On this day in 2005, Jermain Pennant crashed his car, and gave the police his name as Ashley Cole.
His final club was Billericay Town in 2017. Then in October 2018, he appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show having recently written an autobiography, Mental: Bad Behaviour, Ugly Truths and the Beautiful Game, that was also released in 2018. In the same year, he was a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother.
Here are the anniversaries…
23 January 1915: Arsenal beat Stockport at Highbury 3-1 in front of just 6,000, showing just how far the war was disrupting the pleasure activity of the working men – even though there was still no conscription at this time.
23 January 1926: Arsenal were away to Liverpool who were 14th in the league before the game. Chapman played his standard team but Arsenal lost 3-0, showing that in this first Chapman season although the club was much improved, it could still have sudden defeats – as happened earlier at Newcastle.
23 January 1932: Arsenal in the 4th round of the FA Cup, beat Plymouth Argyle who were riding high in the 2nd division (and went on to score 100 goals in the season) 4-2. Plymouth had already beaten Manchester United 4-0 in the third round which explains the crowd of 65,386. Lambert (2), and Hulme scored, plus once again an own goal
23 January 1937: Arsenal made it nine without defeat. Although Arsenal only lost one of the next 12 there were too many draws in the season and Arsenal finished 3rd in the league as Man City came through to win the league for the first time. The following season Man City were relegated and Arsenal won the title for the 5th time in eight seasons.
23 January 1939: Alan Skirton born. The announcer at one match prior to the game (before which there had been newspaper speculation that Skirton was being dropped), said, “there is one change in the Arsenal line up from that shown in the programme. Skirton is replaced by…. Skirton.”
23 January 1954: In a year of ups and downs Arsenal suffered 1-4 home defeat to Sunderland in front of 60,218. It was one of ten matches during the season in which Arsenal were seen by over 60,000 despite sitting in mid-table for most of the year.
23 January 1965: Arsenal 4 Leicester 3 made it three wins in three with Radford and Baker each scoring four during January. But Arsenal won only four more in the whole season, and ended up 13th.
23 January 1971: Portsmouth 1 Arsenal 1 (FA Cup 4th round), en route to the first Double. The replay was on 1 February. See Arsenal in the 70s part 3. Storey scored with a penalty, Wilson was acclaimed the hero by the Portsmouth manager. George got his first goal since scoring in the 1-2 away defeat to Ipswich on 31 March 1970
23 January 2002: Leicester 1 Arsenal 3 – the match postponed from 1 January in League match 23 of the third Double season. Van Bronckhurst, Henry and Wiltord scored.
23 January 2005: Jermaine Pennant crashed his car and was charged with driving while banned, driving while drunk, driving uninsured, and giving a false name (“Ashley Cole”). He got a 90 days jail sentence, but was released after 30 days providing he wore an electronic tag – even on the pitch.
23 January 2005. Stuart Taylor ended his 3 month loan with Leicester. He had won a championship medal by playing as a sub in the final match of the season against Everton in 2002 with the title already won. Richard Wright started in goal, and Taylor came on, after 85 minutes.
23 January 2006: Mart Poom joined from Sunderland as short term cover. He made one appearance and later became Arsenal’s goalkeeper coach.
23 January 2007, Nic Anelka said that he would leave Bolton for Arsenal. But on 30 August 2011 he signed another contract with Bolton.
23 January 2013: Arsenal 5 West Ham United 1. Arsenal had 24 goal attempts. The match was due to be played on Boxing Day but postponed due to a tube strike. Podolski, Giroud (2) Cazorla and Walcott got the goals.
23 January 2019: Emi Martinez signed on loan for Reading. He finally became Arsenal’s regular backup keeper, playing in cup matches and as reserve to Leno for the 2019/20 season.
Pennant played a few months in Singapore playing in the S League.He cancelled his contract after realizing how poor the standard was.