The Anniversary Files
Here are the Arsenal (and occasionally one or two non-Arsenal) anniversaries for today taken from the complete files of over 6000 Arsenal anniversaries which appear on the Arsenal History Society website. An index to the Anniversary files can be found in the left column of this site under “Pages”
The current historical series on this site is Henry Norris at the Arsenal. An index of all our series can be found on the home page.
9 June 1984: John “Alex” Mackie died. He played for Portsmouth in two cup finals after leaving Arsenal, and later for Northampton, and Sittingbourne before retiring from football at the outbreak of war.
9 June 1986: Martin Keown sold to Aston Villa after George Graham decided that Keown was not good enough to play for Arsenal.
9 June 1993: Dixon and Wright played for England in their defeat by 2-0 to the USA in the US Cup.
9 June 1999: Fabián Caballero, who had been on loan to Arsenal from Cerro Porteño returned to his club before moving on to Sol de América He only played one league game for Arsenal, but in 2000 returned to the UK to play over 100 games for Dundee.
9 June 1999: Remi Garde announced his retirement. He went into management and later became manager of Lyon and subsequently Aston Villa.
9 June 2008: Alex Song signed new long term contract. He continued at Arsenal, but amidst rumours of a dispute with the management he was sold to Barcelona in 2012 having played 160 league games for Arsenal.
9 June 2008: Gary Lewin agreed to leave Arsenal as the head of their medical team to take up a place with the FA on 1 August. His cousin Colin Lewis took over at Arsenal.
The current series: Covering all aspects of the life and work of the man who rescued Arsenal from extinction, secured the club’s future by moving it to Highbury, and then brought in Herbert Chapman as manager, our current series of articles is on Henry Norris at the Arsenal. The articles thus far are here.
“Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” are both available on Kindle. Please see here for more details
I believe George Graham was reluctant to pay Martin Keown the terms he was looking for rather than not rating him. The fact he bought him back seven years later rather confirms that .