For many years 1 July was the first day of the summer transfer window, but this was changed when clubs decided to end the transfer period as the new season started. Previously it ended at the end of August – after several games had been played.
As a result it is also the day that some footballers formally retired from football, including Tony Adams, and Lee Dixon.
Here are the anniversaries…
1 July 1916: Arsenal’s annual report was published showing Henry Norris as being owed £7196 by the club, while the builders of the main stand were owed £18087 (about £2.5m today) guaranteed by Henry Norris personally. It also showed that the club had bought some further properties around the ground, which would later be used to improve the entrances to the ground and as accommodation for staff.
1 July 1918: There was an explosion at the National Shell Filling Factory in Chilwell (Notts) in which 134 died as 8 tons of TNT exploded. Only 10% of the bodies could be identified.
1 July 1918 Sir Henry Norris, having demonstrated his concern for the position of women in society through the vote in favour of equal pay for women teachers, followed this up on a personal level by setting up a trust fund for his wife assigning her many of the houses he owned as a result of his building work. Within the context of the era in which women were third class citizens (after men and boys) it was a very unusual and incredibly generous settlement.
1 July 1933: London Transport was formed by an amalgamation of the various companies that had been running public transport in the capital until that point.
1 July 1937: Reg Trim moved from Arsenal to Nottingham Forest where he played 70 games. After serving in the RAF in the war he played for Swindon and then worked in flight refuelling at Hurn (now Bournemouth) airport.
1 July 1939: The Women’s Land Army was re-formed to work in agriculture.
1 July 1953: Alan Sunderland born in Mexborough. He signed initially for
Wolverhampton, and played around 200 games for them, winning the Second Division with them, and the 1974 League Cup.
1 July 1961: John MacLeod joined Arsenal from Hibs. He started with Edinburgh Thistle as a schoolboy then went with Joe Baker to Armadale Thistle and finally Hibs, before choosing Arsenal over Man City as his next destination.
1 July 1966: Billy “Flint” McCullough left Arsenal for Millwall. He had played 253 league games, and went on to play 19 for Millwall, before moving on to Bedford, Cork Celtic and Derry City.
1 July 1968: William Naismith “Billy” Blyth died. After leaving Arsenal he had a role in the movie “The Great Game” filmed in 1930, the first movie (as opposed to a film of a game) which involved an Arsenal player, and which pre-dated the Arsenal Stadium Mystery by nine years.
1 July 1973: Richie Powling signed as a professional. He made occasional
appearances until 1975/6 when he played 29 games. But the arrival of Willie Young in the centre, combined with awful luck regarding injuries curtailed his career. He was last heard of in football as the director of football at Clacton Town in 2003.
1 July 1976: Terry Neill, a man oft confused by detail, claimed in newspaper interviews that he got the job as Arsenal manager on this day, although most accounts tend to put the date of his appointment on 9 July
1 July 1977: Kevin Stead signed on a free transfer from Tottenham, one year after Terry Neill made the same move as manager. Having made no impact at Tottenham he also made no impact at Arsenal and took part in just two games. He was released in September 1979, and joined Isthmian League club Oxford City. After retiring from football, he worked as a taxi-driver. He died in 2016 at the age of 57.
1 July 1987: Viv Anderson sold to Man U. He had played 120 league games for Arsenal and scored nine goals and was Ferguson’s first signing after taking over at Old Trafford. After leaving Middlesbrough as assistant manager in 2001 he vanished totally from the radar.
1 July 1990: Kevin Richardson transferred to Real Sociedad. He had played 96 league games for Arsenal and was a part of the 1989 league winning team that played the final game at Anfield to win the league. He was most recently heard of coaching the under 17s at Newcastle.
1 July 1997: Marc Overmars (£7m from Ajax) and Manu Petit (£3.5m for AS Monaco) both registered with Arsenal.
1 July 1998: Richard Hughes sold to Bournemouth. Although he spent five years at Arsenal he never played for the club, being only registered as a youth player, He had two spells with Bournemouth and a period with Portsmouth before retiring in 2014.
1 July 2002: Lee Dixon and Tony Adams, two members of the most famous of all defences, both formally retired. Dixon had played 458 league games with Arsenal and Tony Adams 504.
1 July 2006: The player loan agreement between Arsenal and Beveren ended – it is the closest Arsenal had to a nursery club since Margate in the 1930s.
1 July 2008: Mathieu Flamini left Arsenal at the end of his contract for Milan – only to return in 2013 again at the end of his contract there. After his second Arsenal spell ended he went to Crystal Palace. On 18 December 2018, Flamini joined Getafe for a second time.
1 July 2012: Gavin Hoyte released by Stevenage and signed for Dagenham. After 68 games there he moved on to Gillingham. He also elected to play for Trinidad and Tobago, and started to play for them in 2014/15.
1 July 2013: The transfer of Yaya Sanogo to Arsenal announced. He cost £390,000 and went on to play in the FA Cup final of 2014. In 2015 he went on loan to Crystal Palace and played 10 times for them. After a series of injuries he was brought back to Arsenal for 2016/17 but failed to make the first team and left on 30 June 2017. On 7 July that year he joined Ligue 1 side Toulouse on a three-year deal.
1 July 2014: The start of Arsenal’s £170m partnership with Puma, which at the time was the most lucrative kit deal in English football history. In its opening video promoting its interest in and respect of Arsenal’s history, the company focussed on the cover of the novel “Making the Arsenal”.
1 July 2014: Arsenal announced a 3% price rise in ticket prices. It was the third rise in prices in nine years.
