By Tony Attwood
The league table before the game on 4 February 1956 hardly made good reading, and with Arsenal 17th and Sunderland 4th this wasn’t exactly match of the day. But the TV station was in London, so it was withint easy reach.
The video is below, but first the table before the game…. Clubs on the same number of points were separated by goal average not goal difference.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester United | 28 | 15 | 6 | 7 | 57 | 42 | 36 |
| 2 | Blackpool | 27 | 14 | 6 | 7 | 60 | 42 | 34 |
| 3 | Burnley | 27 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 42 | 34 | 31 |
| 4 | Sunderland | 27 | 12 | 7 | 8 | 57 | 60 | 31 |
| 5 | Newcastle United | 28 | 14 | 2 | 12 | 66 | 46 | 30 |
| 6 | West Bromwich Albion | 28 | 13 | 4 | 11 | 40 | 39 | 30 |
| 7 | Everton | 28 | 11 | 8 | 9 | 43 | 44 | 30 |
| 8 | Bolton Wanderers | 27 | 12 | 5 | 10 | 51 | 35 | 29 |
| 9 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 27 | 12 | 5 | 10 | 61 | 47 | 29 |
| 10 | Luton Town | 27 | 12 | 5 | 10 | 48 | 39 | 29 |
| 11 | Chelsea | 27 | 11 | 7 | 9 | 42 | 45 | 29 |
| 12 | Portsmouth | 27 | 12 | 5 | 10 | 55 | 61 | 29 |
| 13 | Charlton Athletic | 28 | 12 | 4 | 12 | 58 | 56 | 28 |
| 14 | Manchester City | 27 | 10 | 8 | 9 | 49 | 48 | 28 |
| 15 | Preston North End | 28 | 11 | 5 | 12 | 52 | 45 | 27 |
| 16 | Birmingham City | 28 | 10 | 6 | 12 | 51 | 45 | 26 |
| 17 | Arsenal | 27 | 8 | 8 | 11 | 36 | 47 | 24 |
| 18 | Cardiff City | 27 | 10 | 4 | 13 | 37 | 52 | 24 |
| 19 | Tottenham Hotspur | 27 | 9 | 4 | 14 | 34 | 43 | 22 |
| 20 | Sheffield United | 27 | 8 | 4 | 15 | 37 | 50 | 20 |
| 21 | Aston Villa | 28 | 5 | 9 | 14 | 32 | 55 | 19 |
| 22 | Huddersfield Town | 27 | 6 | 5 | 16 | 33 | 66 | 17 |
The quality is poor, but at last you can get an idea of what a game was like almost 70 years ago!
Here are all the anniversaries for this day
4 February 1888: Arsenal 6 Tottenham 2. This was a return friendly following the opening match which was abandoned with Tottenham winning 2-1. No crowd figure is given but the next game between the two in south London the following September attracted 500.
4 February 1905: Final game for William Gooing. He scored 45 goals in 94 games for Woolwich Arsenal before moving on to play for Northampton Town.
4 February 1905: Arsenal 0 Bristol City 0, FA cup, 1st round. Crowd 25,000. Bristol City were a second division club at the time but subsequently won the League in 1906.
4 February 1911: Swindon 1 Arsenal 0; FA Cup 2nd round. Crowd 14,861. Swindon were Southern League champions and as such played Man U in the Charity Shield, and had also played in an early European Cup competition.
4 February 1919: Having just received the support of the prestigious Athletic News weekly magazine, in his campaign to get Arsenal elected to Division 1, Sir Henry Norris took his seat in the Commons for the first time with Lloyd George as Prime Minister, Bonar Law leader of the House, and J Austen Chamberlain the Chancellor.
4 February 1922, The Duke of York attended Arsenal 2 Newcastle 1. With Sir Henry Norris and William Hall unavailable, directors Jack Humble, Charles Crisp and George Peachey, did the honours. Leslie Knighton later alleged that Arsenal wasted money that could have been spent on transfers on champagne at this event, not knowing the Duke did not drink. But really, even if true, how many players could you buy for a couple of bottles of fizz? I suspect yet another Knighton invention.
4 February 1933: Arsenal started the month 3 points clear of Villa at the top of the league. Having won their first game of the month 1-4 away to Bolton to make it 82 goals in 27 games, the news arrived on this day that Villa won one of their games in hand to creep closer to Arsenal.
4 February 1939: The Irish Republican Army bombed the London Underground stations at Tottenham Court Road and Leicester Square. Nevertheless Arsenal’s game against Sunderland went ahead with 45,875 present. Bastin and Lewis got the goals in a 2-0 victory and Arsenal moved up to 7th. Lewis’ goal tally was now at six.
4 February 1946: The FA Cup tried the experiment of having ties played across two legs and then if the scores were tied, the replay would continue after the 30 minutes extra time until there was a goal. On this day Blackpool 0 Middlesbrough 1 lasted 2 hours 31 minutes.
4 February 1954 25 years old Con Sullivan was signed from Bristol City as goalkeeping understudy to Jack Kelsey.
4 February 1961: Newcastle 3 Arsenal 3; last game for Tommy Docherty (Strong 2 and Eastham got the goals). Docherty moved on to Chelsea before becoming manager of Sydney Prague.
4 February 1970: Kevin Campbell born. He started as a trainee with Arsenal, joining the club on schoolboy forms in 1985, won the FA Youth Cup and scored 59 goals in a season, but had to wait for Merson and Smith to vacate their positions before he became a first team regular.
4 February 1975: Arsenal 0 England “B” 2. The match was organised after England’s game in Cyprus was cancelled for political reasons. Kidd and Mancini scored for England
4 February 1993 Martin Keown re-joined Arsenal for £2.2 million – over £2m more than they sold him for, but this time he stayed for over 10 years – and enjoyed huge success in the Arsène Wenger era. He could not play in the cup run however being cup-tied for the season.
4 February 1995: Sheffield Wednesday 3 Arsenal 1, Kevin Campbell’s last league game, on his birthday. He had played 224 times for Arsenal, scoring 59 goals in all major competitions.
4 February 1997: Three days after a goalless draw in the League at Elland Road between the two it ended Arsenal 0 Leeds 1 (FA Cup). It was the last game for John Harston and the match marked George Graham’s return to Highbury, as Leeds manager.
4 February 2006: Adebayor scored on his debut which ended Birmingham 0 Arsenal 2. He played 104 league games for Arsenal and scored 46 goals.
4 February 2012: After three defeats and a draw in last four games, Arsenal beat Blackburn 7-1. Robin Van Persie got a hatrick, and Oxlade Chamberlain 2.
4 February 2023: Arsenal played 19th placed Everton and lost – for only the second time in the season.
You might also enjoy
The 1919 Affair: How Arsenal were promoted to the first division – the only complete and detailed history of Arsenal’s election.
Day by Day the videos – An Arsenal video for (almost) every day of the year in order.
Day by Day the stories– a key moment in Arsenal and footballing history for each day of the year
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