal lost 0-1 to Derby. Despite the result Arsenal were still five points clear at the top of the league.
29 November 1967: Colin Addison sold to Sheffield Utd. He later became a manager, working with the most varied list of clubs including: Hereford, Durban City, Notts County, Newport County, Al-Ahli, Celta Vigo, WBA, Athletico Madrid, Cadiz, Hereford Utd, Al Arabi, Badajoz, Merthyr Tydfil, Scarborough, Yeovil Town, Swansea City, Forest Green Rovers, and Barry Town.
29 November 1983: Arsenal lost to Walsall 1-2. Ian Allinson made his debut after moving from Colchester United in October. Alan Sunderland made his final appearance before moving to Ipswich Town in February 1984. The defeat was effectively the last straw in Terry Neill’s managerial reign.
29 November 1998: “Perhaps we gave our fans too much by winning the Double. Once you’ve eaten caviar, it is difficult to go back to sausages.” Arsène Wenger on this day.
29 November 2006 After a fine September/October which included five consecutive wins, the 2-1 defeat to Fulham made it 1 win, 2 draws and 3 defeats in last six , after which a small group in the crowd declared Song was not fit to wear the shirt
29 November 2009: Arsenal lost 0-3 at home to Chelsea, having lost 0-1 to Sunderland the previous week. Curiously the next two defeats were in consecutive matches in January, and then it happened for the fourth time – two consecutive defeats in April.
29 November 2011: Arsenal went out of league cup 0-1 to Man City. Arsenal played Man C three times in the season, all ended 1-0, twice to Man C and once to Arsenal.
The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Arsenal in the summer of 1918. The new league planned as the end of the war approaches.
Special feature:
Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.
A full index of the various series of articles on this site appears on the home page.