The FA decide, no matter what happens, the players are responsible, not the club.

The Anniversaries …

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.   You will also find links to the month by month listing of anniversaries in the right hand column of this page.

Our headline comes from …. 1915.


The big series

“Henry Norris at the Arsenal” is now complete.  The index to all the articles can be found at Henry Norris at the Arsenal.   We are now  preparing a more concise edition for publication as a book.

Arsenal in the 1930s: the complete history.  The most detailed review and analysis of Arsenal in the 1930s ever published.  The full index is here.

Arsenal in the 1970s: the complete history.  Every game reviewed and analysed.  The full index is here.


The Anniversaries for Today

27 December 1897: Clement Ross Voysey, the man whose transfer to Arsenal was investigated twice by the FA, and whose whole career at Arsenal is shrouded in mystery and uncertainty, was born in New Cross.

27 December 1902: Arsenal started their record breaking 10 match unbeaten run with a 5-1 home defeat of Burnley.  Coleman (3), Briercliffe and Anderson scored in a match which ended a run of three consecutive defeats in which the club scored 2 and conceded 8.

27 December 1901: Walter Anderson signed from Sheffield Utd.  He went on to play 28 league games over two seasons before moving to Plymouth Argyle in 1903.

27 December 1904, Nottingham Forest 0 Woolwich Arsenal 3.  This was one of five games played in eight days, of which the club won two.  In the next three games Arsenal scored nil but conceded nine.

27 December 1909: Woolwich Arsenal 1 Liverpool 1.  This was the only point won in a run of five games which saw Arsenal sink perilously close to relegation.

27 December 1913: Arsenal beat Leicester Fosse 2-1 away to make it four wins in a row and lift the club to third place in the second division.

27 December 1915: The FA’s  hearing into match fixing by Man U and Liverpool found there had been a conspiracy by the players, but not by club officials.  As a result it was felt unreasonable to fine or deduct points from either club and there was no suggestion that the officials had a duty to be aware of what was happening.  The players were banned for life from playing League football in England. Enoch West protested his innocence, and subsequently sued the FA for libel.

27 December 1920: Arsenal drew 1-1 with Everton having beaten them away 4-2 on Christmas Day.  Arsenal stayed in 9th position in the league.

27 December 1921: Cardiff 4 Arsenal 3 Debuts for Billy Milne (who got the DCM in the first war and as an ARP warden in the second put out the fire when  Highbury was hit by an incendiary device) and Robert Turnbull (the man who saved the club from relegation in 1922/3 by scoring 20 goals).  The result made it six games without a win with Arsenal bottom of the league.  See also here

27 December 1924:  Preston 3 WHU 2 – meaning West Ham had lost three of their last five in the build up to their FA Cup tie with Arsenal.  The game is of interest as Knighton in his autobiography describe WHU as virtually unbeatable, thus “explaining” why he supposedly resorted to drugging the Arsenal team before the game.

27 December 1926: Cardiff City 2 Arsenal 0.  League debut for Horace Cope and Harold Peel – two Chapman signings who made only modest impacts. It was also the last match for James Ramsay who move to Kilmarnock on 30 December.  Arsenal had now won two of their last nine league games.  Chapman’s influence seemed to be waning.

27 December 1930:  Arsenal 7 Blackpool 1  With hatricks for Jack and Bain, and a goal from Bastin it was the fourth game of the season with five or more goals by Arsenal. It was also George Male’s first game for the first team.  Arsenal went on to score 5+ five more times.  On the same day Aston Villa beat Man U 7-0.

27 December 1932: Leeds 0 Arsenal 0. It was one of only two games all season in which Arsenal did not score.  Also Norman Sidey’s debut. He signed as an amateur from Nunhead of the Isthmian League in 1929 and turned pro in 1931.

27 December 1959: Arsenal beat Luton 1-0.  Four consecutive wins and an unbeaten streak of eight matches from this point on changed the whole outlook of the club in the league.

27 December 1969: Arsenal 0 Newcastle 0.  Jimmy Robertson’s final Arsenal game.  After 45 league starts for Arsenal he moved on to Ipswich in March 1970.

27 December 1971: Nottingham Forest 1 Arsenal 1.  It was Alan Ball’s debut for Arsenal, having been brought in from Everton to bolster Arsenal’s attempt to retain the FA Cup and League title won the previous year.

27 December 1972: George Graham sold to Man U for £120,000.  Having had the temerity to protest to Bertie Mee about being dropped to the bench he was one of the players to suffer Mee’s policy of brooking no interference in his policy making.

27 December 1976: Tottenham 2 Arsenal 2.   Macdonald got both goals while for Tottenham, Willie Young (already serving a life ban from playing for Scotland) was sent off for persistently fouling Stapleton.  Brady passed to Macdonald to score from the free kick awarded as Young was dismissed and a fight broke out on the pitch. The press reported that Macdonald had not scored many of the goals that he claimed to have scored.

27 December 1977: Dr James Marshall, the man signed from Rangers for a near record fee to be the successor to David Jack died aged 69.  Despite his high fee and high profile he only ever played four games for Arsenal.

27 December 1977: West Bromwich Albion 1 Arsenal 3.  For Arsenal, the team that the previous season had had their all time worst sequence of defeats, this was now their sixth away victory in succession.  Robertson of WBA was sent off for one lunge too many but by then half their team should have gone. Macdonald having to have six stitches from a leg wound as Arsenal knew the victory had come at a price.

27 December 1993: Swindon Town 0 Arsenal 4.   Campbell’s second hatrick of the season signalled the start of a three match run of goalscoring for Arsenal which saw them score 10 conceding 0.  In this game Wright got the fourth goal.

27 December 2010: Freddie Ljungberg joined Celtic.  After leaving Arsenal he had moved to West Ham and then north America, before playing seven times for Celtic.  In his career he played 391 games and scored 88 league goals.

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