AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
This is the website of the Arsenal History Society. You might also enjoy… Untold Updates videos We’re back with our videos: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews Football corruption and scandals. Why is it all so under reported? Part 1 Football corruption and scandals. A few stories that did get reported. Part 2 Football …
Read More “Where are they now? Kanu, Kerrea Gilbert, Mark Randall, Samuel Galindo”
On this day in 2016 Mo Elneny was signed from FC Basel. During the remainder of the season he twice won the fans’ player of the month award. Yet by the start of 2019 he was one of the players that certain blogs and broadcast commentators were wanting removed from the club. Popularity, it seems, …
Read More “The rise and fall of players in the eyes of fans.”
There are many players who simply never make it, despite early promise, and certainly Yaya Sanogo was one of these. Sanogo has earned caps with the under-16 and under-17 teams of France. including being the under-16s first-choice striker scoring 18 goals in 18 games. And in one pre-season friendly in the emirates cup he did …
Read More “The players who never live up to their initial promise…”
The infamous story of the Arsenal manager giving his team drugs to enhance their performance in 1925, is oft repeated in history books, but none that I know has actually bothered to check out the details of what looks like a very unlikely tale. Certainly an investigation into the conditions in London at the time …
Read More “Did the Arsenal manager really drug his own team on this day in 1925?”
We might be rather upset with referees in the current football climate but in 1996/7 there seemed to be an all-out assault on the club by match officials, with five red cards in ten games. It was Wenger’s first season and there appeared to be a feeling among officialdom that these foreigners the new man …
Read More “Five red cards in ten games: were they trying to tell us something?”
The unbeaten season was Arsenal’s season of all time, in my view. And one of the games nominated as the performance of the season occurred on this day in 2004 – Mr Wenger naming it thus at the time. It was, for anyone who was there, a really fine affair. Here are the anniversaries. 10 …
Read More “The performance of the season in the greatest season of the club.”
In 29 April 2019 a number of newspapers announced that “For years, the founder of Arsenal FC was buried in an unmarked grave in Coventry,” but that now that was finally put right when the man behind one of the world’s greatest football clubs was finally given the resting place he deserves.” That man was David …
Read More “David Danskin: an Arsenal founder but a man out of step with the majority in the club.”
Jermaine Pennant joined Arsenal on this day in 1999, a stunning talent that was never fulfilled either with Arsenal or with any of the many other clubs he played for. In all he signed for 11 different clubs and went on loan to a further six, his final club being Billericay Town in 2017 for …
Read More “The case of Jermaine Pennant, a remarkable talent never fully exploited on the pitch.”
What we tend to forget about the origins of Arsenal is that aside from Dial Square FC there was the Dial Square cricket club, which was much more well established than Dial Square football club. Indeed as far as can be told from the records that survive, Dial Square FC was a subordinate part of …
Everyone knows the name of Herbert Chapman, not least because he gave Arsenal its first trophies – two league titles and an FA Cup. He is the only manager of the club who is commemorated outside the ground with a statue – thanks to the Arsenal History Society. But his legacy was even greater than …
Read More “Commemorating the tragic early death of Herbert Chapman”
By Tony Attwood In the past it has often been suggested that Arsenal played a number of games as Dial Square FC before becoming Royal Arsenal FC. In fact this wasn’t true – there was just one match – against Eastern Wanderers. We discovered the truth of this by asking obvious questions such as “Who …
Read More “How we discovered when Dial Square FC died and Royal Arsenal was born.”
Please note that this site contains the master files of the anniversary details we hold. Each is updated at the end of each month – hence the December file has just been updated in full incorporating changes that were made during the publication of the files in that month 2019. The month by month index …
Read More “19th in the first divison and held by York in the cup: yes it can get worse.”
