The Arsenal Anniversary Files
Our headline story today comes from 2003.
Latest article published by the Arsenal History Society
Oct 1924. The press attack Knighton (wrongly), an Arsenal star is born, and changing the offside law
Below 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.
You can find an index to all the anniversary files in the Pages section on the right… we’ve changed the home page around a bit to make it more readable.
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25 July 1883: Joseph Lievesley born. He played in goal for Poolsbrook United, and Sheffield United and was the unfortunate keeper to be in goal in an FA Cup first round replay on 16 January 1908 in which Swindon Town beat Sheffield United. It was Swindon’s first win in the FA Cup proper for 20 years. He later played in goal for the last ever Woolwich Arsenal match.
25 July 1910: Woolwich Arsenal was formally taken over by Henry Norris and William Hall in a meeting at the Mortar Hotel, Woolwich. It was chaired by George Leavey, who was confirmed as chairman of the new limited company with Henry Norris as a director at this stage. The solicitor Arthur Gilbert, was installed as company secretary.
25 July 1921: On 25 July Arsenal published its annual report, showing itself at last back in profit, to the tune of £5434 – about £250,000 today – without taking into account the particular inflation that has occurred in football above and beyond in the country at large.
25 July 1945: Although the war was over and it had been announced that the FA Cup would resume in 1945/6 it was felt it would be impossible for football league clubs to get their teams back together with demobilisation still being a long way from completion. On this day the league divided into North and South divisions although there was opposition to the plan.
25 July 1972: Arsenal 2 Watford 0 (Kelly, George). Playing Watford as the first pre-season game was a tradition of the time as Arsenal shared training facilities with Watford. It was the first of four matches before the start of the campaign.
25 July 1983: John Lukic signed for the first time. He transferred to Arsenal for £75,000 as a replacement for Pat Jennings and stayed at Arsenal until 1990 returning in 1996
25 July 1987: Arsenal beat Morton 1-0 in Nigel Winterburn’s first game. He went on to play 440 league games for Arsenal.
25 July 1988: Steve Williams left Arsenal for Luton Town. He was replaced in the team by Michael Thomas.
25 July 1992: First game for John Jensen and Ian Selley in friendly v Byafossen. Selly showed a lot of promise, but when he suffered a broken leg it affected his subsequent game and he spent his later career playing in non-league football.
25 July 1998: David Grondin signed from St Etienne. He made one Premier League, two League Cup and one UEFA Champions League appearance before going on loan to Cannes Beveren and Dunfermline Athletic for whom he finally signed.
25 July 1998: Double winners Arsenal drew 1-1 away to Luton, making it two draws and one defeat in the first three pre-season games.
25 July 2003: Jens Lehmann signed from Borussia Dortmund for £1.5m. He went on to become the only goalkeeper ever in the top division to go a whole league season undefeated.
25 July 2003: Arsenal beat Austria Wien 2-0 to record their first pre-season win after a defeat and two draws. Bergkamp and Jeffers scored the goals.
25 July 2012: Pedro Botelho transferred to Atlético Paranaense. He never played a league game for Arsenal but went on five separate loan deals after signing in 2007, prior to this transfer.
25 July 2015: Arsenal beat Lyon 6-0 in the Emirates Cup with goals from Giroud, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Iwobi, Ramsey, Ozil and Cazorla. This was part of the run in which the club won every pre-season game
