AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood George Cox was born in Warnham near Horsham in Sussex on 23 August 1911, and signed for Arsenal as an amateur in November 1933 from Horsham, before turning professional the following month on 19 December. Horsham FC were formed originally in 1871, and then reformed in 1882 on a firmer footing, and …
The Strange Case Of The Charlie Buchan Transfer By Graham Lister How much did Arsenal really pay Sunderland for Charlie Buchan? Until now, everyone has given the same answer, but is it possible that his much heralded return to London, and Arsenal, from Wearside in 1925 been consistently misreported over the intervening nine decades? It …
By Tony Attwood There are mystery men who played for Arsenal, and then there is Sydney Cartwright. He played 16 times for the glorious Arsenal team of the 1930s, and yet very, very little is known of him. There are two stories about his club/s before Arsenal. Some reports refer to him playing for …
Read More “Sidney Cartwright: a member of the 1930s Arsenal team of whom we know so little”
By Tony Attwood Arthur Biggs was a player I was hardly aware of until I wrote up the end of the season story for 1936/37. Since then I’ve been a digging and managed to come up with his footballing career, but sadly nothing further about his life beyond football. If you know anything more please …
Read More “Arthur Gilbert Biggs: only three games for Arsenal but a varied football career”
by Tony Attwood This article was update 23 Jan 2017, with information about Frank Moss In the 1930s it was not commonplace for Arsenal to play end of season tours, and completely unknown for them to play pre-season friendlies, other than matches between the first team and the reserves (matches which I believe took place …
Read More “Arsenal in the summer – the overseas tour of 1937”
Previous titles in this series All the men who played in the league for Arsenal 1929/33 1933/34 League players, and how the goals declined but the crowds went up. Arsenal players 1934/5 and 1935/36, and the fundamental problem with the team 1936-37 season statistics, Player Position 1936/7 Games 1936/37 Goals 1935/6 games Cliff Bastin Outside …
Read More “Arsenal players 1936/7, Arsenal crowds in the 30s, and comparisons with earlier years”
By Tony Attwood As the football going public started to get used to the new nickel-brass 12 sided coin which came to be known as the threepenny bit, the first division table at the start of March 1937 looked like this P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Arsenal 37 16 15 …
Read More “April / May 1937: Arsenal slip back and Man City triumph – for the moment”
By Tony Attwood March 1937 opened with the table looking like this P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Charlton Athletic 31 15 11 5 43 34 1.26 41 2 Arsenal 31 14 11 6 67 40 1.68 39 3 Manchester City 30 13 10 7 67 48 1.40 36 4 Brentford …
By Tony Attwood Arsenal began February 1937 in second place, one point behind Charlton and with one game in hand – plus three points above Brentford in third. Charlton were the team in form with five wins and a draw in the last six. Amazingly no other team had won more than half of their …
Read More “Arsenal in the 30s – Feb 1937: Seven in the cup, and all to play for in the league”
This article is part of a series covering Arsenal throughout the 1930s from the first FA Cup and League triumphs to the outbreak of war. A list of all the articles appears at the end of this episode. By Tony Attwood At the end of 1936 the top of the first division table was indeed …
Read More “January 1937: Arsenal unbeaten as the goalkeepers change (again).”
by Tony Attwood Arsenal’s recovery in November from the horror show that was the slide down the table in October 1936, had left the everyone with great hope and restored faith in Allison as manager. After all, Arsenal had won either the League or the FA Cup in every year from 1930 onward (except 1932, …
Read More “Arsenal in the 30s. December 1936: once more top of the league as the king steps down”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal had ended October 1936 in a singularly parlous position – one that had not been seen for many a year… P W D L F A GAv Pts 16 Manchester City 13 3 5 5 24 22 1.09 11 17 Arsenal 12 3 5 4 14 15 0.93 11 18 …
Read More “November 1936: Arsenal reborn, TV starts, the king demands, the palace burns down.”
