Why we never play on 9 October, and the video of beating Sunderland in 1984

As you will see from the anniversary list below, we haven’t played a game on this day for over 30 years – Uefa and Fifa seeing to this with their organisation of international breaks.

So here’s a game from a slightly different date, but nonetheless interesting for all that.

We publish a new Arsenal match video each day with the anniversary list.   You can find the latest each day on the home page of this site.   You can also find videos for previous days by clicking the articles in the left column of this page under “Recent Posts” or by clicking on the mauve headline at the top of the screen on the right, which will take you to yesterday’s selected video – and so on back to the start of the series in August.  There is more about who we are and other things we do, at the foot of the page.

Here are the anniversaries.

9 October 1897: Arsenal boasted a crowd of 14,000 for the second time in the league, in a 3-0 win over Luton, perhaps reflecting anticipation among the crowd over the fact that Arsenal had beaten Luton 2-0 away the previous week.

9 October 1905: Arsenal beat West Ham 3-2 in the Southern Professional Charity Cup before going on to beat Tottenham and Reading to win the trophy. 

9 October 1909: Arsenal 0 Nottingham Forest 1.  It made three defeats in a row, but at least the goal avalanche against the club (12 in the last two games) had stopped and there was a slight hope for better times.  G Fisher, the replacement keeper, played his second and last game for the club.  .

9 October 1910: Jack Crayston born.  He played over 200 games for Arsenal from 1934 to the outbreak of war winning the league twice and FA Cup once.  He became assistant manager to Tom Whittaker in 1947 and then took over on Tom’s death. He was the first manager since Herbert Chapman (appointed 1925) not to win the league and cup in his spell in charge. 

9 October 1914: The Arsenal Football And Athletic Co Ltd became The Arsenal Football Club Ltd – as Henry Norris launched a new share issue continuing to sell the club to local supporters.

9 October 1915: A crowd of just 2500 turned up at Watford to see the home team beat Arsenal 1-0.  It was clear that the remorseless anti-football propaganda in the press was having an impact on supporters.

9 October 1919:  The FA which had been investigating Leeds City FC (previously managed by Herbert Chapman) stated that the club could not play its game against South Shields the following Saturday because of “irregularities” during the war.

9 October 1920: Having played three games without a win, Arsenal got a goalless draw at home to Bolton in front of 38,000. The local paper now got ever more angry with the Arsenal forward line and didn’t appreciate the lack of goals.

9 October 1926:  The extent of Chapman’s failure to maintain the club at the standard of his first season at Highbury was fully revealed as going into this game Arsenal still had not won away this season, and this continued against mid-table Newcastle, with Arsenal losing 0-2.  Arsenal slipped down to 14th.

9 October 1943: Arsenal drew 1-1 away to Clapton Orient meaning that Arsenal had only won two of their first seven games in the Football League South, wartime league.

9 October 1971: After four league wins in a row Arsenal beat Newcastle 4-2 regaining the style and zest of last year’s Double team with Kennedy George, Radford, Graham and Armstrong all shining.  Newcastle’s goals, both from Macdonald came in the last few minutes, and in fact he could have had a hat-trick at the very end but for Wilson’s fine save.

9 October 1976: Steve Gatting made his first appearance as substitute in Peter Simpson’s Testimonial.  He had joined Arsenal as an apprentice in July 1975 and became a professional footballer two years later.

9 October 1979:  Arsenal beat Ipswich Town 2-1 at Portman Road in front of 22,527.. Rix and Brady ran the show but the highlight was the Ipswich keeper throwing the ball out only for it to hit the ref on the back. It rolled to Hollins who passed to Sunderland who chipped the keeper.  A masterpiece.

9 October 1984: Bristol Rovers 1 Arsenal 1 in the League Cup, with their complete first team of Jennings, O’Leary, Sansom, Rix, Talbot, Nicholas, Mariner etc all playing.  Arsenal won the tie overall 5-1.  It was the last ever game Arsenal first team played on 9 October.  

9 October 1996: Following a dispute about the kick off time Scotland turned up for a kick off for a world cup qualifier at 3pm in Talin.  Their opponents, Estonia, turned up at 7pm.  Fifa ordered the game to be replayed.  It was, and was a 0-0 draw.

9 October 2001: Frank McLintock announced an auction of his medals, shirts and memorabilia.  He said that he was not struggling for cash, but since the medals etc were in a bank vault he never saw them.

9 October 2009: Gavin Hoyte was loaned to Brighton for the season.  (See also hereAnd here  After leaving Arsenal for whom he only ever played one game, he played for Dagenham, Gillingham, Barnet and Eastleigh before moving to Maidstone United in 2019.


For details of other recent anniversary posts see the articles on the top left under “Recent posts”

The Arsenal History Society is 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.


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For all other issues please contact Arsenal History Society at Tony@schools.co.uk


100 Years in the First Division: the absolute complete story of Arsenal’s promotion in 1919.

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