An audience with Mark Pougatch – live tonight
Arsenal Independent Supporters Association (AISA), is inviting all its members to an audience with Mark Pougatch tonight (15 June).
Mark Pougatch, the TV and radio football broadcast journalist is also an Arsenal fan, and has agreed to join us for an evening of chat and reflection. The event is open to all AISA members and will take place at 7.30pm.
If you are an AISA member you will receive details of how to log into the Zoom event in your email on Monday afternoon so for now all you need do is set yourself a reminder on the calendar.
If you have questions that you would like put to Mark then please send them directly to AISA’s chair drewdgray17@gmail.com
The anniversaries…
And in our headline we note this day in 1925 when Arsenal bought Highbury. The club had of course moved into the ground in 1913, but from that point to this day in 1925 it had leased the club.
15 June 1899: George Leavey was elected chair of Woolwich Arsenal. Through his extensive chain of gentleman’s outfitters including one in Plumstead he became to be a major source of revenue for the club until pulling out in 1910 – a factor which caused the club’s crisis that summer.
15 June 1910: Woolwich Arsenal factories started to lay off men due to a long-term downturn in work following the end of the Boer War – spelling catastrophe for Woolwich Arsenal FC which depended on a vibrant workforce to boost its attendance figures.
15 June 1912: Andy Ducat sold, confirming the club’s policy of selling off its best players in order to try and balance the books. The policy led directly to relegation the following season with the worst Arsenal record of all time.
15 June 1919: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight. (They took off on 14 June).
15 June 1925: Arsenal announced that the club had bought the Highbury stadium, and some additional land around it, and that the lease of the site had ended. Sir Henry Norris’ huge gamble in taking the ground on a full-repairing lease 12 years earlier had paid off.
15 June 1929: England played a tour of Australia, which included Tom Whittaker and Joey Williams. Joey played 22 games for Arsenal but only two on this tour, despite travelling across the world by sea.
15 June 1935: Arsenal signed Jackie Milne for a fee reputed to have been £5000. He played 49 league games and scored 19 goals.
15 June 1935: Ray Swallow born. Aside from playing 13 times for Arsenal he also played 38 first class cricket matches for Derbyshire.
15 June 1974: Trevor Ross signed as a professional. He played 58 times for Arsenal before moving on to Everton. He later became a non-league manager before becoming an HGV driver.
15 June 1995: Bruce Rioch became Arsenal manager and simultaneously Stewart Houston resigned from his post as temporary manager. Rioch lasted just one season and managed to get Arsenal a European slot on the final day of the season, before being sacked.
