AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood On this day – 22 June 1893 – Woolwich Arsenal FC held its first AGM. It was the culmination of some of the most amazing events ever in the history of Arsenal, and it signified not only the survival of the club which had been under attack from a rival breakaway club …
Read More “It’s Arsenal’s birthday & the anniversary of the launch of a national football league”
By Tony Attwood On 11 June 2012 Sylvain Wiltord announced his retirement from playing football. Although I missed this as an anniversary, I really do feel the need to go back and pay tribute to one of our great, great players who spent four years at Highbury, winning two Premier League titles and two FA …
By Tony Attwood William John Crayston (known universally as Jack) was born on 9 October 1910 in Grange-over-Sands in North Lonsdale (Cumbria), playing as a defender for local teams Ulverston Town and Barrow before moving south to Bradford PA. George Allison signed him in May 1934, was apparently impressed by his sober attitude to life and …
On June 18th 1979 Paul Davis signed professional forms for Arsenal. Paul Davis was born in Dulwich on 9 December 1961, signed by Arsenal in 1977, and played for the first team for the first time against Tottenham on April 7 1980 at Tottenham. We won 2-1. The cause of his sudden insertion into the …
Read More “Paul Davis. Wonderful wonderful player, talented coach, and one incident”
Tony Attwood Don Howe was, of course, both a manager and a player at Arsenal. In management terms he did not win any trophies nor secure any top four finishes but as our manager analysis chart shows in our chart of managers, if we exclude those who served one season or less he is the …
By Tony Attwood This ever-evolving series of articles focuses on Arsenal’s managers, and what the club looked like through each era of management. You can see the full list of managers at Manager by manager and from there go to an index of articles for each manager that we’ve covered. In doing this I am …
Noting a date when a player was sold? What’s the point of that? And a player you might never have heard of??? In fact Andy Ducat was one of the greatest Woolwich Arsenal players, and while there are so many Woolwich Arsenal men of whom we know nothing there are some of whom we know …
Read More “Arsenal Anniversaries: Andy Ducat sold, 15 June 1912”
By Tony Attwood Perhaps as we draw this story to its conclusion we should focus on one passage from the autobiography of Leslie Knighton. Knighton wrote of Sir Henry, “I have never met his equal for logic, invective and ruthlessness against all who opposed him. When I disagreed with him at board meetings and had …
Read More “Knighton: what do we learn about post-war Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood What we know of Leslie Knighton we mostly know from his autobiography. It is for the most part made up of short remembrances strung together in themes. It is clear that neither he nor his editors of publisher did any checking of his stories, for where they can be readily checked, such …
By Tony Attwood Continuing the story of Arsenal immediately after the first world war. It is clear from his record at Arsenal, and elsewhere, that Leslie Knighton, the manager for those early post-war years, was a man who could spot talent, but who could not combine the talent he found into a consistently effective, or …
By Tony Attwood What we have seen is that Leslie Knighton, the manager who came to Arsenal to take over after the first war world was in many ways doing what others were all over football were doing: bringing in players where ever he could find them, using 30+ players in a season (seasons which …
By Tony Attwood In my last post I introduced Leslie Knighton, the man who was Arsenal’s least successful long term manager ever. And yet he was a man who has significant impact on the way in which we see Arsenal in the period between the first world war and the arrival of Herbert Chapman. More, …
Read More “The man who wrote Arsenal’s history: height and cost restrictions”
By Tony Attwood If a historian from the future were to read the pages of Untold Arsenal he/she would immediately be struck by the variety of opinion that is expressed on that blog. Wanting to get a further view on the club at this time, such a historian might turn to the official Arsenal website, …
Read More “The man who wrote Arsenal’s history to suit himself”
“Duncan McNichol the man no manager signed” According to those record books and Arsenal histories that bother with such details on 20 February 1899 William Robson Elcoat left Arsenal as manager. He had been manager for less than a year and he left saying that he could not get on with the board. Unable to …
Read More “Arsenal’s manager goes missing – but we’ve found him”
7 June, Dave Bowen born. The article which we published on this site a little while back about the great Arsenal and Wales player Dave Bowen is headlined: The man who should have been our manager. But fate was against Arsenal, and Dave Bowen. He achieved so much as a man of football, but could, …
Read More “From the Arsenal Anniversaries file: 7 June, Dave Bowen born”
By Tony Attwood Billy Wright came with two problems – a lack of club management experience, and the joining of a club of national renown, who had been going through a bad patch. Under Swindin, the seasons had ended with us 3rd, 13th, 11th and 10th. In the cup we had once reached the fifth …
By Tony Attwood Billy Wright was one of Arsenal’s most unsuccessful managers – and certainly the most unsuccessful of modern times. Quite why he was such a failure may be because top footballers generally are – Andy Kelly and I did an analysis of Arsenal managers based on how good they were at playing football …
Read More “Billy Wright: great footballer, but Arsenal’s worst post-war manager”
3 June 1939 Jimmy James Tullis Logie was signed from Lochore Welfare. And what a time to sign – within 3 months we were at war with Germany, and Jimmy’s playing career was put on hold. But despite that he played 296 league games, scoring 68 goals and 30 cup games with 8 goals. Jimmy …
I have found 3 anniversaries for 2 June… 1947: Tom Whittaker becomes manager 1934 Wilf Copping joined Arsenal from Leeds United 1991 Gus Caesar moved to Cambridge United. Anyone who saw our league cup final against Luton Town will remember Gus Caesar, and perhaps no more should be said. Tom Whittaker does deserve coverage …
Read More “On this day: Tom Whittaker becomes Arsenal manager”
Tony Attwood Everyone over a certain age who claims any association with Arsenal has one picture of Alan Sunderland in their head. Scoring the winner in the FA Cup Final. 2-0 up, with minutes remaining, Manchester U took us back to 2-2, before Sunderland scored and ran down the pitch screaming abuse – or so …
By Tony Attwood On 31 May 1893 Woolwich Arsenal FC were elected to Division II of the Football League. It was an amazing moment for the club, because at the time it was under a ceaseless assault from a rival organisation – Royal Ordnance Factories FC, which had been formed by ex-members of the Royal …
Read More “Arsenal elected to the Football League: 31 May 1893”
By Tony Attwood Before Pat Jennings we had John Rimmer who was signed by Bertie Mee, and before him Bob Wilson, backed by Geoff Barnett. Pat’s story starts amazingly – apparently he played for the under 18 team of Sharock Rovers while aged 11, and then moved across to Gaelic football. But of course he …
By Tony Attwood I have recently kindly been supplied with this picture of Terry, to supplement the story below. Terry Anderson is not a name that springs to mind when we speak of Arsenal. But he it there in the annals of the club – signing professional forms for Arsenal in 1961. He was …
Read More “Terry Anderson or Arsenal and Norwich: a tragic story”
By Tony Attwood 28 May: George Allison becomes manager of Arsenal 1934 George Allison was one of our great, great managers winning two league titles, an FA cup victory and a third place. Among other things he won the League title for us in that extraordinary trio of seasons in which three different managers won …
Read More “28 May: George Allison becomes manager of Arsenal 1934”
This is part of the continuing series of articles looking back at Arsenal from the perspective of the managers. There is an index to the series at “The Managers” At the moment we are currently looking at the Terry Neill era, you can see exactly how Terry Neill got on as a manager from these …
