The Arsenal man who gave Chelsea their only title in 100 years

Publications

We have a small number of copies of  “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football”  and “Making the Arsenal” now available in paperback.  They are also available on Kindle.    Please see here for more details.

The series

Henry Norris at the Arsenal:  There is a full index to the series here.

Arsenal in the 1930s: The most comprehensive series on the decade ever

Arsenal in the 1970s: Every match and every intrigue reviewed in detail.

Today in history

30 May 1921: The AGM of the Football Association was held in London.  During the course of the day it was proposed to explore the possibility of holding the cup final at Wembley.

30 May 1952: Alex Forbes made his 14th and last international appearance.  The result was Sweden 3 Scotland 1.

30 May 1960: The Times published a long piece denouncing the inauguration of the Football League Cup which replaced the Southern Floodlit Cup while praising the move towards European competitions.  Despite winning the SFC the previous season, Arsenal declined to be part of the League Cup.

30 May 1983: George Wood transferred to Crystal Palace.  Having come from Everton he had played 60 games for Arsenal and played 192 for Palace after leaving Highbury.

30 May 1995: Death of Ted Drake – the Arsenal man who in one season scored 42 league goals in 41 games and who once scored seven goals in one league game.  In 1954/5 Chelsea won the league with Ted as manager – an amazing achievement considering that in 1951/2 and 1952/3 they had come 18th, thus just missing relegation. They sacked him in the 1961/2 season but it took them 50 years from Drake’s title, to get another.

30 May 2000: Lauren Etame Mayer transferred from Mallorca for £7.2m, where he had played 63 league games.   He had started his career in Spain, playing for San Fernando, Sevilla, Levante before Mallorca.

30 May 2006: Theo Walcott became youngest England international by appearing in a 3–1 friendly victory over Hungary at Old Trafford aged 17 years and 75 days.

30 May 2013:  Arsenal announced a clearout of 10 players including Arshavin,  Squillaci, Denílson, Mannone, Gervinho and  Djourou.  Gervinho was the real tragedy – a brilliant player who was booed by some members of the Arsenal crowd and who had now had enough.

30 May 2014: Arsène Wenger signed a three year contract extension, presumed by many to be his last contract with the club before retirement.

30 May 2015: Arsenal 4 Aston Villa 0, FA Cup Final.  Walcott, Sanchez, Mertesacker and Giroud scored as Villa had five players booked to Arsenal’s nil. Arsenal became only the second team in the 20th/21st centuries twice to win the Cup two years running.  Arsenal also become the first team in those centuries to score seven in successive cup finals and the most successful FA Cup team of all time with 12 wins.  Arsene Wenger became the most successful FA Cup manager of the last 100 years with six wins but within two years would exceed even his own record.

For the complete Anniversaries Files with over 6000 entries listed, please see the right hand column under the heading Pages, where the files are listed in full in 12 monthly editions.

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