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 2005.
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.
26 November 1887: Millwall Rovers 3 Royal Arsenal 0. This was the third game between the two clubs who became great rivals until Arsenal moved to Highbury.
26 November 1910: Matthew Shortt, played the first of his four games for Arsenal – all of which ended in defeat. On this date it was Arsenal 1 Newcastle 2, William Hall and Henry Norris were both at the Manor Ground where a prospectus for a new share issue in Woolwich Arsenal FC was given to everyone in the crowd inviting local people to buy back their club. See also here
26 November 1923: Arsenal played the London FA Challenge Cup semi-final against Millwall on Clapton’s ground but the fog descended in the second half and the match was abandoned with Arsenal 2-0 up.
26 November 1924: Herbert Lawson turned professional with Arsenal, ahead of his debut on 3 February 1926 as Chapman tried to find a replacement for Sid Hoar, whose injuries had stopped his progression.
26 November 1928, Sir Henry Norris dropped his legal action against the Daily Mail in order to continue discussion with the FA in which Sir Henry asked for changes to the report they had issued privately on the finances of Arsenal.
26 November 1932: Arsenal beat Middlesbrough 4-2 at Highbury, while Aston Villa who had just beaten Arsenal 5-3 were beaten 5-2 by lowly Man City. For Arsenal Coleman (2) Hulme and Jack obliged with the goals. Alex James was injured and Parkin got his first game of the season at number 10. Arsenal went back to top.
26 November 1955: Doug Lishman’s final senior game, a 0-1 home defeat to Burnley. He joined Nottm Forest and scored a hat-trick in the match that got Nottingham Forest promoted in 1956/7, but retired in the summer of 1957 to join his father-in law in a furniture retail business in Stoke on Trent.
26 November 1958: Danny Clapton’s only appearance for England
26 November 1969: Arsenal 3 Sporting Lisbon 0 in the Fairs Cup saw George Graham get two, Radford the third, and an improved crowd of 35,253 came to join in the fun.
26 November 1977: Arsenal 1 Derby County 3 rang the alarm bells. What was so worrying was not that Arsenal lost, but could have been 3-1 up by half time but instead it was 1-1 as Stapleton back headed to his keeper, only to find he wasn’t there. It then got worse and Arsenal looked a spent force.
26 November 1983: Final game for Lee Chapman after just 28 games, a 0-3 away defeat to Leicester. Fortunately Tony Woodcock found his goalscoring form and got 21 goals in 37 games to help haul Arsenal up to 6th. It was also the last game for Alan Sunderland
26 November 1994: Final game for Jimmy Carter. He managed only 25 games and two goals with Arsenal and did not play in any of the Cup finals. After the fall of Graham, Rioch loaned him to Oxford, before going to Portsmouth and then back to Millwall in 1998 where an injury curtailed his career.
26 November 1995: A 0-0 draw with Blackburn: the start of a period of one win in eight, during which Arsenal only scored eight and managed to have a 1-3 home defeat by Wimbledon.
26 November 2005: Henry scores 100th goal at Highbury against Blackburn. His goal came on half time with Fabregas and van Persie also scoring in a 3-0 win. It was Arsenal’s third successive win and made it five unbeaten, but sadly the run was not to continue.
