AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood The closure of the Manor Ground in 1895 because of crowd trouble has been covered in several articles on this site. This piece attempts to bring together the main information we have. Much of the information here is taken from The Crowd At Woolwich Arsenal by Mark Andrews which is available from …
Read More “When Arsenal’s ground was closed due to unruly behaviour”
18 February 1978 Arsenal 4 Walsall 1; FA Cup 5th round Attendance: 43,789 The tie seemed just about as easy as a fifth found tie could be, but the build up to this cup match did not give Arsenal fans absolutely hope and expectation. The recent scores were… 4 February 1978: Arsenal 0 Aston Villa …
Read More “18 February 1978 Arsenal 4 Walsall 1… heading for the cup final”
1998/9 was an almost season; an up and down season for Arsenal. Having won the double the season before, this time there were no trophies with Arsenal ending up second to Man U (one point and one goal behind) and going out in the FA cup semi final, also to Man U. However we did …
Read More “17 February 1999 Man U 1 Arsenal 1; Arsenal concede first league goal in 2 months”
19 February 1980: Bolton Wanderers (H) FA Cup 5th round replay Arsenal had bowed out of the league cup in this season to Swindon Town (again) at the end of 1979, which reduced the trophies to chase by one. But they had a third round Cup winners cup match coming up soon after the fifth …
Read More “19 February 1980: Arsenal 3 Bolton Wanderers 0 FA Cup”
Arsenal’s greatest local rivals (until 1913) Arsenal’s first game, as we know (although for a long time I doubted it) was on the Isle of Dogs, north of the Thames, at, or very close to, the original ground used by Millwall. By the time Arsenal started playing Millwall they were playing in their second …
Read More “Arsenal’s great rivals (before we moved north of the river)”
Twelve men have played for England at cricket and football: Alfred Lyttelton, Billy Gunn, Leslie Gay, Reginald “Tip” Foster (the only man to captained England at both cricket and football), Charles (CB) Fry, Jack Sharp, Harry Makepeace, Andy Ducat, Wally Hardinge, John Arnold, Willie Watson and Arthur Milton. We might also include Denis Compton who …
Read More “Arthur Milton, Arsenal, England (football), England (cricket)”
The years 2002/3 were to say the least eventful for Arsenal. The club ended 2001/2 as champions, and by 2 March 2003 with an 8 point lead at the top of the first division looked like they might not only win it again, but also win the FA Cup as well. On 8 May 2002 …
Read More “When Ferguson kicked David and Arsenal marched on”
On 12 February 1977 Manchester City beat Arsenal 1-0. It was the fourth game without a win and the start of seven consecutive defeats in the league – the worst ever run of defeats for the club. . The previous worst runs were of six consecutive defeats, one under Herbert Chapman and one under Leslie …
By Tony Attwood Say “The 1930s” to any football fan who knows his/her history and you will undoubtedly get mention of “The Arsenal” – the team that came from just having never won either of the two main trophies to dominate the decade. Arsenal survived the death of Herbert Chapman, and completed a hat trick …
Which Premiership player has scored the most goals without winning an international cap? Certainly for some time it was Kevin Campbell, who also appeared on a list originally published by the Guardian, of the 10 best players in the Premier League never to get a full cap. I’m not sure if Campbell’s record has been …
By Tony Attwood By the time the league cup came round in February 2004 Arsenal were really enjoying themselves having won five and drawn one of the last six league games, as well as having won through the third and fourth rounds of the FA Cup (both times by four goals to one). During the …
Read More “Unbeaten in the league, but not in the league cup. 3 Feb 2004”
On 2 February 2002 Arsenal drew 1-1 at home with Southampton. It was considered a poor result since it left Arsenal 3rd in the table, whereas a win would have left them second. For Southampton it meant that they were 13th – and the table showed them as a club that should have been beaten. …
Read More “Arsenal score in 26 consecutive league games and that’s just the start”
