Anniversaries at this time of year tend to reflect players and staff leaving the club – the transfers not arriving until July and August. As for the backroom staff they tend the come and go unnoticed. However this was not the case one year ago when Colin Lewin was sacked by Arsenal; I am not at all clear what he is doing now.
Our actual anniversary on this date comes from 2008 when Colin’s cousin Gary took up a place with the FA. After that job Gary moved to West Ham, leaving them in the summer of 2018.
Here are the anniversaries…
9 June 1928: Jack Lee who had won the London Combination with Arsenal transferred to Chesterfield. He had come from Horndon Athletic and played just seven times in the 1926/7 season for Arsenal as outside left before moving on.
9 June 1984: John “Alex” Mackie died. He played for Portsmouth in two cup finals after leaving Arsenal, and later for Northampton and Sittingbourne before retiring from football at the outbreak of war.
9 June 1986: Martin Keown sold to Aston Villa after George Graham decided that Keown was not good enough to play for Arsenal. Upon his return in 1993 he went onto play 310 games winning three league championships and three FA Cups.
9 June 1993: Dixon and Wright played for England in their defeat by 2-0 to the USA in the US Cup.
9 June 1999: Fabián Caballero, who had been on loan to Arsenal from Cerro Porteño returned to his club before moving on to Sol de América. He only played one league game for Arsenal, but in 2000 returned to the UK to play over 100 games for Dundee.
9 June 1999: Remi Garde announced his retirement having won the Premier League with Arsenal in 1998. He went into management and later became manager of Lyon and subsequently Aston Villa. He is currently the manager of Montreal Impact
9 June 2008: Alex Song signed new long term contract. He continued at Arsenal, but amidst rumours of a dispute with the management he was sold to Barcelona in 2012 having played 160 league games for Arsenal. He signed for Swis club Sion in 2018, and played for them in the 2018/19 season.
9 June 2008: Gary Lewin agreed to leave Arsenal as the head of their medical team to take up a place with the FA on 1 August. His cousin Colin Lewin took over at Arsenal and remained there until 2018 when he was suddenly sacked following Arsene Wenger’s departure.
9 June 2017: Arsenal released Yaya Sanogo, Stefan O’Connor, Kostas Pilea and Kristopher Da Graca. Sanogo had been dogged by injury during his four-year stay and only played 11 league games. The other players never appeared for Arsenal.
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