Below are the Arsenal (and for historical context, occasionally one or two non-Arsenal) anniversaries for today taken from the files of over 6000 Arsenal anniversaries which appear on the Arsenal History Society website. An index to all 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 also be found on the home page.
Our headline today comes from 1978.
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.
The anniversaries…
25 November 1893: Woolwich Arsenal’s record crowd to date – 20,000 – turned up for the FA Cup tie against local rivals Millwall Athletic. See also this review of crowds that season. Arsenal 3 Millwall Athletic 2.
25 November 1911: The impact of cost cutting on Arsenal was revealed in full by the result Blackburn 4 Arsenal 0. And it was to get worse because exactly one month on from this game Tottenham beat Arsenal 5-0.
25 November 1916: How little the public in some quarters cared about wartime football was shown with a crowd of just 1500 for Fulham 2 Arsenal 0. Arsenal could still get 8000 for a game, but that enthusiasm was clearly not shared everywhere.
25 November 1922: Last game for Arthur Hutchins – a 2-3 home defeat to Sunderland. He moved on to Charlton of Division 3 South on a free transfer in July 1923, having played 108 games in total and scoring one goal. He stayed with Charlton for three seasons and then retired for football, but we have no details of his later life.
25 November 1930: Cecil Paine, a pathologist at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, cured an eye infection in a patient using penicillin. It was the first time it had ever been done.
25 November 1951: Willie Young born. He started out with Aberdeen, before going to Tottenham. From there he moved on to Arsenal. His first game for Arsenal was on 5 March 1977
25 November 1972: Derby 5 Arsenal 0. Arsenal had lost by the same score to Stoke City in the previous Double winning season, and did it again in 1973/4 losing 0-5 to Sheffield Utd.
25 November 1978: Coventry 1 Arsenal 1. 26,786 in the crowd. Coventry were described in the Sunday Times living “as dangerously as a chain smoking petrol pump attendant.” (Remember them?) Arsenal were 5th, nine points behind the leaders with one game in hand – and the club was coping without Macdonald.
25 November 1980: Arsenal 0 Celtic 0, Sammy Nelson’s testimonial, Raphael Meade and Chris Whyte made their debuts.
25 November 1984: An injury to Pat Jennings heralded a decline in Arsenal’s fortune after a table topping start. It turned out to be Jennings last game as Arsenal lost 2-1 to Sheffield Wednesday.
25 November 1994: Paul Merson admitted to multiple addictions. Arsenal continued to pay him although he left football to address his issues not returning until 1 February 1995. His honesty and bravery in facing the media earned him significant acclaim but he lost a lot of this goodwill following his later TV attacks on Arsenal.
25 November 1998: 73,707 attend the home defeat 0-1 to Lens at Wembley
25 November 1999: Arsenal 3 Nantes 0 in the Uefa Cup, en route to the final. Overmars, Winterburn and Bergkamp scored – the return match ended 3-3 with Overmars once again scoring in Europe.
25 November 2001: Arsenal 3 Man U 1. League match 13 of the third Double season. The game is best remembered for the errors by Man U goalkeeper Barthez. Ljungberg equalised an early Man U strike and Henry tormented Barthez with two in the last ten minutes of the match.
25 November 2003: Internazionale 1 Arsenal 5 in the Champions League. Henry (2) Ljungberg, Edu, Pires each scored in one of the most memorable of Arsenal nights in Europe.
25 November 2008: Arsenal beat Dinamo Kiev to secure passage to the knock out stages of the Champions League.
25 November 2009: Death of Mike Tiddy. In later life after Arsenal he worked with his local football clubs in Cornwall, was a Methodist lay preacher, and also was also very active on his local council.
25 November 2010: Aaron Ramsey was sent on loan to Nottingham Forest for his recovery after his horrific injury. The deal lasted until 3 January 2011
