Watch the video of Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4 played on 18 August 2001.
Today’s anniversaries are below. Meanwhile you might also like to note the collection of club videos (each article bringing together a series of videos of our famous matches against each individual club) and our videos of the day, celebrating a match from Arsenal’s past.
You will find full details and links on our home page.
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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Highlights
100 Years in the First Division: the absolute complete story of Arsenal’s promotion in 1919.
Henry Norris at the Arsenal: There is a full index to the series here.
Arsenal in the 1930s: The most comprehensive series on the decade ever
Arsenal in the 1970s: Every match and every intrigue reviewed in detail.
Today’s Arsenal anniversaries… and occasional other items of note.
18 August 1917: George Morrell, the manager who walked out on Arsenal before the end of the 1914/15 season to return to Scotland and took over Third Lanark on this day and continued as their manager until April 30 1921. After that we have no knowledge of him, and cannot even offer a date of his passing.
18 August 1923: The second of two pre-season practice matches was played at Highbury. There is no report on the game, but it would be fascinating to know if anyone foresaw in this match the problems that Arsenal were going to face in the next two seasons.
18 August 1961: Laurie Brown purchased from Northampton Town. The following day he played against Tottenham, and then after being sold to Tottenham in 1964 played for Tottenham against Arsenal.
18 August 1962: Joe Baker’s first league game, and also Billy Wright’s first game as manager. Arsenal beat the Orient 2-1 with goals from Geoff Strong and, of course, Joe Baker.
18 August 1973: Arsenal 1 Wolverhampton 3, FA Cup 3rd place play off. The notion of a third place play off was a short lived venture, played at the start of the following season, which picked up only modest public interest.
18 August 1979. Brighton lost their first ever first division game 4-0 to Arsenal as. Arsenal won an opening match under Neill for the first time after four attempts. Sunderland 2, Stapleton and Brady got the goals.
18 August 1983: Mickey Thomas signed as an apprentice. Thomas signed for us in 1982, became a pro aged 17 in 1984 and went on loan to Portsmouth. He made his first team début in February 1987.
18 August 1991: Alf Kirchen died. He finished playing before the war and then became a trainer at Norwich, then taking a break to become a farmer, returning to Norwich as a director of the club and as Honorary President of the Norfolk Arsenal Supporters Club. He died just before his 86th birthday. See also Tottenham 0 Arsenal 6
18 August 1992. Perry Groves last game v Blackburn (a 0-1 defeat). He had played 155 league games for Arsenal and scored 21 goals.
18 August 2001 Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4 – the start of the great away games run. The run continued until 28 September 2002 when Arsenal beat Leeds 4-1 away, to break the record by scoring in 47 consecutive games and making it 22 away games without defeat Sol Campbell played his first league game for Arsenal and Henry said afterwards, “I saw something today I never saw last season – we played as a team. It’s the most important thing in football.”
18 August 2002: Following the retirement of Tony Adams, Vieira took over as captain for the game, Arsenal 2 Birmingham 0. This made 14 consecutive wins – a new record for the top division in England. Arsenal then played another 8 league games before finally being beaten.
18 August 2008: Emmanuel Adebayor signed a new “long-term” contract with Arsenal. However in 2009 he moved to Manchester City.
18 August 2009: Celtic 0 Arsenal 2, Champions League qualifier. This meant that the return match should have been straightforward but Celtic instead tried to get Eduardo a European ban.
18 August 2011: Joel Campbell loaned to L’Orient. It was the first of five loans during his period as an Arsenal player. In 2019 he was reported as playing in Mexico.
18 August 2018. Arsenal lost 3-2 to Chelsea making it two defeats in two games for the new manager Unai Emery. There was much speculation in the press about when Arsenal had lost the opening three games, and whether Emery would immediately be sacked. The club didn’t lose the third and he wasn’t sacked – at least not then..
18 August 2020: As part of a clearout of young players who were deemed unlikely to make the grade, George Lewis sold to Fram Larvik of Norway.
