Whatever happened to… Low, Chatzitheodoris, Hoyte, Butler and James?

Looking at anniversaries in June one is bound to come across players who came to Arsenal but then moved on for it is the month for unwanted players to leave the club.  Some never made it with the club (Archie Low and Elias Chatzitheodoridis turn up on our list today), while some looked like they might have a career at Arsenal, but again never made it at the top level.  Gavin Hoyte perhaps falls into this group.

And then there are the great stars, who made it, but like everyone else, had to recognise when it was time to move on.  John Butler is not well remembered today, but his position in the club’s history really should be etched in stone – he was the man who played at the heart of Arsenal’s new WM formation after the tactical revolution of 1925 – itself following the change of the offside rule in the summer of that year.  On this day in 1930 he left Arsenal for Torquay.

But surely everyone knows the name of Alex James – the man who could be described as our greatest ever player, who on this day played his last game for the club in 1937.

It got me thinking that if one can recognise the key influences on the club as they happen it would certainly help if one is minded to hae a little flutter.  An analysis of just how many games the club wins with a particular formation or a particular player in the side… indeed it is rather like the analyses we’ve done on Untold Arsenal comparing the home and away form of Arsenal through recent seasons as a basis for predicting the outcomes of games.   (It doesn’t always work of course – we should have won the Brighton game at the end of last season to get the points needed to make it into the Champions League, but as an overall indicator it is not bad.)

Anyway if you fancy this approach with a bit of help along the way you could use the Coral promo code – although of course as noted, our predictions don’t always work out!  In the anniversaries below we’ve got a 2002 world cup match we didn’t go according to plan, not least because Henry got himself sent off early on!!

Here are the anniversaries…

6 June 1891: Alf Singleton (who was himself a competent referee) and later who went on to become a leader of the 1893 split of the Royal Arsenal club) was elected top of the poll to the Committee of Royal Arsenal FC.  One year later, as a result of his expression of his views on the future of the club, he lost his place, coming bottom of the poll.

6 June 1903: At the meeting which created Fulham Football and Athletic Club Company Limited, Henry Norris was elected the company’s first chairman.  He took up the reigns at Arsenal in 1910, but did not break with Fulham until after the first world war following a dispute over the post-war cup match between Fulham and Arsenal.

6 June 1906: Archie Low was transferred from Ashfield in Glasgow.  He only went on to play three games for Arsenal before moving back to Scotland.

6 June 1910: At a meeting in Rotherhithe, the supporters committee set up to rescue Arsenal resolved not to hand over any of the money it had raised to Henry Norris and William Hall, pending further developments, but instead they applied for shares in the new limited company set up to rescue Arsenal.

6 June 1930: John Butler (the man who played for Arsenal at the heart of their “WM” tactical revolution in 1925) was sold to Torquay United.

6 June 1937: Final game (v Feyenoord) of Alex James, arguably our greatest ever player.  He played 231 league games as an inside forward scoring 26 goals.  He later became a youth coach but died of cancer aged 51.

6 June 1985: Fifa extended Uefa’s ban on English clubs in Europe to a worldwide ban lasting an indefinite amount of time but excluded from the ban the England national team.

6 June 1990: Gavin Andrew Hoyte was born.  He signed for Arsenal aged nine, and became captain of the under 18 and the reserve teams.  However he only played one senior league game for the club. He was last heard of in February 2019 playing for St Ives Town in Cambridgeshire.

6 June 2002: Henry, Vieira and Wiltord all played for France in  a World Cup game against Uruguay.  The score was 0-0 but Henry was given a red card on 25 minutes.  This is the game I mentioned above in my chatter about making predictions.   Some things can’t be predicted but then if they could, no one would be willing to offer odds on a match. If you want to place a bet today however you could try 3bonuscode.co.uk 

6 June 2014: Elias Chatzitheodoridis, a defender, joined Arsenal from Mas Kallitheakos for an undisclosed fee.  He was last heard of in 2019 playing for Panathinaikos, Athens.

6 June 2017: Arsenal announced the signing of Sead Kolašinac, on a free transfer from Schalke 04 with whom his contract had expired.


Publications

“Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” are both available in paperback, as well as on Kindle. Please see here for more details.

Henry Norris at the Arsenal:

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

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

 

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