What was Gus Caeser’s first match and what was the score? (You’ll never guess!)

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…

21 December 1889: Arsenal beat Cray Wanderers 2-0 on their way to the club’s first ever trophy, the Kent Junior cup.

21 December 1903: Arsenal beat Bristol Rovers in cup 2nd replay at Tottenham in the Final Supplementary Round – effectively the fifth round of the cup before the first division teams joined the competition in January.

21 December 1907: Death of Bob Buchanan  aged just 40 at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington.  He had played for two seasons for Woolwich Arsenal, and twice been a Southern League title winner with Southampton St Mary’s.

21 December 1929: Alf Haynes’ first league match – a 1-0 away defeat to Liverpool.  He went on to play 13 games that season – but it turned out to be his most prolific period with Arsenal.

21 December 1956: Jack Crayston became full time manager after 2 months as caretaker.  He had just managed five games undefeated, and went on to a further five without loss, winning his first match as permanent manager the following day 4-0 against Birmingham.

21 December 1963: Death of Andrew Kennedy.  In January 1928 Andy Kennedy was sold to Everton.  However despite over 100 games for Arsenal, Everton played him only once, and he moved to Tranmere, where he stayed for two seasons, retiring in 1930.  Beyond that we have no information on his life.

21 December 1985.  Gus Caesar played his first League match, a 1-0 away win of Man U.   He joined Arsenal in August 1982 becoming a pro in February 1984 playing in the heart of the defence or full back.

21 December 1991: Arsenal 4 Everton 2.  All four goals by Ian Wright who also scored two hat tricks in the season as he went on to score 24 goals in 30 league games through the season.

21 December 1996: Andy Linighan’s final game away to Nottingham Forest.  He had played 118 league games and scored 5 goals.

21 December 2002: The Arsenal programme had Robert Pires on front cover in Emperor mode and he duly scored the second as Arsenal beat Middlesbrough 2-0 to stay top of the league, two ahead of Chelsea, four ahead of Man U and seven ahead of Newcastle in fourth.

The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal

Norris at the Arsenal: The first suggestion that Arsenal could be elected to the 1st division.

Yesterday’s anniversaries: 

Bolton: as good a team as we have played. Who said it, and when?

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.

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