Norris knighted, Wright sacked, English teams banned, Bould signed

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.


 

13 June 1910: Woolwich Arsenal came to within five minutes of extinction at the AGM of the Football League, as the League executive turned down the idea of Arsenal merging with Fulham and playing in the first division.  See also here; and again here.  For a detailed account of the month’s proceedings see here.

13 June 1917: Henry Norris attended Buckingham Palace to be knighted by King George V in the midst of the first ever daytime bombing raid over London!

13 June 1966: Billy Wright finally resigned.  He was the first Arsenal manager since Chapman who was appointed to the club without having had a previous link with Arsenal and was by and large an unmitigated disaster.

13 June 1980: Having signed the day before, Clive Allen at the age of 19 was now heralded as the most expensive teenager in Europe in joining Arsenal from Queens Park Rangers for £1,250,000 deal.

13 June 1983: John Devine joined Norwich on a free transfer having been out of the side with a long-term injury.  He had played 112 league games for Arsenal and continued playing for another eight years.

13 June 1985: Fifa’s ban on all English teams playing overseas following the Heysel riot.   This was subsequently modified to allow friendly matches by English teams.

13 June 1988: Steve Bould signed for Arsenal for £390,000.  He had played 183 games for Stoke City and nine on loan with Torquay.  Both Arsenal and Everton made offers. He made the right choice.

13 June 2008: Aaron Ramsey signed from Cardiff.  Both Man U and Arsenal bid for him, but he chose Arsenal undoubtedly in part because of the connection between Arsenal and Cardiff via Terry Burton.

13 June 2014: After rejecting the offer of a new contract Bacary Sagna moved to Manchester City on a free transfer.  He had played 213 league games for Arsenal in a seven year spell, but made only a handful of appearances for Man C.

13 June 2014: It was said in some sources that Arsenal sold Chelsea their rights to the re-signing of Cesc Fabregas to Chelsea for approx £5.6m.   Arsene Wenger later reported that he had no contact with Fabregas at this time.




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

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