The Arsenal Anniversary Files
Today’s headline anniversaries come from 1882
Latest article published by the Arsenal History Society
January 1926: Arsenal top of the league and winning in the Cup, Norris walking away
The next episode will be published later today.
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.
5 September 1882: Hotspur Football Club formed. While Arsenal (four years later) was very much the working men’s club forme by men from the munitions factories, Hotspur was formed for grammar-school boys from the Bible class at a local church.
5 September 1891: Gavin Crawford’s debut for Royal Arsenal and he is reputed to have been the first professional signed by the club. He played 83 senior games scoring 49 goals for Royal Arsenal 1891 to 1893 and went on to make 138 league appearances becoming the first man to reach 100 games for Arsenal.
5 September 1891: The first round of league matches in which penalties could be awarded after a change in the laws of the game. But neither here nor on the following weekend was any penalty given. However 65 goals were scored in the 15 games – an average of 4.33 goals a game before the first penalty was awarded on 14 September.
5 September 1896: Roston Bourke’s XI played against Reading at their first game at their new ground in Elm Park. Bourke was a referee with his own team who went on to write the Norseman column in the Islington Gazette after Arsenal moved to Highbury.
5 September 1903: Percy Sands’ first League game: Arsenal 3 Blackpool 0. He was a south Londoner, who trained as a teacher, signing for Arsenal from Cheltenham Town.
5 September 1908: Notts C 2 Arsenal 1. First game for David Greenaway. At the age of 19 he came south to London looking for work, and became one of George Morrell’s first recruits for the side.
5 September 1914: From the start of the season there was huge opposition to continuing the league in wartime, and the crowd of 8000 at Highbury for the second match of the campaign suggested the football going public were not impressed. Arsenal lost 0-1 to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
5 September 1921: After three straight defeats at the opening of the season, Arsenal won their first game, beating Preston 1-0. What made it all the more extraordinary was that Preston were unbeaten in their three games up to that point.
5 September 1931: Arsenal, the champions last season with a record number of points, drew 2-2 with Birmingham City meaning after 3 games Arsenal still did not have a win. Lambert and Hulme got the goals. The following day the Chancellor Philip Snowden announced salary cuts for all government staff, and reductions to unemployment benefit.
5 September 1934: Arsenal beat Blackburn 4-0. Drake got another two, Bowden and Bastin the others. It meant that in three games Arsenal had scored 15 goals
5 September 1964: The season had opened with two defeats, a draw and a win. But then on September 5 the result was Wolverhampton 0 Arsenal 1. This was followed by a draw and three more wins.
5 September 1970. Arsenal 2 Tottenham 0 to make it 3 wins 3 draws and a defeat. League match 7 of the first Double season. Armstrong got both goals. The return match was played on the last day of the season and won Arsenal the league.
5 September 1972: With Arsenal top of the league they turned to the League Cup, taking on Everton at Highbury and winning… 1-0. The low scores were getting to be a habit.
5 September 1977: Richard Wright born. He joined Ipswich Town as a trainee, and played more than 200 times for them between 1995 and 2001 before moving to Arsenal.
5 September 1991: With Steve Morrow loaned to Watford and Alan Miller loaned to WBA, Andy Cole went on loan to Fulham on this day. We were wondering if someone was going to come in… and then we found out….
5 September 1992: Wimbledon 3 Arsenal 2, the 3rd defeat in the first seven league games. Ian Wright got both Arsenal goals in a game played in front of 12,906 fans
Significant point… Woolwich arsenal. Never will be a North London club
Very difficult to understand any logic in that comment. Presumably you still see Millwall as a north London club, and Bournemouth as a club with a pitch at 90 degrees to the current pitch, Manchester City play at Ardwick… what a confusing life you must indeed lead.