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September 1926: the great march forwards comes to a puzzling halt
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” on the right of the screen.
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.
Today’s headline comes from 1897
22 September 1894: The start of the first great league run – 7 games without defeat starting this day by beating Bury 4-2 at the start of Arsenal’s second league season.
22 September 1891: Charlie Buchan born in Plumstead. He signed for Arsenal in 1909, but an argument with George Morrell relating to his expenses while he was training to be a teacher caused him to decline a professional contract, and he moved on to Northfleet United and then Leyton in the Southern League before being offered a contract by Sunderland Buchan’s first signing for Arsenal is here.
22 September 1897: Woolwich Arsenal were playing Loughborough in a United League game when the game was abandoned with 8½ minutes remaining – probably due to failing light. It was agreed that the remaining minutes be played on 22 December 1897 following the Football League fixture between the two clubs. Ten of the eleven players that played in the first fixture played in the second fixture, with Paddy Farrell playing in place of Frank McAvoy making Farrell Arsenal’s first substitute in a league match.
22 September 1917: Arsenal were “away” to Tottenham but because Tottenham played their home matches at Highbury during the war Tottenham chose to play this game at Clapton’s ground. 10,000 turned up and Arsenal won 2-1, making it four wins in a row.
22 September 1919: Arsenal played in the first round of the London FA Challenge Cup, against amateur side Dulwich Hamlet. Dulwich lost 2-0 but this season won the Isthmian League for the first time and also won the highly regarded Amateur Cup. On this occasion however they lost 2-0, with just 2000 inside Highbury.
22 September 1923: After four defeats in the opening four games Arsenal made it three wins in a row, winning 1-2 away to Birmingham City. Tom Whittaker got a rare chance to play and Billy Blythe, came in for his first game of this campaign at inside left. He was the 20th player to be used in seven league games.
22 September 1954: Dave Bowen made his international debut. He played 19 times for Wales and managed the principality from 1964 to 1974.
22 September 1970: Manu Petit born. He began playing football at ES Arques-la-Bataille before being signed by Arsène Wenger AS Monaco at the age of 18. He went on to play 222 league games for Monaco.
22 September 1978: Chris Whyte given new contract. He played 90 league games between 1978 and 1986 plus 13 on loan to Crystal Palace. He was sold to New York Express, one of four US indoor football teams that Chris played for before ending his playing career in Finland in 2000.
22 September 1992: Cup Match 1 of Arsenal’s Cup Double season. Arsenal 1 Millwall 1 in the League Cup.
22 September 1999: For only the ninth time Arsenal played a home match in front of 70,000+. The match, at Wembley, was against AEK Athens and Arsenal won 3-1. Ljungberg, Henry and Suker scored.
22 September 2001: League match 6 of the third Double season. Arsenal 1 Bolton 1, with Jeffers scoring. That made it three wins, two draws and one defeat, and left Arsenal in second place in the league.
22 September 2007: Adebayor scored three as Arsenal beat Derby 5-0 during a run of seven consecutive wins. Arsenal repeated the trouncing by winning 6-2 against the same club in the return match on April 28. See also here.
22 September 2008: Johan Djourou signed a new contract with Arsenal. In all he stayed ten years at Arsenal playing 86 league matches before moving to Hanover.
22 September 2012: Park became the first Korean to score in the Spanish league, but despite scoring 25 goals in 91 games for Monaco he never attained such scoring ability again.
