AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
by Tony Attwood Being a supporter, rather than someone with that much particular inside knowledge of what is happening, I have become fascinated with players who seem to make almost an entire career from going on loan. And I think of it on this day because it is the anniversary of Joel Campbell being sold …
Read More “Celebrating the players that are loaned, loaned and loaned again”
by Tony Attwood Just after the second world war, two Arsenal managers published their autobiographies. One came from Leslie Knighton who managed Arsenal from 1919 to 1925, and the other from George Allison who was manager from 1934 to 1947. The difference between the two men can be seen from that fact that Knighton …
Read More “Beware the stories told by an ex-Arsenal manager!”
What happens on the opening day of the season is not always a complete indicator of what was to come. Certainly this seems to have been the case for 2009/10 when the result of the first weekend was Everton 1 Arsenal 6. Arsenal finished 3rd in the league table at the end of the …
Read More “Arsenal’s best opening of a Premier League season.”
No matter what records a club establishes in football there is always a strong chance that one day someone will come along and overtake that record. But one footballing record looks secure for many years to come – if not for all time… the record for the most FA Cup wins by a manager. The …
Quite why Arsenal has always had a slap dash approach to its own history is a matter of surmise – but it could be seen once again on this day in 1968 when Arsenal published a new handbook with completely false details about the club’s origins – and of course no source information to back …
Sometimes pre-season games can be enough to show the board that the manager is not going to be able to deliver during the coming nine months. And so it was on this day in 1996 when for the last time to date Arsenal sacked their manager, leaving the club theoretically managerless for the rest …
Read More “When Arsenal sacked their manager part way through pre-season”
The answer to our question comes in the entry for 11 August 2003, and I really don’t want to spoil the fun by telling you who it was. But I’ll give you a clue. He later became a notorious critic of the club. Here are the anniversaries for today. 11 August 1923. It was common …
Read More “Only one person predicted Arsenal’s unbeaten season. But you’ll not guess who!”
Staying with yesterday’s theme of predictions on 10 August 2003 the newspapers were making their predictions for the season to come. None got it completely right – although that would be quite a lot to ask. But some of the predictions were spectacularly wrong. Here are the anniversaries… 10 August 1916: The official documentary …
Read More “What the papers predicted for Arsenal ahead of the unbeaten season”
At the start of every season people make lots of predictions but most of them are way off the mark. And I don’t think that on this day in 1997, either before or after our first match of the campaign, anyone was predicting a particularly wonderful season for Arsenal. We had come third in the …
Read More ““Fair play is an English word. Unfortunately, it does not function any more here,””
It’s the 10th anniversary of the Arsenal History Society today, after we were formed as part of the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association. But on a much sadder note we share the day as an anniversary with the death of Paul Vaessen who died, unremembered, on this day in 2001. There is a record of much …
Read More “The tragic demise of Paul Vaessen and Arsenal History Soc celebrates 10 years”
Several clubs have their own TV stations which run films of old games and discussions about current footballing affairs, plus of course player interviews. And Arsenal did have such a station for a while but it closed on this day in 2009 when its carrier – Setanta went into liquidation. There is the on line …
Read More “If we want a complaint, how about the absence of Arsenal TV?”
Today is Robin van Persie. It comes just at the moment when he is moving into TV work with BT Sport, a task he seems well suited for since his memory of his own career seems a little hazy, as he has of late been speaking of his time with Manchester United as if he …
Read More “It’s RVPs birthday although we he’s not really being completely honest at the moment”
A daily look at Arsenal’s history, by Tony Attwood It seems hard to credit it, but there was a time (this day in 1977) when the League and FA combined to ban the wearing of a sponsor’s name on the players’ shirts. Quite what the point of this step, which could only help bring …
Read More “When the FA and League banned sponsor’s names on players’ shirts.”
Goalkeepers are eccentric – it is one of the fundamental folk lores of football. And if ever there was one who seemed to play up to this vision it was Wojciech Szczęsny, who after a number of incidents finally pushed his manager, Mr Wenger, too far when he was caught smoking after a game. He …
Read More “The eccentricity of goalkeepers: Arsenal anniversaries on this day.”
In 2014 BT Sport had the rights to the Emirates Cup, and spent much of the studio time during the competition making fun of the competition’s organisation and its points awards, with a point awarded for each goal scored. Quite what BT executives were thinking when they encouraged their anti-Arsenal commentators to laugh about their …
Read More “How sometimes a football blog can have some influence on the game”
Today in 2015 Arsenal won the Community Shield. I rather suspect that while many Arsenal supporters will know how many times Arsenal have won the FA Cup and how many times the League, they might be a little less sure of where things stand in terms of the Community Shield. And of course this is …
Read More “How many times have Arsenal won the Charity/Community Shield?”
By Tony Attwood Arsenalisation was the term coined to symbolise the programme of turning Arsenal’s new stadium into a place that reflected Arsenal and its history. It was in relation to this that I had the opportunity to put to Ivan Gazidis the notion that there should be statues of the great symbols of Arsenal’s …
Read More “Remembering the concept of Arsenalisation and the statue of Chapman”
On 31 July 1972 Arsenal played a Champions Challenge match against Benfica, celebrating the two clubs’ positions as champions. What Arsenal did not know of course was that in terms of trophy winning it was all over for a long time to come. The only other trophy in the decade was an FA Cup victory …
Read More “Celebrating the title in 1971 and the wait of 18 years before doing it again.”
By Tony Attwood In considering how Arsenal might do this season it may be tempting to think that there is so much discontent and uncertainty surrounding the club that it would be very hard for Arsenal to make a serious impression on the league and regain their place in the top four. But this would …
Read More “Using Arsenal’s history to predict this season’s results”
The Arsenal History Society site contains a wide number of series of articles – these are detailed on the right side of this page under the heading “Pages”. You can find out more about many of them on our home page as well as details of our books. Here we have today’s anniversaries, including the …
Read More “The anniversary of the passing of the man who saved Arsenal from oblivion”
Knocking Arsenal is of course a major part of the work of the football journalist, and as our companion site has shown through analysing media reports, Arsenal get far more negative coverage than any of the other major teams in the league – irrespective of their position. But on this day in 2011 the BBC …
Read More “When the BBC decided that the two greatest cup shocks of all time happened to Arsenal”
Below are today’s anniversaries including the anniversary of the extraordinary transfer of Overmars to Barcelona, which knocked up the amazing statistic of £4m a game. You might also like to note that the Arsenal in the Summer series has itself now been updated to include seasons up to 2018 – you can find the latest …
Read More “Arsenal sell a player to Barcelona for £4m a game”
The Arsenal in the Summer series looks at what has happened to the club during the summer months, year on year. Over 60 seasons have been covered in this series, and there is a full index here. Just before the end of the 2017/18 season Arsenal’s manager of 22 years resigned, and Unai Emery was …
Pre-season friendlies against foreign clubs are a fairly recent innovation – if you have been reading our Arsenal in the Summer series of articles you will know that for many years, if there was to be a tour it would be at the end of the season, not the start. And in 2012 we also …
Read More “When Arsenal fans became anxious about the pre-season form”
The Arsenal in the Summer series looks at what has happened to the club during the summer months, year on year. Over 60 seasons have been covered in this series, and there is a full index here. It is extraordinary how Arsenal’s summers have changed and evolved over time and I do hope you find …
Read More “Arsenal in the summer 2017: the signing of Lacazette”
