The series “Henry Norris at the Arsenal” is now complete.
The index to all the articles can be found at Henry Norris at the Arsenal. The final article just published is Henry Norris at the Arsenal: 1928 to the end.
We are now working on adding to the articles information that has come to light since writing the articles, and preparing a more concise edition for publication as a book.
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.
An index of all our main series can be found on the home page.
The anniversary files: our headline today comes 1902, 1917, 1923, 2001, 2012
17 November 1902: Woolwich Arsenal 2 Tottenham 1. London League Premier Division. The result saw Arsenal firmly in place at the top of the league after five straight victories.
17 November 1914: Ernie Collett was born on 17 November 1914 in Sheffield. He joined Arsenal in April 1933 and won the Football Combination six times with the team in the 1930s, as well as playing 20 league games from 1933 onwards.
17 November 1917: Arsenal’s severe wartime decline in form was further confirmed with the home defeat to Tottenham by a single goal to nil. The only respite from the gloom was that the crowd was slightly up, at 9000.
17 November 1919: The Arsenal Football and Athletic Company Limited published its annual report for its AGM. Loan to the club from Henry Norris and William Hall: £17264 (getting on for £1m today) while owing to Humphreys Ltd for building the stand: £16,918 (again getting on for £1m).
17 November 1923: The away game to Tottenham in the previous season had led to an FA enquiry. With the clubs just 2 points apart this time 50,000 turned up at Highbury but the fireworks were now missing, and the game ended 1-1, Townrow scoring.
17 November 1961: Eddie Clamp signed from Wolverhampton for £34,500. He lasted for less than one season being transferred to Stoke in 1962 having played 22 league games and two FA Cup games.
17 November 1969: Arsenal beat Wimbledon 2-0 to win London Challenge Cup. Arsenal appeared in the final 16 times, winning the competition 11 times. This was Arsenal’s last appearance in the final.
17 November 1973: Only 38,677 came to Highbury to see a goalless draw with Chelsea, a general admission that the glory days at the start of the decade were over.
17 November 1979: Arsenal, beat Everton 2-0 with a crowd of 33,450. Vaessen kept his place, as did Devine and Price. Stapleton volleyed home the first and Brady produced an astonishing killer pass for Stapleton to score again and finish the match.
17 November 1980: Pat Rice moved to Watford for £8000 after 391 league games six appearances as a sub and 12 goals. According to Wiki “After making a recovery from cancer in March 2014 he returned to The Emirates at half-time during an FA Cup game against Everton, making a joke about Spurs. The Gunners went on to win the game 2–0.”
17 November 1984: Arsenal 1 QPR 0. Tony Adams started his first long series of games as Arsenal gained their first win in five attempts.
17 November 1990: The deduction of two points from Arsenal following the Man U game appeared in the league table for the first time.
17 November 1993: Ian Wright scored four goals for England in a World Cup match v San Marino.
17 November 2001: Tottenham 1 Arsenal 1. League match 12 of the third Double season. Pirès put Arsenal ahead on 81 minutes but Tottenham equalised in the fourth minute of injury time.
17 November 2004: George Curtis died. Having played for Arsenal, he went to Southampton in 1947 and gained the nickname “Twinkletoes”, and then moved to Valenciennes in France in August 1952. He later followed up his wartime Indian connections by coaching the Indian Olympic squad of 1948 before moving to be Chelmsford City’s player-coach, later coaching Sunderland, Brighton, Cambridge University, Hastings, Stevenage Town, Hull City, San Diego Toros, and Rosenborg in Norway, the Norwegian national team and finally in Qatar.
17 November 2009 Jay Emmanuel-Thomas loan to Blackpool ended. It was his first of three loans while at Arsenal, after which he played for Ipswich, Bristol City and QPR, for whom he scored three goals in his first six games in 2015.
17 November 2012: After defeat to Man U and home draw with Fulham, Arsenal beat Tottenham 5-2. The goals came from Mertesacker, Podolski, Giroud, Cazorla and Walcott.