The arrival and non-arrival of Edu on this day in 2000 was a matter that made some Tottenham fans giggle a little, as the player was refused entry into the UK, (although this has no link with our commemoration of the day of The battle of the Spurs – see below) and they probably laughed a little if they noticed on this day in 2003 the score in the pre-season game of Peterborough 1 Arsenal 0.
In fact a group that were to set up Untold Arsenal five years later, were at that Peterborough game and we were not amused either by the scoreline, nor by the fact that someone punctured one of my car’s tyres while we were in the ground – but ultimately that seemed a small price to pay.
So such things come and go. And of course there is an article on this pre-season in our series “Arsenal in the summer”: 2003: Before being unbeaten
Here are the anniversaries.
11 July 1302: The Battle of the Spurs between the French army and Flanders rebel as part of the Franco Flemish war. Unexpectedly the Flemish won. It has no connection with football, but just somehow seems slightly amusing.
11 July 1866: James Boyle born in Glasgow and started out playing for Towerhill
before joining Celtic in 1890. He moved to Arsenal in 1893 and scored the goal which gave the club its first away point in the Football League
11 July 1890: Alex Graham born. He played at first for several Scottish clubs before getting a trial with Woolwich Arsenal in December 1911, by when he was 21. He
went on to play over 179 games for Arsenal. (See also here)
11 July 1922: Angus McKinnon transferred to Charlton after 217 appearances in 14 years. In 1923 he joined Wigan Borough who were then under the managership of former Woolwich Arsenal player Charlie Bell before moving on to New Brighton.
11 July 1956: Ralph Guthrie transferred to Hartlepools Utd, his home town club. He had only played twice for Arsenal, but was part of Hartlepools push for promotion following his return.
11 July 1977: Don Revie resigned as manager of the England national football team after three years in charge. The following day he accepted a four-year contract worth £340,000 to take charge of the United Arab Emirates national team, making him the highest-paid football manager in the world. He was considered utterly disloyal.
11 July 2000: Edu arrived from Corinthians in Sao Paulo. However it became clear that his Portuguese passport was a fake (!) which was odd because he had the right to an Italian passport because of his father’s nationality, so he applied for one, and finally joined Arsenal on 16 January 2001 for £6 million. On 9 July 2019, he became Arsenal’s first technical director..
11 July 2003: Peterborough 1 Arsenal 0 – it was followed by Barnet 0 Arsenal 0. In fact the club only won four out of nine pre-season games, but still did rather well in the season to come. As you might recall.
11 July 2008: Arsenal fans voted Robert Pirès as the club’s sixth greatest player of all time, having spent six seasons at the club and played 189 games. He continued playing after leaving Arsenal, including eight games for FC Goa in 2014/15.
11 July 2008: Samir Nasri signed from Olympique de Marseille for whom he had
played for four years, making 121 league appearances. After leaving Arsenal he was banned in 2018 for breaching WADA drugs rules and given an 18 month ban. After a period with West Ham in July 2019, Nasri signed for Anderlecht.
11 July 2011: Arsenal signed Gervinho from Lille. He had played for Beveren and Le Mans previously, and made 67 appearances for Lille, scoring 28 goals.
11 July 2016: Isaac Hayden sold to Newcastle for a fee thought to be around £2.5m. By 2019 he had won the Championship with Newcastle and played nearly 100 games.
11 July 2018: Arsenal announced the transfer of Matteo Guendouzi from Lorient for a rumoured £7 million. He played 33 games in his first season.
