Not counting chickens before they are hatched has always been a good adage, and it is one that Tottenham Hotspur’s PA announcer of the late 1980s might always remember as he spent half time in a match in 1987 on this day telling Tottenham supporters how they could apply for tickets for the League Cup final – when they hadn’t actually qualified.
In the first leg of the league cup semi-final Allen scored the only goal for Tottenham at Highbury, and Tottenham were so confident of winning the second leg at WHL that the directors proposed printing “we’re in the final” T shirts. That was stopped by their manager, but still in the second leg Allen scored, but then Arsenal equalised and with a second goal took the tie to a third game – played again at WHL. And the same thing happened – Tottenham took the lead and Arsenal came back with two, to win the tie and go through to Wembley.
Subsequently a fanzine was founded called “1-0 down 2-1 up”.
Here are the anniversaries for today…
1 March 1555. On this day, Nostradamus’ Book of Centuries was published. Depending on how you read it, it predicts the fire of London in 1666, the fall of the French monarchy in the 18th century, two global wars and the coming of the anti-Christ from the deserts of Persia in the 20th century. Or not, as the case may be. Strangely it has little to say on Arsenal.
1 March 1913: The Football League rejected appeals by Tottenham to prohibit Arsenal from moving to Gillespie Road reiterating, as they had pointed out in the 1910 AGM, that League rules gave them no control over the location of each club. Tottenham’s failure was that they had failed to bring forward a motion earlier, to give the league such power.
1 March 1914: There are conflicting reports on the date of the birth of Ernie Tuckett but this seems the more likely date. Ernie first came to notice as an Arsenal man with six goals in a London Midweek League match in 1933 and then moved on to the nursery club Margate between 1934 and 1936 becoming a professional for Arsenal in 1936.
1 March 1919: Arsenal beat Millwall Athletic 3-0 away in front of 14,000 showing how crowds were now returning to football, even though the games were still being played under wartime London Combination rules.
1 March 1924: Arsenal 3 Liverpool 1 ended a sequence of six straight defeats. The result lifted Arsenal to 20th, with just Chelsea and Middlesbrough below them. It was also the debut of James Ramsay. Having joined Arsenal from Kilmarnock he went on to play 11 games in the remainder of the season.
1 March 1930: West Ham 0 Arsenal 3. FA Cup round 6 on the way to the cup final and Arsenal’s first ever major trophy. Lambert scored two, and Baker the other, 40,797 present.
1 March 1935: Alf Kirchen signed from Norwich (where ex-Arsenal man Tom Parker was manager). Although his career was interrupted by the war he scored 38 goals in 92 league games.
1 March 1944: David Court born. He joined Arsenal during the reign of Swindin, and became the last member of the team of that era to be at Arsenal.
1 March 1969: Sheffield W 0 Arsenal 5. After one win in four the revival (eight without defeat) began in emphatic style. Radford scored three, Sammels and Gould got the others.
1 March 1975: Arsenal 0 Everton 2; The third defeat in a row making the triumphs of the early Mee era seeming a long way in the past. It left Arsenal in 18th, one place above Tottenham and just three points above relegation.
1 March 1977: Everton 2 Arsenal 1; 4th consecutive defeat in the worst Arsenal run of all time. Macdonald scored his first goal since mid-January. During the eight consecutive league defeats Arsenal scored just seven goals.
1 March 1980: Stoke 2 Arsenal 3, Arsenal’s fourth consecutive win. Sunderland, Price and Brady got the goals, to make it ten goals in four.
1 March 1987: Tottenham 1 Arsenal 2. League cup semi-final, 2nd leg. This was the one when the announcer at half time told supporters of Tottenham how to get cup final tickets. Anderson and Quinn got the goals.
1 March 1993: Chelsea 1 Arsenal 0. Arsenal scored four goals in 14 league matches between 21 November and this game. During that period Arsenal won just two league games, both away, both 0-1 against Man City and Oldham.
1 March 2005: Following motoring offences on 23 January Jermaine Pennant was sentenced to 90 days imprisonment, and required to wear a tag upon his release.
1 March 2005: Sheffield U 0 Arsenal 0. FA Cup 5th round replay en route to winning the Cup. Arsenal won 4-2 on penalties
1 March 2013: Anthony Jeffrey loaned to Stevenage. Eventually he moved on to Wycombe and then Welling without ever playing for Arsenal.
1 March 2013. Robert Pires appeared first in Indonesia and then in China as an Arsenal ambassador. He later played in India as part of Arsenal’s marketing push in that country.
1 March 2018: Having been beaten in the League Cup final on this day Arsenal were beaten 3–0 in the league by the same team – Manchester City. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang missed a penalty in the second half.
