By Tony Attwood
3 January 1951: Arsenal sign Dennis Evans from Ellesmere Port Town for £1500
Dennis Evans was born on 18 May 1930 in Ellesmere Port and played for his local side. He was signed from them directly to Arsenal, by Tom Whittaker who was building his next league winning side with Dennis marked down as the successor to Wally Barnes at left back.
Dennis played his first game for the first team in August 1953 and played 10 games that season in the league. But that was the season when Arsenal, having won the league the year before, opened disastrously, with six defeats and two draws in their first eight games, including a 7-1 thrashing by Sunderland.
That opening marked the start of a decline in Arsenal, and it was Dennis Evans misfortune to play through the first ten years of what has been named on this site “The Darkness” as Whittaker died in 1957, and Jack Crayston, George Swindin and Billy Wright all failed to re-energise the club.
There is a full article on him in the Darkness series.
The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- “The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal”: crowd behaviour at the early matches
The sites…
- Untold Arsenal
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
- The weight loss programme: The only guaranteed wayto stay fit
- Looking for a terraced house in Northamptonshire?
The main series
- Islington 100: celebrating 100 years of Arsenal in Islington
- Arsenal’s Anniversaries
- The Managers index with two managers that no one else includes!
- Arsenal’s Chronology
“The Darkness” only went to prove that by and large ex players do not make successful managers, particularly in the Clubs they served as players.
@nicky, by and large ex players DO make successful managers, but if you’re referring to just Arsenal, then you may have an argument although Whittaker and Graham both played for us. Even Chapman, Mee and Wenger were ex players.