These are the anniversary files of Arsenal FC
Today’s headline anniversaries come from 1991
Latest article published by the Arsenal History Society
Feb 1926: Injuries, shock team selections, Arsenal slip up
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.
7 September 1896 Arsenal 3 Rushden Town 2. The first ever United League match for Woolwich Arsenal. The club entered its first team into the 8 team league with the matches arranged to bring some income in addition to that of Football League games.
7 September 1889: Charlie Booth’s first league game for Wolverhampton prior to moving to Arsenal. In total he played 73 games and scored 10 goals before moving to Woolwich Arsenal in 1892 – the year before the club joined the League, and played in Arsenal’s first ever match.
7 September 1901: Arsenal beat Leicester Fosse 2-0 It was the first time ever that Arsenal had won their first two matches of the season! Tommy Briercliffe scored his first goal for the club.
7 September 1912: Having drawn their opening game, Woolwich Arsenal travelled to Liverpool for their next fixture having never won at Anfield, drawing two and losing seven, with Liverpool winning the corresponding fixture 4-1 the previous season. This year it was 0-3.
7 September 1918: The start of the fourth and last wartime league of the era. Arsenal away to QPR but with victory on the battlefield edging closer there was already talk of how football would be reformed once peace was restored.
7 September 1925: This was the season when the offside rule was changed to increase goal scoring, but the result Leicester City 0 Arsenal 1 meant Arsenal had scored four goals in four games, and the explosion of goals was not happening.
7 September 1949 WBA 1 Arsenal 2. Freddie Cox’s first match with the goals scored by Lewis and Barnes. Freddie went on to play 32 of the remaining games of the season.
7 September 1945: Peter Storey born. He was a member of the Arsenal youth team in 1961/2 and then moved into the first team making his debut in 1965 and going on to play 391 league games for Arsenal.
7 September 1974: After five games Arsenal were 14th with just two wins and three defeats from the opening games. And on this day it got worse: Arsenal 0 Burnley 1. Only 23,586 showed up and now we knew we were in trouble.
7 September 1991: Arsenal 1 Coventry 2. Lee Dixon from ten yards out from his own goal near the touch line, punted the ball back to Seaman but it went beyond his grasping hand. It caused Arsenal’s first home defeat in a year and a half.
7 September 1996: Final match of Stewart Houston’s reign as temporary manager; 2-2 draw with Aston Villa. He had managed six games while waiting for Arsène Wenger to arrive, but won just two of them.
7 September 2007: Arsène Wenger signed a contract extension rumoured to be costing the club £4m a year – a figure on a par with many of the players in his teams.
7 September 2012: Chuks Aneke loaned to Crewe Alexandra for whom over two seasons he played 70 games scoring 20 goals. In 2014, he signed permanently for Zulte Waregem.
