Here are the anniversaries, our headline comes from 1919: also the moment of Highbury’s largest crowd to date. Arsenal had previously been Dial Square, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich Arsenal and The Arsenal
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.
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.
6 December 1913: Arsenal 1 Leeds City 0 and Chapman’s first visit to Highbury. Before he was to become Arsenal’s manager, Leeds City would be ejected from the league and Chapman banned from football for life.
6 December 1916: The King asked Lloyd George to form a government in cooperation with Bonar Law. As a direct result the first Ministry of Labour was set up on 11 December.
6 December 1918: The London Combination decided to ignore the FA’s rules on player payment, and also decided to set up the London Combination Victory Cup – something that led to the first huge row between Arsenal and Fulham.
6 December 1919: 50,000 came to Highbury for the first time to see 1-1 draw with Chelsea. It was also the day on which the programme referred to the club on its cover for the first time simply as “Arsenal”.
6 October 1921: The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed giving independence to the Irish Free State but members of the legislature (Dáil) were required to swear an oath to the king and as republicans would not do this, so they never took their seats.
6 December 1923: The Conservatives held the Fulham parliamentary seat previously held by Sir Henry Norris. But the vote for the party had declined by 25% in just four years. Indeed by 1933 Labour had taken the seat, getting nearly 60% of the vote. It turns out the people were voting for Sir Henry, not the party.
6 December 1926: Responding to Sir Henry Norris’ attack on the FA for its treatment of Whittaker the Daily Express ran a piece stating the FA’s position, that Whittaker had been treated “handsomely” and claiming that it was the FA and who had been paying Whittaker’s wages from the date of the injury until the settlement, ignoring the fact Arsenal had taken him on as trainer of the reserve team.
6 December 1930: Arsenal v Grimsby abandoned due to fog. It was replayed on January 28th 1931 with the result Arsenal 9 Grimsby Town 1. Matches that were played on 6 Dec included Derby County 6 Chelsea 2 and Sunderland 6 Liverpool 5.
6 December 1955: Tony Woodcock born in Nottinghamshire. He started with Nottingham Forest in 1974, joining their first team in the 1976/7 season and working under Brian Clough he was a major force in the drive to win the League, League Cup and European Cup.
6 December 1978: Arsenal drew with Red Star Belgrade 1-1 draw, thus forcing Arsenal out of the Uefa Cup – their first venture into Europe in eight years.
6 December 1982 George Graham became manager of Millwall, at a time when they were bottom of Division 3. They avoided relegation that season and in 1984–85 they were promoted to the Second Division.
6 December 1997: Arsenal beat Newcastle U away 1-0 in a sequence in which the club won two out of eight but still went on to win the Double for the second time. (Game 17) The second double: part 1, part 2, part 3.
6 December 2003: Leicester 1 Arsenal 1. With no Henry, no Vieira, and Cole sent off for wild challenge Arsenal managed to secure a draw in the 15th league match of the unbeaten season.
6 December 2011: Olympiacos 3 Arsenal 1. Arsenal put out a much changed team and with Fabianski injured on 25 minutes, Mannone took over. Rosicky gave Arsenal the lead but Mannone had a difficult night thereafter.
6 December 2014: Stoke City scored three in the first half (including one in the fourth minute) and appeared to have scored a fourth before the ref changed his mind. Cazorla and Ramsey scored in the second half to leave it 3-2 to Stoke.
6 December 2016: Basel 1 Arsenal 4 in the Champions League. As a result of this and PSG’s results Arsenal won the group and on 12 December were drawn against Bayern Munich in the round of 16.
