Below are the anniversaries of Arsenal for 28 March
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28 March 1887: Royal Arsenal ended Season 1 with an away defeat to 2nd Rifle Brigade. During this short season the club won 7, drew 1 and lost 2. Arsenal scored 36 and conceded 8.
28 March 1896: Millwall 1 Arsenal 3. This was the 18th game between the two great rivals either side of the Thames since February 1888, and Arsenal had not lost a single game.
28 March 1898: Rushden Town 2 Woolwich Arsenal 3 in the United League. Primarily a Midland League team Rushden nevertheless were able to compete on an equal footing at this time with Arsenal.
28 March 1903: Last game for Duncan McNichol. He had played 101 league games for Woolwich Arsenal, and scored one goal before moving on to Aberdeen in October for whom he became captain.
28 March 1910: Despite the low positions of both clubs Chelsea v Arsenal was watched by 40,000. Arsenal won 0-1 with McGibbon scoring in his first match. McGibbon scores in his first match. The day the modern Arsenal was born. The 3rd of 3 matches in 4 days.
28 March 1914: Birmingham 2 Arsenal 0. Start of four match run without a win which cost the club promotion in its first year back in the second division. This match was also almost certainly the source for the picture of the away kit that was falsely used to “prove” that Arsenal wore blackcurrant in the first season at Highbury.
28 March 1928: Leonard Thompson made his Arsenal debut in a 2–0 defeat by Portsmouth. It was his only game for Arsenal in the 1927/28 season and came as Jack Lambert moved from the inside left position that he had played in for the previous six games to inside right, which in turn meant Charlie Buchan moved from inside right to centre forward for one match.
28 March 1931: Arsenal won 5-2 at Middlesbrough on their way to first title while Herbie Roberts won his only cap for England. Lambert got a hattrick and Jack two.
28 March 1964: Arsenal 1 Sheffield U 3. The 7th game without a win. Only 21,000 turned up to see Geoff Strong score his 26th and last goal of the season in 38 games.
28 March 1967: In a return to the approach of earlier times Arsenal played Liverpool twice over consecutive days (27/28th). Both were draws. George Graham scored the goal in this match – one of 11 goals in the season.
28 March 1970: Arsenal 2 Wolverhampton 2, four without defeat after a dreadful winter, in which the club went 10 without a win. Graham got both goals.
28 March 1972: Arsenal 1 Southampton 0. The start of nine unbeaten but the three successive defeats in March made the championship impossible. Marinello’s winner was his one and only goal of the season.
28 March 1980: Everton 0 Arsenal 1 made it six wins and two draws in the last eight. Gatting scored the winner and like Marinello eight years earlier to the day it was his only goal of the season.
28 March 1981: Arsenal 1 Liverpool 0. The start of an eight match run to the end of the season in which Arsenal won seven. Alan Sunderland scored.
28 March 1986: Rhys Wilmot made his first team debut. He went on to make a total of eight appearances for Arsenal over a nine year period, during which time he made over 70 appearances for clubs that he went to on loan.
28 March 1987: Arsenal 0 Everton 1. This was the sixth (and thankfully last) consecutive league match in which Arsenal failed to score – the longest run in the club’s league history.
28 March 1998: Arsenal 1 Sheffield W 0. Manninger was given the Carling Player of the month award and then promptly dropped – as Seaman returned from injury. Arsenal second after 29th league game of the 2nd Double season. The second double: part 1, part 2, part 3.
28 March 2004: Arsenal 1 Man U 1. Ferguson announced that he was sure Arsenal would win the league but later added that Arsenal would not do it unbeaten, referring back to his experience at Rangers where the unbeaten side lost the last match of the season. This was the first draw after nine successive wins in the 30th league game of the unbeaten season.
28 March 2006: Arsenal 2 Juventus 0. Champions League quarter final. Pires rather surprisingly tackled Vieira and as a result of the subsequent move Arsenal scored. Pires later admitted he had never tackled Vieira before, even in training.
28 March 2013: Arsenal announced that Diaby has been injured in training and would be out for nine months. On 28 July 2015 Diaby moved to Marseille but sadly a further injury on 27 November 2015 put him out of action once more.
why did bruce rioch get sacked so hurriedly???
Several reasons I think, but I don’t have any inside information. Despite having money spent on the team with Bergkamp and Platt we struggled to make a European spot (remembering there were no mega spenders to beat at this time) and he had a reputation of being obdurate. And Wenger had been to Arsenal before that and got to know Dean who was regularly in touch with him. We know Wenger was in touch with Henry and felt he could bring Henry to Arsenal within a year or so, and that he realised that Vieira was available, so I suspect he convinced the board that he could bring in players the likes of which had not been seen before.
So, Rioch brings in established internationals such as Bergkamp & Platt but Wenger is preferred because he can bring in Vieira (20 years old) and Henry (19 years old) who were barely known at that time. Really?
I am not sure there is evidence that Rioch himself engineered the introduction of Bergkamp and Platt, indeed I’ve never seen that at all. Such evidence as I have seen suggests most strongly that it was Dein who engineered those transfers and presented them to Rioch.
I think a strong case can be made for the fact that Rioch did not have the contacts to bring such players to Arsenal, not least because his previous clubs were Middlesbrough, Millwall and Bolton. What’s more Rioch did not have the rich knowledge of European players who showed great talent but were not being utilised.
Also Henry had played for Wenger at Monaco, and Wenger, as I understand it, spoke eloquently to the board at Arsenal about his ability to bring in such players.
I think also the subsequent career of Rioch shows that he was very much out of his depth, as we can see by the fact that after Arsenal he moved on to be assistant manager at QPR, followed by Norwich, Wigan, Odense Boldklun and Aalborg BK.
So yes, “Really”.