AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood Jon Sammels played for Arsenal between 1963 and 1971 and I remember him well. Of course in those days the amount of information we had about the club was far less than now, and I never understood why he left when, as far as I could see, he was still such a …
Read More “Jon Sammels: wonderful player, victim of the 1960s Anti-Arsenal “fans””
By Tony Attwood The match on 22 October 1952 was one of three friendlies played by Arsenal in the 1952/3 season. The other two were linked to particular causes. First, on 29 September 1952 Arsenal played a team known as the All Stars, at Brighton. It was the benefit match for our goalkeeper Alex Wilson, …
Read More “Arsenal 7 Hibernian 1. Arsenal’s first televised game under the lights.”
By Tony Attwood It is sometimes said by statisticians that no one really remembers FA Cup semi-finals, and the media will undoubtedly be quick to forget the hype they made about the inevitability of Liverpool getting to the 2015 final so Gerrard could play on his birthday, and undoubtedly score the winning goal in his …
Read More “Arsenal and Arsène Wenger create new FA Cup records”
It seems a long time since we had a techno problem on Untold Arsenal, but here we are on cup semi-final day, and it is down. There’s a note popping up if you try to log on saying there is a loop. I’ve asked a colleague to look at it, but it is saturday, and …
Edward Miller Carr (known as Eddie) was born in Wheatley Hill on 3 October 1917 and worked as a teenager at Wheatley Colliery. At 17 he signed as an amateur footballer for Arsenal, going first to the Margate nursery club, and turning professional in time for the start of the 1936/7 season. This was a …
Read More “Eddie Carr played 12 games for Arsenal and won us the league!”
By Richard Bedwell On 11 April 1964, fifty-one years ago, I attended my first ever professional football match. It was at Highbury to see Arsenal play out a 0-0 draw against Blackburn Rovers in front of a crowd that barely half filled a ground which had a capacity at that time some 10% bigger …
Read More “Arsenal v Blackburn 1964, and the promise of a heated pitch”
by Tony Attwood George Drury was born in Hucknell on 22 January 1914 played 40 times for Arsenal either side of the Second World War. He played for Heanor and Sheffield Wednesday in September 1934 and moved to Arsenal for £7,000 in March 1938. He won a championship winners’ medal and he also played in the …
Read More “George Drury: the man who refused to be sent off against Moscow Dynamo”
By Tony Attwood As footballing ideas go, this one looks to have been just about the craziest of all time. To have a tour of Scotland immediately after the Football League season had finished, and end up playing nine games in ten days, is, well, bizarre. But that is what happened, and the games are …
Read More “Why on earth did Arsenal go to Scotland and play nine games in ten days!”
Mike Tiddy was born on 4 April 1929. Mike first joined Torquay United when football resumed after the second world war, undertook his National Service and then played with the club until November 1950 when he signed for Cardiff City. He played 145 league games in five years with Cardiff before going to Arsenal, with …
By Tony Attwood The Southern Floodlight Challenge Cup (also known as Southern Professional Floodlit Cup, and to some as the Southern Professional Floodlight Cup) was won once by Arsenal – on 27 April 1959. It was run from the 1955/56 season to 1959/60 but then in 1960 the competition was closed down and the Football League Cup …
Read More “Arsenal in the Southern Floodlight Challenge Cup (Southern Professional Floodlit Cup)”
On 4 April 2015 Arsenal made it seven consecutive wins in a row in the league, starting with a 2-1 home win over Leicester City on 10 February. Of course runs are hard to create – so I thought I might highlight a few of the great runs the club has had over the years. …
Read More “Arsenal have just broken another record. Here’s their great consecutive sequences”
Colin Frederick Hill as born on 12 November 1963 in Uxbridge. He played first for Hillingdon Borough before joining Arsenal as a schoolboy in 1977, becoming an apprentice in 1980, and then on 31 July 1981 Colin Hill signs professional terms. He made his debut for Arsenal’s first team on 20 April 1983 in the Norwich …
Read More “Colin Hill: one big season, and the stadium of kicking a ball in any direction”
