The Arsenal 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.
16 June 1917: The local newspaper in Fulham started a long running series of attacks on the Borough’s mayor, Henry Norris following the flooding of local sewers caused by a lack of repair (itself caused by a lack of manpower to carry out the repairs). The campaign continued for a staggering six years.
16 June 1934: Margate became Arsenal’s feeder club. With the school leaving age of 14 but league clubs prohibited from signing players until 17 the nursery idea allowed Arsenal to train youngsters as amateurs and monitor their development.
16 June 1982: Graham Rix and Kenny Sansom became the first Arsenal players to play for England in the final stages of the World Cup.
16 June 1986: Danny Clapton died aged just 51. He moved to Luton Town in September 1962 and lived (and for a while played football) in Sydney from 1963 to 1970 before returning to London to run a public house in Hackney.
16 June 1994: Lee Harper signed from Sittingbourne. He only played once for Arsenal before moving on to QPR. In his career he played over 100 times each for QPR, Northampton and Kettering.
16 June 2000: Lauren signed from Real Mallorca. He had already played for four pro clubs by the time he joined Arsenal, but it was Arsenal where he made his real mark, playing 159 league games.