The index of all the major articles on the site about Arsenal players is now complete. It comes in two parts: A to K L to Z We have around 1500 articles on this site, and a fair number are specifically about one man who played for Arsenal. However this is the first time they …
Read More “The Index of articles about individual players is now complete”
by Tony Attwood A wonderful story has appeared on an academic blog, about two young members of the Royal Engineers who went on leave and then were too tired to walk back to their barracks at the Woolwich Arsenal, so simply handed themselves in to a police station to get a free ride back to …
By Tony Attwood The first half of the task of indexing all the articles about players on this web site is done – we’ve completed A to K. That doesn’t mean we’ve done articles on all those players, but rather that all the players are listed, with links to such articles as there are. As …
Read More “An Index to all the major articles on Arsenal players in history. A to K complete”
By Tony Attwood We now have around 1500 articles on this site, about half of which are about individual Arsenal players. Many of these articles provide a more comprehensive view of the player’s life than is available elsewhere – most particularly in relation to players from the earlier days of football. In quite a few …
Read More “The Arsenal History Society index to articles on Arsenal players”
By Tony Attwood By the end of September 1936 it was quite clear that Arsenal had problems, with their squad, with Allison endlessly chopping and changing the team in an effort to find a solution, and thus with their results. At the heart of the matter was the old problem of away form as the …
By Richard Bourke Earlier this year the Society published an article in our series of headed “Joseph Cooper: the most mysterious of all the mysterious Arsenal players.” He was a player who joined Woolwich Arsenal in 1893. He made his debut for Woolwich Arsenal in a friendly on 23 October 1893 against Roston Bourke’s XI. Arsenal …
Read More “The founding of the referees’ association, and the ref who had his own team”
By Tony Attwood Editorial note: The series on the 1930s continues, but is now being interspersed with articles on the players. There is an index to the articles on players here. Arsenal entered the 1936/7 season with two problems. First, the club had been so successful in the 1930s (four league titles, two FA …
Read More “August / September 1936: 20 different players used in the first seven league games”
By Tony Attwood Ralph James Evans Birkett was born in Dartmouth, Devon, (or according to other sources Newton Abbot, or Ellacombe Torquay neither of which are far away) on 3 January 1913 (or 9 Jan in other sources). Birth certificate evidence appears to support Ellacombe. He first made his name playing for the 3rd Division …
Read More “Ralph Birkett: part of the South West club that Chapman built within Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood We last looked at the players Arsenal used in the 1930s in the article in 1933/34 season so this piece aims to bring this up to date with the coverage on Arsenal in the 30s thus far. If you want to go back further there is the complete analysis of 1929 to …
Read More “Arsenal players 1934/5 and 1935/36 the fundamental problem with the team”
By Tony Attwood Writing about the summer of 1936 in Forward, Arsenal, Bernard Joy begins his commentary stating, “The honeymoon was over. The day was past when the sight of the red shirted figures trotting proudly on to the field put such disquiet into the opposition that it was worth a goal start…. “There were …
Read More “Arsenal in the summer 1936: from winning the Cup to an assassination attempt on the king”
Here’s the league table at the end of March P W D L F A GA Pt 1 Sunderland 35 21 6 8 90 59 1.52 48 2 Derby County 35 16 10 9 52 38 1.37 42 3 Huddersfield Town 35 16 9 10 52 49 1.06 41 4 Stoke City 35 17 5 …
Read More “April/May 1936; Arsenal win the Cup. A match report and season’s end”
By Tony Attwood Arsenal ended February through to the quarter finals of the FA Cup, but slipping further behind in the league title race. Here’s how the table looked at the start of March 1936: P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Sunderland 31 21 4 6 86 47 1.83 46 2 …
by Tony Attwood This post was updated 14 Dec 2016 with the addition of international matches and 16 Feb 2017 with clarification of Moss’ injury. January 1936 ended with Arsenal recognising that any chance of holding the title for the fourth successive season had slipped away, and so their focus turned to the FA Cup. …
Read More “Arsenal in February 1936: an early example of rotational selection”
