The Arsenal Anniversary Files
Today’s headline anniversaries come from 1925.
Latest article published by the Arsenal History Society
April 1925: the end is nigh; Arsenal escape, experiments continue, a new dawn approaches
Coming up shortly: Signing Chapman
Below are the Arsenal (and for historical context, 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 monthly Anniversary files can be found in the right column of this site under “Pages”
The current historical series on this site is Henry Norris at the Arsenal. An index of all our main series can be found on the home page.
16 August 1912. Ted Drake born. He started at Winchester City, and then went on to Southampton, Herbert Chapman quickly spotted him, but at first could not convince him to move. Drake was eventually signed in March 1934 for a fee of £6,500.
16 August 1920: Athletic News reported that several clubs within London were seeking to register the ex Rangers player who won the league with them, Dr James Paterson. He chose Arsenal as his brother-in-law worked there, and later Leslie Knighton, Arsenal’s manager, stated he was “reduced to playing the brother-in-law of the club’s physio.”
16 August 1925: Arsenal FC finally bought Highbury Stadium – which until that point had been leased. It meant that Sir Henry Norris was no longer under an obligation to return the ground to its previous state at the end of the lease.
16 August 1927: First reported use of numbers on players backs, over a year before Arsenal tried it out. Arsenal worked hard to popularise numbering, but didn’t invent it.
16 August 1936: The end of the Berlin Olympics in which Britain entered an amateur football team including Bernard Joy
16 August 1975: David O’Leary made his league debut for Arsenal – he went on to play 558 league games.
16 August 1975: The rapid decline of Mee’s ability is plain to see as Arsenal opened a new season with a 0-0 away to Burnley and went on to achieve just one win in the first ten league games.
16 August 1978: John Matthews sold to Sheffield United. He had played 43 league games for Arsenal but went on to over 100 games for Sheffield Utd before moving on to Mansfield.
16 August 1980. Kenny Sampson played for the first time for Arsenal v WBA and went on to play every game that season. Arsenal won 1-0 with Stapleton scoring.
16 August 1981: Steve Gatting played his last game for the first team v Olympiacos in a friendly. He moved to Brighton for whom he played over 300 league games before finishing his playing career at Charlton.
16 August 2008: Justin Hoyte signed for Middlesbrough from Arsenal. He had played 68 league games for Arsenal and went on to play 142 times for Middlesbrough before moving on to Millwall.
16 August 2008: Arsenal started the season with 1-0 win over West Brom, with Nasri getting the first goal of the new season on his debut.
16 August 2011: Emmanuel Eboué joined Galatasaray for a fee of £4m. He had played 132 league games for Arsenal before leaving, having previously played 70 games for Beveren.
16 August 2012: Jack Wilshere was given the number 10 shirt and said “Getting the No. 10 shirt again at the club means so much to me…It has a special place for all attacking or creative players. I feel proud to wear it now after some real club legends have worn it, such as Dennis Bergkamp.”
16 August 2012: Kyle Bartley sold to Swansea for £1m. In July 2014 he was given a further three year contract.
16 August 2013: Wellington Silva loaned to Real Murcia for the season. He played 38 games for them and scored 3 goals, before moving on to Almería for 2014/15.
