Latest article from the current series: Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Chaos at the Arsenal. The dramatic and bizarre story of February 1927.
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 index to the current historical series on this site can be found at Henry Norris at the Arsenal. An index of all our main series can be found on the home page.
Our headline today comes from 2001.
14 October 1893: Arsenal’s record FA Cup score of all time came in their first FA Cup match as a league club, beating Ashford 12-0. See also this article for the full cup run.
14 October 1903: Alex “Sandy” Main made his final appearance as a centre forward before on 1 November suddenly turning up as a centre half for a run of six games with Arsenal winning five of the run.
14 October 1913: Britain’s worst ever pit disaster. 439 miners died in the Senghenydd Colliery Disaster.
14 October 1915: British troops used poison gas on the battlefield for the first time.
14 October 1922: Arsenal lost 0-7 to West Bromwich, as Henry White faded away and Arsenal started a run of 8 without a win. It was the second time Arsenal lost 0-7 in the first division – the first being 2 October 1909.
14 October 1925: Arsenal played their third game in five days: a friendly away to Lincoln of the 3rd Division North; and lost 3-0 in front of 4,000 people. It was mostly Arsenal reserves but with Lewis in goal and John at left back, as Chapman seemed to be trying out a new formation to cope with the new offside rule
14 October 1933: Arsenal beat Newcastle 3-0 but injuries meant that only two players had played all 10 of the opening league games and now Jack sustained a long term injury and would not play again until 24 February. Birkett, Bowden and an OG gave Arsenal the win.
14 October 1964: Arsenal beat Corinthian Casuals in the Sheriff of London Shield 7-0
14 October 1972: Arsenal 1 Ipswich Town 0 with 34,196 in the ground, and George Graham scoring. Armstrong was injured (Marinello taking over) and Simpson was replaced Roberts. Next month Roberts was replaced by Blockley. Barnett was in goal with Wilson injured. The Double team was vanishing fast.
14 October 1978: Wolverhampton 1 Arsenal 0, 19,664 in the crowd. The team seemed to be made up of “almost” players: Devine, Harvey, Vaessen, Kosima, Heeley, Stead, and later McDermott, Brignall… the names came and went with only Walford looking like he might be there for the long haul.
14 October 1984: A Bob Wilson XI played St Albans in a friendly and drew 4-4
14 October 1997: Jason Crowe who played 3 times for England’s under 20s, came on as a sub and was sent off 33 seconds into his debut in a league cup which ended Arsenal 4 Birmingham 1. In the same game Jehad Muntasser came on two minutes before the end, and was transferred soon after, giving him the shortest ever Arsenal career. Crowe went on loan to Palace, moving on to Portsmouth, Grimsby, Northampton and other clubs before closing his career at Corby Town in 2013. Muntasser played in Serie B and C in Italy and became a major force in helping children affected by the 2011 Libyan revolution. Other débutantes in the game were Manninger, Upson, Vernazza, and Mendez.
14 October 2001: Referee Taylor, the man who accused Mr Wenger of assault in the tunnel and had him banned for 12 matches earlier in the year (the ban later being overturned on appeal) was himself charged with misconduct for insulting comments to Notts County’s Sean Farrell during the game against Wigan
