By Tony Attwood
Today’s highlighted anniversary come from 1910
- 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
- Details of some more series can be found at the foot of his article and others are on the home page
The Arsenal anniversaries for 12 May
12 May 1910: Woolwich Arsenal announced that talks with Fulham to rescue the club had come to nothing, and the directors of Woolwich Arsenal FC had opened discussions with Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, to see if their boards wanted to buy all or part of the club.
12 May 1912: Arsenal were engaged in their first overseas tour since 1907 and on this day played Vicktoria 89 Tempelhof of Berlin. The sides drew 2-2. Vicktoria survived until 2013 when it merged with Lichterfelder FC to form a new club, FC Viktoria 1889 Berlin.
12 May 1937: Arsenal had played in the Coronation Cup on 19 April, and there was great excitement on this day as not only was King George VI married to Queen Elizabeth, but the BBC made the event the subject of its first multi-site outside broadcast on TV.
12 May 1945: Alan Ball born. He played for Ashton, Blackpool and Everton before joining Arsenal as Mee sought to strengthen his Double winning team.
12 May 1978: Arsenal returned to Tottenham to round off the season with the John Pratt testimonial. Arsenal lost 5-3 with all three Arsenal goals coming from Fuccillo (presumably the Luton player on loan). McLintock also appeared for Arsenal.
12 May 1979: Arsenal 3 Man United 2 in the FA Cup final. Having been 2-0 up, Man U scored two late on, before Alan Sunderland scored the most dramatic of winners at the death. We win the cup against Man U. The game by game summary is here
12 May 2000: Having beaten Coventry 3-1 in the first leg of the FA Youth Cup final, Arsenal completed the job winning 2-0 at Highbury. Bothroyd and Sidwell scored, but not one of the players in either match went on to a first team career at Arsenal.
12 May 2001: Arsenal lost the cup final 2-1 to Liverpool at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. Ljungberg gave Arsenal the lead on 72 minutes: the first cup final goal scored outside England.
12 May 2019: Burnley 1 Arsenal 3 in the final match before the Europa League final. Having had three successive defeats in the Premier League Arsenal had recovered and won both legs of the Europa semi-final and drawn a league game with Brighton. This win suggested that the club was coming good in time for the final.
12 May 2022: Needing a win or at least a draw to help secure fourth place in the league Arsenal lost away to Tottenham 3-0, with the media taking the view that Arsenal were not a “top four” team but Tottenham most certainly were. The results in 2022/3 suggested this view was somewhat misplaced.
