AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Richard Hoover When Arsenal signed Mesut Ozil in the autumn of 2013, the thinking was that one of the best no. 10s in world football was on his way to London. The move was meant to revitalise the Gunners’ offense and allow the team to begin playing through the talented German midfielder, who at …
Arsenal in the 70s, part 1: the re-birth of the club. 1969/70 Arsenal in the 70s, part 2: preparing for the impossible. July to December 1970 By Tony Attwood Thus Arsenal had finished 1970 in a solid position in the league, still in the Fairs Cup, and of course ready for the opening of another …
By Tony Attwood. (Amended 1 June 2017) Although Arsenal entered 1970/71 season on a high having won a European competition for the first time, they were still often reminded by a belligerent press that they had not won any major domestic competition since the league trophy of 1953. Worse, they were the nearly men, the …
Read More “Arsenal in the 70s part 2: preparing to do the impossible.”
By Tony Attwood I’ve already written a brief summary of the Curious story of 1968/9 – in this article I want to do a deeper review of what happened as 1968/9 came to an end, and of the following season, a season that will always be remembered both as the first season in which Arsenal won a …
Read More “Arsenal in the 70s, part 1: the re-birth of the club. 1969/70”
By Tony Attwood Imagine yourself to have been working in a factory complex whose grounds covered over 1000 acres, and which employed around 70,000 people. The year is 1886 and you are working in an era when the game of football was already well known and well established. Indeed the oldest football competition – …
Read More “Why was the first Arsenal side called Dial Square and why did it only last one game?”
I have recently been writing about Arsenal’s summers – simply because no one seems to have gathered the summer pre and post season campaigns and signings together before. But I have had several comments to the effect that it would be even better if a similar style could be used but for the whole season …
Read More “The end of Knighton, Herbert Chapman’s arrival, the truth about “WM” and a new club high”
Arsène Wenger OBE is the longest serving and most successful Arsenal manager of all time. Indeed it is no exaggeration to say that he has singlehandedly created the second Arsenal Golden Age, while at the same time revolutionising English top division football. The first Arsenal Golden Age ran of course from 1930 to 1953, encompassing the careers …
By Tony Attwood The first season after the second world war was fairly gruesome for Arsenal. In fact it turned out to be worse in terms of the league than any season since 1929/30 when Arsenal had the overwhelming compensation of winning the FA Cup for the first time – indeed their first ever major …
Read More “Arsenal in the summer. 1947: The Phoenix rises out of the ashes”
By Tony Attwood This is part of our series that focusses on Arsenal’s activities each summer. A list of all the articles in the series thus far is given at the foot of the article, and updated each week on the home page of the site. As soon as war broke out in 1939 the …
Continuing the story of Arsenal’s summers through the ages. An index to the 45 articles already published in the series is given at the foot of the page. By Tony Attwood The summer of 1913 is of course one of the absolute key periods in the history of Arsenal FC as it was the …
Read More “Arsenal in 1913: The summer of moving to Highbury”
If you are an occasional reader of this site you will know that we are slowly building a complete set of important anniversaries for Arsenal – the number of entries is currently around 4500. Others have gone before us with this task of course, but mostly they have either included just three or four entries …
Read More “Arsenal Anniversaries in October – a major update”
By Tony Attwood The 1893/4 season was the sixth in which the Football League operated and the first in which Woolwich Arsenal played in the league. The club finished 9th out of 15 in the league winning 12 and losing 12. Arsenal twice saw a crowd of 10,000 for league games, and having fought their way …
Read More “After one year in the league what happened to Arsenal? Football and Arsenal in 1894”
By Tony Attwood The summer of 1976 saw the confirmation of Liverpool’s continuing dominance now under Bob Paisley as manager, but largely forgotten is the fact that QPR pushed them all the way in the league. In the FA Cup Southampton beat Man U in the final. For Arsenal it was the end for Bertie …
Read More “The summer of 1976: trying to rebuild after the Bertie Mee era.”
