By Tony Attwood We should remember that in the early days of professional football, Tottenham were more successful than Arsenal, who struggled on the pitch, and financially. On this day in 1910 it was widely considered that the Arsenal game against Preston would be Arsenal’s last, as the club was heavily in debt, would …
by Tony Attwood You probably know that in addition to editing these Anniversary files I also run Untold Arsenal – and a while back a number of supporters of that site paid for a banner to be made and erected at Arsenal Stadium. It is still there for all to see with its Wengerian message, …
Three events on 21 April grab the attention. In 1908 Arsenal went on a post-season tour of eight matches in nine days in Scotland. Given that they only took a basic squad with them, and had to travel between each venue, the whole tour must have been tough on the players – but it …
Anniversaries have a strange habit of coming together in odd ways. When Mr Wenger said he was resigning one year ago today, no one particularly remembered that also on this day in 1914, Woolwich Arsenal disappeared from the club’s name and was replaced by The Arsenal. There is more on this in our series …
Arsenal’s debts as a result of building their new stadium, later renamed the Emirates, were well documented, as was the effect they had on the plans of Arsene Wenger in the transfer market. But what of Highbury; did the club have similar financial problems after moving there in 1913? In fact when Arsenal moved …
The Arsenal anniversary files. On this day in 2007 David Dein was sacked as director of Arsenal. He had argued consistently at board meetings for Arsenal not to build a new stadium to replace Highbury but instead to move to Wembley on a permanent basis. His crime was to continue to speak in favour …
by Tony Attwood Some older members of the Arsenal fraternity will remember that before 1981 league tables in England were based on two points for a win, one for a draw. Indeed even after the League changed that to three for a win most of football stayed where it had been with two points for …
There are many series of articles on this site about Arsenal’s history – you can see an index on the right side of this article under “Pages”. Three of the main series are Henry Norris at the Arsenal: There is a full index to the series here. Arsenal in the 1930s: The most comprehensive series on the …
In the years following the end of the first world war there was a long period of industrial action, as employers and employees fought it out to see who had the real control over British industry and commerce. The rail strike of 1921 was thus one of many, but it took on an extra dimension …
Arsenal anniversaries 14 April. Our headline comes from 2001. All the Arsenal anniversaries can be found on this site – please see the indexes under “Pages” on the right hand side. Also please note we now have copies of “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” back in stock – details on https://blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/ 14 April …
Arsenal anniversaries 13 April Our headline comes from 1974. Sadly the days of newspapers and now blogs actually criticising TV for its coverage are long gone, even thought the sanitising of football at the behest of the League, Fifa, Uefa and PGMO appears now to be far more extensive than it used to be. All …
On this day in 1919 Leslie Knighton joined Arsenal as their first post-war manager following the club’s election to the first division. He was a fairly decent if unspectacular manager, and kept Arsenal in the first division – although only just in his last two seasons as Arsenal came close to relegation, leading up to …
It has always been the case that when a club wants to have a match rescheduled it can seek to have this done if the League and the other team involved agree. And generally they do, if it incurs no hardship to the opposition and the problem is caused by a bottleneck of fixtures …
Publications I’ve just discovered another box of copies of the book “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” our store room, having previously said it was out of print. So both this book and “Making the Arsenal” are now available as printed books, and on Kindle. Please see here for more details. Proving that …
It is often forgotten just how short the success of the 1970s double team was – and with a FA Cup semi-final defeat to Sunderland on this day in 1973, the dream of a long term dominant team was just about over. The Double and the Uefa Cup were the trophies, but there were to …
Publications I’ve just discovered another box of copies of the book “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” our store room, having previously said it was out of print. So both this book and “Making the Arsenal” are now available as printed books, and on Kindle. Please see here for more details. On …
We regularly receive requests for information about Arsenal’s lost players. Here’s the latest – please write in if you have any further information. ————– I am trying to find any photos or MORE ABOUT John William Anderson was born in 1875 in Crook, Durham, Anderson started out at non-league Crook Town before turning professional …
Apologies for the non-appearance of the Anniversary files for a few weeks – I was in Australia and had horrific communication problems with total failure of my phone and difficulties with the laptop. But now we are back with the daily anniversary headline, and all the stories for today. All the anniversary files are contained …
What are the chances of Arsenal losing 4-5 twice in the space of two months, while also, between these games winning another league match 5-4? It is pretty rare and if you are a betting supporter you might want to try and find something a little more likely to bet on. In which case of …
If Arsenal win their next league game (1st April vs Newcastle), last season’s points tally will be matched with seven games to spare. You would imagine that the meetings between Unai Emery and the board last summer touched on some pragmatic goals – improve on last season’s finish, secure Champions League football. When …
On this day in 2017 Arsenal achieved yet another record in their long history of records – more FA Cup semi-finals than any other club. Of course the semi-final is not a trophy, but it was at this moment that the media finally realised that Mr Wenger was on the edge of becoming the …
If you are a regular reader of this site you will probably have read how Arsenal helped Tottenham get elected to the Football League in 1908, after the League had turned them down. We know why many clubs would not vote for Tottenham to join the League in 1908 – they had resigned from the …
And indeed come to that how many times have Tottenham finished above Arsenal in the League? There is a bit of an argument about this because quite often the clubs have not been in the same league, and so automatically Arsenal (being in Division 1) have been above Tottenham (Division 2 or the Southern League). …
Today on 8 March 2019, the websites and blogs are full of criticisms of Arsenal, some of them running at a level which seems to suggest that the manager and the whole team should be dismissed and rebuilt. And all for one defeat. One can only presume that those making these criticisms were not around …
6 March 1905: Thomas Fitchie and Robert Templeton represent Scotland – the first Arsenal players ever to do so. 6 March 1915:Arsenal played Lincoln away, and lost 1-0 – a sure sign that there was unlikely to be any late push to regain a promotion position in the latter part of the season. It was …