By Tony Attwood Terry John Mancini was born 4 October 1942 as Terry Sealy) in Camden Town. He joined Watford in 1960 and as he said in an interview much later, “I played for 5 years in and mostly out of Watford’s first team.” Then after a serious injury he spent two seasons playing for …
Read More “Terry Mancini: Arsenal occasional and thoroughly decent bloke”
By Tony Attwood 8 April 2001 This was one of those games where all the talk in the press before the game about the class of their new manager seeping into the Tottenham side was shown up for what it was. A lot of twaddle about Hoddle. It was also a game where even the …
Read More “When Arsenal beat Tottenham in Manchester. The FA Cup semi-final of 2001”
By Tony Attwood To often as we trace players who have come through Arsenal’s youth system in recent years, but then not quite made it, we find them slipping away to lower league clubs, and never quite living up to the promise that we saw in their earlier days at Arsenal. But it looks like …
By Tony Attwood Tommy Shanks is one of those Arsenal players who was incredibly important in the history of the club, but of whom we know precious little. Such as I have found I’ve put together below, but as always, if you know any more, please do get in touch. Here’s some of the …
Read More “Tommy Shanks: the mystery of the star of Arsenal’s promotion”
17 March brings us the usual stream of anniversaries, the full list of which is given below. But among them are two birthdays: Pat Rice and Lee Dixon, plus two significant matches in Double Seasons: 17 March 1998: WHU 1 Arsenal 1, FA Cup 6 Replay. Anelka scored in the game, and Arsenal won …
Read More “Doubles, birthdays, and our third semi final (plus Reading’s first)”
Roger Davidson was born in Islington on 27 October 1948 Roger played for England at schoolboy level in midfield and joined Arsenal in September 1964 aged 15. Roger became a pro in October 1965 and on 16 March 1968 in the game Arsenal 0 Wolverhampton 2 he made his first and last senior appearance. It was a tough …
The following are extracts from the Arsenal Anniversary files. Most days we publish the anniversaries for the day on the home page of this site and Untold Arsenal. 1 March 1930: West Ham 0 Arsenal 3. FA Cup round 6 on the way to the cup final and Arsenal’s first ever major trophy. 2 March …
Read More “West Ham in March – how we’ve played them in the past”
By Tony Attwood Sometimes the media come out with some fairly obscure records and odd statistics, but rarely when Arsenal was involved. So it was no surprise to find that the record that fell on 9 March 2015 was ignored by all the media, as was the fact that a Arsenal held on to a …
Read More “Arsenal and Wenger secure the all-time semi-final records”
William George Marks was born 9 April 1915 in Wiltshire, playing at first for Salisbury Corinthians. He joined Arsenal on 16 March 1936 as an amateur, and was quickly moved onto Margate, the nursery club, where he stayed for two years before returning in the summer of 1938. He moved into Arsenal reserves for 1938/9 as …
Read More “George Marks: the Stadium Mystery keeper, and world record transfer.”
Arsenal’s move from Plumstead to Highbury was welcomed by most clubs – because it offered them two benefits. The first was financial. When clubs played each other in league matches at that time (1913) the clubs shared the gate money. Not equally, but still it was an important source of income for visiting clubs. Especially …
Read More “1 March: one of Arsenal’s greatest, but sadly often forgotten, anniversaries”
By Tony Attwood On 21 February 1998 Arsenal made it seven consecutive games undefeated by beating Crystal Palace 1-0, at home. It was Arsenal’s lowest crowd of the season, which is a shame because the match witnessed a stunning goal by one of Arsenal’s most underrated players of all time: Gilles Grimandi. Quite why the match …
Read More “Gilles Grimandi and two Arsenal/Palace games 16 years apart to the day”
First a few warm ups that are not in the anniversary files… Warm up 1: How many times have Arsenal won the FA Cup? 11. Warm up 2: Who has won the Cup more times than Arsenal? No one Warm up 3: Which two teams have been in the most Cup Finals? Arsenal and Man …
By Tony Attwood As coincidences go, this one is fairly near the top of the list of strange and unexpected ones. 15 February 1930: Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 2 in the fifth round of the FA Cup as Arsenal moved towards the club’s first major trophy. 15 February 2015: Arsenal 2 Middlesbrough 0 in the fifth …
Read More “85 years apart, Arsenal v Middlesbrough. Same round, same score, same date”