Tony Attwood Arsenal were in the midst of some patchy form when this replay in the 4th round of the FA Cup, finally got played. The four league games and two FA Cup games running up to the match were… 26 December 1970: Arsenal 0 Southampton 0 6 January 1971: Yeovil 0 Arsenal 3 (FA …
Read More “Arsenal 3 Porstmouth 2; 1 February 1971 – heading for the double”
By Tony Attwood . Tom Whittaker became Arsenal manager on 2 June 1947. . He was on the move in the transfer market very quickly and in fact signed Dan Roper on 11 August 1947. . The manager then gave débuts to Archie Macauley and Don Roper in his first march in charge on 23 …
Read More “Arsenal lose to Bradford but march on to the title”
Thomas Stephen Caton was born 6 October 1962 and tragically died on 30 April 1993. He was a centre half, one of the wild bunch of hard drinking Arsenal players, but none the less a great player for all that – although he never achieved anything like his potential with Arsenal. Tommy was born in …
Arsenal 3 Newcastle 0 (again) This match saw Arsenal go top of the league, and was part an unbeaten run that started on 16 December 2007 when Arsenal beat Chelsea 1-0. The one defeat of the season so far had come against Middlesbrough on 9 December 2007 (2-1 away), and the new run including this …
Read More “29 Jan 2008; Arsenal challenging at the top of the league”
By Tony Attwood It is still strange to me (although I was there) to remember some of the names that played in the Invincibles. I mean, we all know Lehmann did the 38 games, something no one else achieved, and we remember Henry, Vieira, Pirès, Lauren, Toure, Cole, Campbell, Ljungberg, Gilberto Silva – all playing …
Read More “Jose Antonio Reyes: the Invincible who never quite delivered”
From 1999 to 2001 Arsenal finished runners up in the Premier League three seasons running, the last of these being the year when Man U beat Arsenal 6-1 at Old Trafford, and Mr Wenger apparently truly did show his emotions after the game. In the final year of the three however Arsenal did get to …
Read More “Remembering the battle against Liverpool in the cup”
15th August 1970: The balancing point. The Darkness has been ended. The Possible had been achieved. Now for the Impossible Context is everything. After the misery of mid-table hopelessness and 3rd round exits from the FA Cup Bertie Mee didn’t give us a Double out of nothing. He first gave Arsenal league cup finals, our …
Read More “How Arsenal moved from Darkness towards the first Double”
By Tony Attwood There is a review of Arsenal’s season in 1929/30 here, and a note within that about the poor league form which saw us finish in 14th position. But in the FA Cup things were quite different, and finally it came to pass that Arsenal won their first major trophy. Having been …
Read More “How it started: Arsenal win their first major trophy”
1997/8 was Arsène Wenger’s first complete season at Arsenal, and as everyone will know, he set himself an impossibly high bar to measure up to thereafter by giving us a Double. It was our first championship in seven years, the first league/cup double since 1970/1 (only our second in fact although George Graham got …
How to go about writing for the Arsenal History Society (and, if you feel like it, Untold Arsenal). If you are writing an article for the AHS blog here are a few hints to make life easier for the editors, and to enhance your chance of getting the article published. First, and most obviously, please …
By Tony Attwood . When I started writing about the 1950s and 60s in Arsenal’s history on this site I soon hit upon the simple title of “The Darkness” to signify the era. . In 1953 Tom Whittaker had won another championship for Arsenal, but instantly things fell apart and the rest of the era …
Tony Attwood In the season 1908/9 the Football League began a curious experiment in which teams played each other home and away on Christmas Day / Boxing Day. The first incidence of this for Arsenal came with these two games 25 December 1908: Leicester Fosse 1 Woolwich Arsenal 1 26 December 1908: Arsenal 2 Leicester …
Read More “Arsenal / Tottenham, the first Highbury derby, and why we had to wait for it.”
By Tony Attwood In 1979 Arsenal won the FA Cup against Man U in possibly the most famous ending to a final of all time. Alan Sunderland attained immortality and Terry Neill’s tenure as manager got a cup to polish. But then life went a bit downhill. 1980: Losing finalists in the FA Cup 1981: …
Read More “17 game unbeaten run and the first trophy in 8 years”
