AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Every season there are player releases from Arsenal as contracts come to an end on 30 June. For 2014 the list was headed by Nic Bendtner who played 171 times for Arsenal, making his final appearance on Sunday 2 February 2014 at home to Crystal Palace. He came on as a sub in the …
Read More “The June 2014 Arsenal departures, and what they achieved”
By Tony Attwood Stuart Taylor made 26 starts for Arsenal in league and cup, and came on four times as a substitute between 1997 and 2005. Which when you come to think of it means an awful lot of bench sitting over an eight year period. But such is the lot of the second keeper. …
Read More “Stuart Taylor: league winner with Arsenal, but never a regular club man”
By Tony Attwood OK I am biased – because 22 June is my birthday. But it is also the day that made me think of creating the Anniversary Files of Arsenal – files that now contain over 5000 important Arsenal events, the largest collection ever gathered together. Of course it is a nerdy sort of …
Read More “If we ever create “Arsenal Day” it has to be 22 June”
Steven Charles Williams known to the world as Steve was born on 12 July 1958 in Romford, Essex and is number 38 in the list of the 50 greatest players of Arsenal, as elected by Arsenal supporters. He was loved because he was very much a man who loved Arsenal and he was never anything but committed …
Read More “Steve Williams. Never gave less than his all, never short of an opinion.”
By Tony Attwood Leonard Bruce Julians played 18 times for Arsenal and scored a remarkable 7 goals. Try to find out about him through Wiki or Arsenal.com or even the “Where are they now” site, and you get a line or two, if you are lucky. They will tell you his other clubs perhaps, (Leyton …
Rather oddly, Arsenal.com doesn’t actually acknowledge that Arsenal are playing in the Community Shield this summer. Or maybe we are not? Has it been cancelled? Details of the date are how it fits into the calendar are at the end of this piece. I was pondering this point when I remembered that the article here …
By Tony Attwood A while back in an article I traced the footballing life of David Bentley under the Whatever happened to…? heading. Now we have found out what did happen, thanks to an article in the Guardian on 13 June 2014 which tells us that, “David Bentley broke down in tears as he announced …
If you’ve had a look at the Anniversary Files on this site you might have noticed that the expansion of the Files continues day by day. We’re now approaching the 5000 event mark – and all this done without simply recording individual matches of no particular significance, each international that our players and have been …
Read More “Today in history: Herbert Chapman and Liam Brady joined Arsenal on 11 June”
By Tony Attwood In the first post-war season Arsenal, still managed by George Allison, came 13th in the league and were knocked out of the FA Cup in the Third Round. It started badly with three defeats and a draw in the first four and then carried on just as badly. By the 9th league …
By Tony Attwood It is not a day that gets any celebration, nor even a passing mention in the World Cup sodden press. But 8 June was one of those big, big days in the history of football. For it was the day that at its AGM in 1925 the Football League voted to change the …
By Tony Attwood This article was updated 19 August 2020. During the inter-war period many first division clubs hit on the idea of taking over non-league sides and running them as “Nurseries”. Perhaps by coincidence or perhaps as a result of some copycat activities, all three of the north London teams in the 1930s had …
Dr James Alexander Paterson was an Arsenal player. In many regards he was an Arsenal player who deserves a mention, both as a player as for his service to his country in the first world war. But there is more, for Dr Paterson helps us further unravel the allegations of an Arsenal manager which over the …
Read More “Dr Jimmy Paterson: unravelling a curious tale and pack of lies”
By Tony Attwood On February 29 1936 Arsenal beat Barnsley 4-1 at Highbury in the 6th round of the FA Cup. With other clubs playing League matches that day Arsenal now had a couple of games in hand, but clearly had little chance of winning the League. However being in the semi-final Arsenal had every chance of …
Read More “When Arsenal were fined for fielding a weakened team”
By Tony Attwood Fred Dwight was signed 5 June 1903 and played his first and last game for Arsenal on 7 January 1905, away to Preston. We lost 0-3. It was one of three consecutive defeats in which Arsenal scored no goals but let in nine. Fred played left back and was brought into because …
By Andrew Beatie This is primarily the story of George Morrell before he came to be Arsenal manager. He was the only manager who relegated Arsenal, was the manager who was in charge when Arsenal moved to Highbury, and there was only one Arsenal manager after him, before Herbert Chapman. He was, indeed, just one …
Only three teams (Chelsea, Bradford City and Thames Association) have been given a place in the league for political reasons. When Chelsea fans occasionally try and point the finger at Arsenal over the promotion in 1919 they not only ignore the facts of the 1919 situation (the match fixing etc and Arsenal’s support for …
Read More “The politics of football and the anniversary of oddity – how Chelsea joined the league.”
Oleh Romanovych Luzhny was born on 5 August 1968 in Lviv and is normally known as Oleg Luzhny. Oleg was a right back who started out playing for Torpedo Lutsk and after a brief spell with SKA Karpaty Lviv moved to the all powerful Dynamo Kyiv in 1989. He became captain and was captain of the side that got to …
Johnny Petts (full name John William Frederick James Petts) was born on 2 October 1938, played as a number 6 (defensive midfield, known as left half) and joined Arsenal as an apprentice in April 1954 having been with Edmonton, Middlesex and London schoolboys, He signed professional terms on 28 May 1956 and his first game in the …
Read More “Johnny Petts – report on our “missing” player updated”
By Tony Attwood What I want in writing these profiles of players – especially profiles of players I remember from my youth, is that they have done ok in life. For most professionals the period that you can spend playing professionally is at most 16 to 18 years. But then what? The transition is not …
Read More “Brian Hornsby; beset by injury, but the boy done good”
The deeper one goes the harder and more mysterious it gets. And none more so, thus far, than Daniel Burgess, also known as “Dick”. Here’s what we know from the records. He was born in Goldenhill, in Staffordshire, on 23 October 1896 and was an inside forward. He started with Port Vale, which would have …
Read More “Dan Burgess (also known as Dick); another of our mystery players”
When I started work on the Anniversary Files I rather thought that May would be one of those months in which little happened. How wrong – we seem to have as many historical moments in May as in any other month. Just look at today’s list… 22 May 1902: Jack Lambert born 22 May 1914: Christopher Buckley …
Read More “It’s the anniversary of one the club’s most bizarre events”
From FA Cup to World Cup… The Gunners may have just battled their way through to winning the FA Cup, but our boys have had a long history playing for England too. Here, the team at woolwicharsenal.co.uk takes a look back at some of the best Arsenal players to grace the World Cup. Kenny Sansom …
I’m going to start with an incident in 1977 in which Ritchie Powling was the receiver of an evil head butt from the nutcase Kenny Burns. I’m starting with it because it was caught on film, and nothing was done, either during or after the match. Had the perpetrator been Paul Davis it would have …
21 May 2005 – the FA Cup Final We won the FA Cup in 2014, and before that in 2005. And while most commentators thought the 2014 final was a good one to watch, the general feeling was that the 2005 final wasn’t. I was in Cardiff that day, which was lucky, because so was …
I’m sorry to say Untold Arsenal is down at the moment – we are working on it. But in the meantime here is a story that we would have published on that site had we been able to get onto it. The story is that Arsenal are looking to buy James Milner from FFP-challenged Man City. …