Please note that this site contains the master files of the anniversary details we hold. Each is updated at the end of each month – hence the December file has just been updated in full incorporating changes that were made during the publication of the files in that month 2019. Here is the monthly index …
Read More “Two of the most important comments about Arsenal ever made”
Unravelling Arsenal’s history often involves locating events which of themselves seem rather unimportant, but the existence of which can prove a key issue or disprove a popular theory, which otherwise remains unclear. For example the recording of the match on 2 January 1886 involving Woolwich United suggests that there was an organised team in the …
Read More “The man who ensured that Arsenal would not be owned by its fans”
Letting in five for the third time in a season would be more than enough to lead to mass demonstrations against the manager these days. Fortunately in the 1930s things were just a little calmer, since the manager was Chapman, and he offered to resign. Fortunately the board said no and he stayed. Here are …
Read More “Why it is not always good to sack the boss after a run of poor results.”
Two goals stand out on 31 December in Arsenal’s history. One was Jensen’s first ever goal for Arsenal, his failure to score before this becoming the stuff of legends, and the other was a goal so outrageously wrong that even TV commentators found it hard to excuse, in the match in 2017. Here are the …
Read More “The anniversary of one of the all time classic referee “mistakes””
This day in 1995 was probably a key moment in which it was decided by Arsenal directors that Bruce Rioch was not the man to take the club forward. It was not just that Arsenal were defeated at home by Wimbledon but also that this was followed by a 0-2 defeat to Newcastle. Arsenal did …
Read More “How a poor game in December convinced the directors Arsenal needed a new manager”
This day in 1973 marked one of the darkest days in terms of Arsenal’s management and decision making, as Bertie Mee, the man who had delivered the first double, responded to demands from his playing staff for more recognition for their talent in terms of salaries and bonuses, by announcing his plans to cut the …
Read More “When Arsenal planned to cut the professional squad to 19 and scrap the youth teams”
These days, playing two games a week (as clubs playing in Europe, the League, the League Cup and the FA Cup regularly do) means having a squad of 25 players, plus a whole load of youngsters who can step up for some of the non-league games against weaker opposition. Five games in eight days seems …
Read More “Five games in eight days, and Tottenham bottom of the league. The Arsenal anniversaries”
The notion of scoring five or more goals, in nine different league games in a season seems very unlikely now, but that is what Arsenal did in the 1930/1 season as they proceeded to win the league with a record number of points. On this day in 1930 it was Arsenal 7 Blackpool 1. Here …
Read More “When Arsenal scored five or more in nine separate league games in one season.”
The popularity of Boxing Day matches in recent years means that key events in our three Wenger championship years happened on this day – and there was another particularly vibrant reason to celebrate on a non-trophy year around this time. In 1977, the Boxing Day game of the second double season gave us the start …
Read More “No Boxing Day Blues for Arsenal – well at least not many”
Football matches on Christmas Day were exceedingly popular until around 1950 by which time supporters were starting to feel more inclined to stay at home with the family on 25 December. It was in fact simply a decline in crowds that moved matches away from 25 December rather than any regulation, and the occasional experiment …
Read More “Playing football on Christmas Day, the Arsenal way.”
Untold Video Updates: We’re continuing to experiment with our video commentaries: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews I’ve been interested over the years to trace back the behaviour of the Arsenal crowd in order to ascertain if the booing and jeering of players that we have seen in recent times is just a …
Read More “The man with 98 goals in 143 games – who was jeered by his own supporters.”
Untold Video Updates: We’re continuing to experiment with our video commentaries: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews What a goal by Brady. That commentary that we hear at every home match Arsenal play was scored on this day in 1978 in the game that ended Tottenham 0 Arsenal 5. The result left Arsenal fourth …
Read More “What a goal by Brady. When it happened and what happened next”
Untold Video Updates: We’re continuing to experiment with our video commentaries: do take a peek at Untold GoonerNews A lot has been made of Arsenal’s poor away form in recent years, and certainly it has contrasted with Arsenal’s home form – most notably in Arsene Wenger’s final season. But this is not a new …
Read More “When Arsenal’s away form was a disaster – but they still won the league!”
