AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood Continuing the story of the 2000/2001 season in the series that reviews Mr Wenger’s time at Arsenal. By the end of 2000 we had lost four matches including a horrible 4-0 …
Read More “When we lost 6-1 to Man U. Stepanovs and the rest in 2000/1.”
Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Arsene Wenger had won the double with a team that included Anelka, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit. But by the summer of 2000, all three had gone. These days, as we contemplate the eternal …
Read More “Wenger at Arsenal 2000/2001. The transfers and the fiasco.”
By Tony Attwood In part one of the review of 1999/2000 we looked at a season opening that was a mix of injuries and the arrival of new players who took time to settle. It was no coincidence this season that Arsenal’s run of success had to wait until the end of the season, when …
Read More “1999/2000 – we end up 18 points behind Man U and lose on penalties in all 3 cups”
A player being unsettled by the media, by other clubs, and by players of other clubs is something that Arsene Wenger has had to contend with all the time at Arsenal. We are familiar with this as a daily issue over the comments from Barcelona players about Fabregas, and in 2011 from Manchester United players …
By Andy Kelly Who Was Arsenal’s Second Permanent Manager? According to every Arsenal history written since 1986, George Elcoat was Arsenal’s second manager. Up until 1952 he was only known as Mr Elcoat. Then Bernard Joy wrote “Forward, Arsenal!” and gave him an initial so that he became G. Elcoat. He remained this way until …
Read More “How all the history books get Arsenal’s second manager wrong”
By Tony Attwood What do you do after you have won the double in your second full season at a club? Answer: you do it again. That is what some fans expected. In fact the expectations were very high – and were dashed. 1998/9 started with four draws and a win. OK no defeats but …
Read More “1998/9 Mr Wenger’s Third Season: after the double, the Sheffield affair.”
By Andy Kelly and Tony Attwood . Henry Norris bought Woolwich Arsenal FC in 1910. Quite why he did so has always been something of a mystery, since he already owned two clubs – Croydon Common FC in the Southern League and Fulham FC in the second division. . Arsenal at the time were struggling, …
Read More “Why did Henry Norris have a fixation with Woolwich Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood The result in the league for 1997/8 look wonderful – we won the league with two games to spare, and finished five points ahead of Manchester U who ended up in second place. We also won the FA Cup – our second double. The winning match of the season, by which I …
Read More “1997/8 Mr Wenger’s second season. The close margin between success and failure.”
Untold Arsenal and Arsenal History on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Untold Arsenal Index History of Arsenal with a new series on the Rioch year, and onto the Wenger years. Making the Arsenal – the book of Arsenal death and rebirth By Tony Attwood If we look at the Premiership appearance figures for …
By Tony Attwood As we saw in the last article, Mr Wenger started out with the same sort of promise as Herbert Chapman. But it is what happened then that marked him out as a different type of manager. We are in an era before rampant match fixing and before the financial corruption that took …
By Tony Attwood What we have seen in the previous articles is that the time before Arsene Wenger took over the club was not a period of huge league success. It has been pointed out however that this is a somewhat unfair analysis since although George Graham’s team slid away in the league, there were …
By Tony Attwood My feeling is that there are many people who claim to be Arsenal supporters who believe the mantra that “this is the worst Arsenal team ever”. My personal remembrance, backed up by videos of the pre-Wengerian seasons is that what we see now is several million light years ahead of what we …
The season in question was 1995-6, and the man in charge was Bruce Rioch. As the previous article showed, Arsenal had been hunting in the lower leagues to try and find a man to take over from George Graham. They found a man who had had a few run ins with those in the clubs …
Read More “Arsenal before Arsène: What happened the season before Wenger arrived”
By Tony Attwood Rioch had one season at Arsenal – 1995/6. He can point to the season as having some success such as Reaching the UEFA Cup for the following year, having come fifth in the league League Cup Semi-Final, lost on away goals But we might also note that Arsenal were knocked out of …
by Tony Attwood It has become commonplace for people who don’t like Arsene Wenger to state that “this is the worst Arsenal team that I have ever seen, and I have been supporting the club for 30 years.” I was about to add to that sentence “or words to that effect” but actually looking at …
Read More “When Bruce Rioch managed Arsenal; the man, the myth”
THERAPY – A GROUP EXERCISE With all this present day chit-chat about “Wenger Out!”, I’d like to offer a little perspective, stimulate some debate, and hopefully cheer everyone up a bit. You always read these polls about who were the best players to ever put on an Arsenal shirt, which always infuriate me: you’re always …
Read More “Who were Arsenal’s worst players? The History Site investigates.”
By Tony Attwood Herbert Chapman followed Leslie Knighton as manager at Arsenal. Here’s how the last years of Knighton’s reign compared with Chapman’s opening years. Season Manager League Position Cup exit round* 1921/2 Knighton 17 4 (6) 1922/3 Knighton 11 2 (4) 1923/4 Knighton 19 2 (4) 1924/5 Knighton 20 2 (4) 1925/6 Chapman 2 …
By Tony Attwood Three seasons gone and the man brought in to bring trophies to Arsenal had delivered a couple of near misses but no actual trophies. In the league we had been 2nd, 11th and 10th – far better than under the previous management. In the cup we had lost in a final, lost …
Read More “Herbert Chapman Season 4: flirting with relegation and the signing of Charlie Jones”
By Tony Attwood This is the third article in the series which reviews the reign of Herbert Chapman season by season. Links to the earlier articles are at the foot of the page. 1927/28 was the third season of Herbert Chapman’s reign at Arsenal. In the previous two seasons he had broken new ground by …
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood I don’t know of any contemporary commentaries from 77 years ago, but for the regulars at Highbury1926/7 must have started as a season as stupendous promise. Having never won a single thing of consequence (not the second division, not the first division, not …
By Tony Attwood Leslie Knighton was appointed manager of The Arsenal upon the return of the club to the first division at the end of the first world war, in 1919. Arsenal were promoted after refusing to back down on the match fixing scandal in the last pre-war season (which actually went on into the …
By Gf60 The memories flooded back after that 1-0 win against Stoke. The last 1-0 home win against them that I can remember happened nearly 40 years ago. And that was the start of something very special. Not that that week had started off well. A Monday night kick off and a train trip up …
By Tony Attwood I’ve good reason to remember this game today, as we make one of our rare appearances against Orient – and one of our even rarer appearances at Brisbane Road – simply because I was there. By 1962 my family had moved away from Devonshire Hill Lane in Tottenham, where I was brought …
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony Wilf Copping was born in Yorkshire on 17 August 1909. He attended Houghton Council School and left to become a miner while playing for local teams Dearn Valley, Middlecliffe and Dartfield Rovers (of whom I can find no information.). He tried for a …
Read More “Wilf Copping, one of the original hard men of football”
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony Jack Crayston was born in Lancashire and played for his local school sides. It is also said that he played for Ulverston Town but I can’t find any details of that club (although the town is in the right area for this to …
Read More “Jack Crayston: Arsenal player and Arsenal manager”
