Below is our selected video for this day in history, along with all the Arsenal anniversaries of interest that we can find. This is published by The Arsenal History Society, part of the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association – a body which gives positive support to the club, and has regular meetings with directors and senior officials of the club to represent the views of its members to the club. You can read more about AISA on its website.
by Tony Attwood
When I came up with this idea of showing a video of an Arsenal match for each day of the year, I tested out a number of days selected at random, to see that there was indeed a decent video to be found of an Arsenal match on that day. And yes there was. Except I didn’t test 28 August.
And to my horror I have ended up with an Arsenal video you probably won’t want to watch, and I have to admit I’ve spent quite a bit of time today trying to find an alternative… in fact ANY alternative.
Two things however were against me. First, 28 August is one of those odd days in which we find that in the modern era Arsenal have very rarely played, and second as it turns out where Arsenal have played on this day they have even more rarely won.
Worse, the one or two games I have found, do not seem to have videos attached so this absolute game to forget is the only one I can find.
And yet there is a lesson in this, because Arsenal ended up the season in third place, despite this horror story. So maybe we can make something positive out of this. A really terrible defeat, and yet we manage to climb to third. How was that?
Basically Clichy and Nasri had left, and among others, Mertesacker and Arteta had not yet arrived. Wenger knew what his team should look like – he just hadn’t managed to finish the deals yet. Oh yes and Henry returned later in the season as well.
Here are today’s anniversaries.
28 August 1891: “Arsenal Football Notes” by Redshirt commenced its regular commentary on the club and its games in the Woolwich Gazette. By 30 September 1892 he was complaining about the negative way his comments were received.
28 August 1922: Arsenal 1 Burnley 1 in the second game of the season Arsenal director Charles Crisp had some guests at the game including Joan Gamper, founder of Barcelona FC, and other friends from Cataluña.
28 August 1926: Chapman’s second season began with a 2-1 victory over Derby County with Buchan and Parker scoring in front of 32,990.
28 August 1928: Some suggest the original Arsenal clock was installed on this date – but in fact it wasn’t. It was in fact installed in 1930. See here for the full story – but do read the corrections in the readers’ comments!
28 August 1932: The Times confirmed Charlie Jones had been appointed Arsenal captain. He went on to play 29 games in the title winning season.
28 August 1937: Everton 1 Arsenal 4 in the opening game. Alex James had now gone but Drake got a hattrick and Bastin the fourth.
28 August 1971: Arsenal 0 Stoke City 1 in front of 37,637. Having won the double Arsenal had started the next season with two wins and three defeats.
28 August 1973: John Matthews moved from being an apprentice to being a professional. He made his debut one year later, and went on to play in 45 league games before leaving in 1978.
28 August 1976: Sunderland 2 Arsenal 2 with 41,211 in Roker Park. But despite a win and a draw in successive away games the “news” was that Armstrong was going to leave the club.
28 August 1982: Lee Chapman made his Arsenal league debut against his old club Stoke City. Arsenal lost 1-2 and in fact lost three and drew one of their first four league games.
28 August 1993: Ian Wright’s single, “Do the Wright Thing” entered the charts!
28 August 1999: Nicolas Anelka transferred to Real Madrid after playing just 50 games and scoring 23 goals. It was said that the profit paid for the new training centre Mr Wenger wanted built.
28 August 2004: Robin van Persie arrived from Feyenoord for £3m. He had played 61 times for the club and scored 15 goals, but had gained a reputation as a difficult player to manage.
28 August 2011: Arsenal lost 2-8 to Man U. See also: Ref Review Arsenal’s goals came from Walcott and Van Persie, and the first Man U goal from Welbeck. It took Arsenal until October to recover when a run of seven wins and a draw in eight games restored the team’s self-belief.
28 August 2015: Manuel Almunia was forced to retire from football due to a heart condition. He had just signed for Cagliari Calcio but was unable to play for them. He played 405 games for all his clubs in all competitions. He then became Al Jazira’s goalkeeping coach,
28 August 2016: Arsenal signed Lucas Pérez for £17.1m from Deportivo de La Coruña by activating his release clause.
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