. The Arsenal Summer of 1977 By Tony Attwood 1976/7 was the season when the old “goal average” calculations were abolished and goal difference was introduced, along with the red and yellow cards for the refs to wave about a bit. This was the period when Liverpool started winning the European Cup and …
Read More “The Arsenal summer of 1977. Heavy drinking after Tottenham are relegated”
By Tony Attwood After war had been declared in 1914, the Football League continued to play out the 1914/15 season. Recruiting officers and local Mayors (including Henry Norris) attended matches trying to persuade young men as they entered and left the ground (and indeed at half time) to sign up (conscription having not yet started). …
By Tony Attwood Arsenal played the 1969/70 season as a club had not won a major trophy since 1953. In both 1968 and 1969 Arsenal had thought they might end the drought, but on both occasions lost in the League Cup final – the second time to the mighty Swindon Town. So with the …
Read More “Arsenal’s 1970 pre-season. Preparing for the impossible”
By Tony Attwood On 19 February 1930 the score that was revealed in the London late evening papers was very unimpressive for your London based Arsenal supporter. Derby 4 Arsenal 1. (There was no radio roundup of match results then – that didn’t start until the Light Programme launched Sports Report at 5.30pm on a saturday …
Read More “1930 Arsenal pre-season. Preparing for the unthinkable – winning the league.”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal ended the 1977/8 season with some very up and down form. For example on 4 March 1978 we had the result Arsenal 3 Manchester City 0. This was the first win in six league games but also a part of a run of nine undefeated. Some of that nine unbeaten run …
By Tony Attwood Before Chapman arrived Defeat to Liverpool on 3 January 1925 started a run of 6 consecutive defeats during which Arsenal scored 2 goals. Worse, in utter desperation on 14 January 1925 the Arsenal manager started experimenting by giving drugs to the Arsenal players – as he revealed in his later memoires. On …
Read More “1925: Arsenal’s pre-season. The arrival of Chapman”
By Tony Attwood 1979/80 is the season that is remembered for starting out with the optimism of being Cup Holders, and ending with the ludicrous number of games the club played getting to the CWC final and the FA Cup final, and the defeats in both – and indeed the failure to get into Europe …
Read More “1979 pre season: Cup holders looking for a bright new era.”
By Tony Attwood Football in the early 20th century was of course very different from now. The notion of the pre-season friendly didn’t exist, and the period 1 May to 31 August was an absolute football free zone. Undoubtedly the “Probables v Improbables” (later renamed more respectfully, the first team against the reserves) matches …
Read More “1903: the pre season and Arsenal’s greatest ever start to a campaign”
By Tony Attwood 1979/80 ended with one of the most overloaded match schedules in the history of the club. Perhaps the most overloaded. Arsenal got to the club’s third successive FA cup final (the only time this had ever been achieved by the club) but a combination of drawn games in the semi-final against …
Read More “1980: Arsenal pre-season after trying to win nearly everything”
By Tony Attwood There is a clamour by journalists and their lapdogs in the blogettes at the moment for Arsene Wenger to be sacked because of the allegedly poor start to the 2015/16 season, in which his side has won one, drawn one and lost one. I’ve just published a review of managers sacked this …
Read More “Why every successful Arsenal manager in history should have been sacked”
by Tony Attwood I started this series of articles about Arsenal’s pre-season campaigns simply because I couldn’t find a comprehensive record anywhere else and I kept wanted to check details. I could see the results of friendlies, of course, and separately the transfers, but no overall view of what happened in each pre-season. But now, …
By Tony Attwood Towards the end of the old season… On 11 March 1981 Peter Nicholas signed for Arsenal from Crystal Palace for £400,000. He never really made the impact hoped for and after just 60 league matches he returned to Palace, before moving on to Luton, Aberdeen, Chelsea and Watford. He made his first appearance …
Read More “1981 Arsenal pre season: the pressure of expectation overwhelms.”
