Latest article from the current series: Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Sir Henry Norris prepares to leave Arsenal, his job complete. May/June 1927
Special features
Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.
Meeting a player you have admired can be such a very strange experience.: Brian Talbot comes to the Arsenal Independent Supporters AGM.
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.
The anniversary files: our headline today comes from 1998 – the manager, Mr Wenger.
31 October 1898: Arsenal beat Brighton United 5-2 in the United League. Brighton Utd is a club better recorded in pictures than text as one of the leading lights in the club was him a photographer who photographed everything to do with the club.
31 October 1918: The armistice with Turkey was declared as the Allies met at Versailles to discuss the conditions that would be imposed on Germany and Austria-Hungary. The war had come to an end.
31 October 1921: Arsenal won their second round match in the London FA Challenge Cup, away to QPR of Division III (South) 2-0 in front of 5000 fans. Also on this day there was a censure motion on the government claiming the government, elected as Unionists were breaking the union up by splitting Ireland into two. The government won, which was fortunate as the Irish Treaty Conference had opened on 11 October.
31 October 1925: So far Chapman’s first season at Arsenal had resulted among other things in a 7-0 defeat and victories of 4-0, 5-0, and 4-0, and on this day Arsenal beat Everton 4-1. See also here.
31 October 1932: Gillespie Road tube station became Arsenal (Highbury Hill). The Highbury Hill element of the name was later dropped as the station adopted its long term name of Arsenal. (see “Chapman’s achievements“). Many sources wrongly quote this as happening in November 1932.
31 October 1932: Racing Club de Paris 2 Arsenal 5 in the series of games to mark Armistice Day. Four goals from Cliff Bastin
31 October 1970: Arsenal 2 Derby 0. Goals from Kelly and Radford. League match 15 of the first Double season in front of 43,013. It was one of four successive games in which Radford scored.
31 October 1981: Chris Whyte’s last game: a 1-0 home win against Coventry City; he moved to Nottingham Forest for £50,000 but injuries dogged the rest of his career
31 October 1984: Arsenal lost 2-3 to Oxford Utd in the Milk Cup 3rd round. Rix and Allinson scored in front of 14,393. It was sandwiched between league defeats to West Ham and Man U.
31 October 1998: Arsenal started a run in which they scored just three goals in six games with all three scored by Anelka. The sequence yielded two wins, three draws and one defeat. The manager was of course Mr Wenger, whose free flowing attacking style didn’t seem to have kicked in yet.
31 October 2000, George Armstrong suffered a brain haemorrhage while running a training session. He did not recover and tragically died 1 November aged just 56.
31 October 2009: Arsenal made it 3 league wins and a draw beating Tottenham 3-0 at home with a record Emirates crowd (at the time) of 60,103. Van Persie (2) and Fabregas got the goals.
31 October 1981: Chris Whyte’s last game: a 1-0 home win against Coventry City; he moved to Nottingham Forest for £50,000 but injuries dogged the rest of his career
Chris left in 1986 on a free transfer. Don’t think he ever played for Forest.