Marc Overmars won the Double in his (and Mr Wenger’s) first full season playing on the left wing using his great speed alongside Dennis Bergkamp. In March 1998 he scored the all-important goal to beat Manchester United 1-0, and then (as often shown in films) looked around as if to say “where are the rest of you?” Again in the game that won the title Overmars ran the show in the first half to give an unbeatable lead. After the Double, Overmars’ injuries and Mr Wenger pulled off the amazing trick in 2000 of selling a clearly injury prone player to Barcelona for something like five times what we paid for him. At €40.6 million he was the most expensive Dutch player of all time. Including wages he cost Barcelona around £4,000,000 a game.
In 2008/9 he played a final season for GAE before retiring having played 401 league games all told, and became technical director of Go Ahead Eagles. He later moved on to be director of football at AFC Ajax.
On February 28 2013 the London Evening Standard reported that Marc Overmars would be happy to return to Arsenal as part of the club’s backroom staff. He is reported as saying, “The way I work with Ajax, I do the transfers, the contracts and organise the scouting, so it suits me. It wouldn’t surprise me if I work in the future at Arsenal — it could be a possibility.”
He is a co-owner of a restaurant in Epe, and is part of the family business, Overmars Vastgoed bv, with interests in commercial and residential buildings. He is also involved in the family car restoration service named Overmars Classic Cars and appeared in the list of the 500 richest Dutch people.
Here are the anniversaries.
29 March 1913: Only once during the entire league season did Arsenal score more than one goal in a game – in a 2-5 home defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on 29 March.
29 March 1918: Good Friday, the start of the regular run of three football matches in four days. Arsenal lost at West Ham on this day, 1-4, with 10,500 in the crowd.
29 March 1919: Clem Voysey played his first match listed as “Newman” on the team sheet in a pre-season friendly. Later in his career there were two investigations into his contractual arrangements at Arsenal and the club was eventually found guilty of paying a “signing on” fee although it continued to deny the claims, and the evidence was flimsy to say the least.
29 March 1930: Arsenal 4 Blackburn 0. In the nine remaining league games after this Arsenal had only one win – although the fact that Arsenal were in the Cup Final for the second time undoubtedly influenced everyone’s approach to the games.
29 March 1937: Stoke 0 Arsenal 0 made it two 0-0 draws and two 1-1 draws in the last four games and seven draws and three wins in last 10. Arsenal were still top but eventually came third in the league following an end of season burst by Man City who won the title. The following season Man City were relegated. It was the first game for Arthur Biggs.
29 March 1941: Arsenal beat West Ham 2-1 in the Football League War Cup in front of 12835 at White Hart Lane (where all Arsenal home games were played during WWII. In this cup matches were played home and away, and Arsenal had already won 1-0 at Upton Park. Arsenal made it to the final, where they lost to Preston in a replay.
29 March 1954: Arsenal beat Chelsea in the London Challenge Cup to win the trophy for the sixth time. The competition, which Arsenal had first entered in 1908 continued until 1974.
29 March 1958: Portsmouth 5 Arsenal 4. It was the second time in two months that Arsenal lost 4-5. In between these two games Arsenal also beat Chelsea 5-4. Bloomfield, Clapton and Nutt scored, along with an own goal.
29 March 1973: Marc Overmars was born in Emst, Holland. He started 91 league games and came on nine times as a sub for Arsenal, scoring 25 league goals, before moving on to Barcelona.
29 March 1975: Last game for Bob McNab in a 1-1 draw with Stoke. It was also the first game for Stapleton who went on to play 225 league games for Arsenal. Kelly got the goal, with 26,852 in the crowd.
29 March 1986: After one defeat in 11 hopes were high for this game, but it ended Tottenham 1 Arsenal 0. It was the start of three successive defeats in which Arsenal failed to score a single goal.
29 March 1994: PSG 1 Arsenal 1; Cup Winners Cup semi-final 1st leg. After beating Standard Liege 7-0 Arsenal had played five CWC games this season and scored just four goals.
29 March 2006: After Arsenal beat Juventus in the Champions League the Daily Mirror ran the headline, “Absolutely Fabregas”
29 March 2011: Having unexpectedly re-signed as emergency cover Jens Lehmann played for the reserves against Wigan. Arsenal lost 1-2.
29 March 2014: A 1-1 draw with Manchester City meant that Arsenal had only won four of their last 12 games, a run that had included a 5-1 defeat to Liverpool and a 6-0 defeat to Chelsea. Flamini got the goal.
