AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood Two changes happened to English football in general at the start of the 1925/6 season. The most famous of these was the change in the offside rule which led to Arsenal’s invention of the WM approach and tactical innovation. The second was a move by the FA which meant that instead of …
Read More “Arsenal’s journey to their first ever cup final, and the unwarranted “favourites” label”
On January 18 2004 Arsenal went top of the Premiership with a 2-0 win at Villa Park. Thierry Henry got both. And those facts on any other day would have been enough to make the main back page story. Except that Thierry did more than that. He sidefooted home a free-kick in the 28th minute …
Tony Attwood, Match data supplied by Andy Kelly Royal Arsenal’s seventh season was their last. They played a record number of games, but disaster (and recovery) was just around the corner. Date 1892/1893 Opponents V Cup Res Att 01 Sep 92 Highland Light Infantry H Fr 8-0 3,000 03 Sep 92 Gainsborough Trinity …
Read More “After seven seasons Royal Arsenal comes to an end”
6 January 1971: Yeovil 0 Arsenal 3 FA Cup round 3. The chairman does his thing. Tony Attwood The game of the minnows from outside the football league playing the aristocrats of division 1 could have been a nice friendly and warm affair but it wasn’t. Arsenal entered the match second in the league after …
Read More “Yeovil 0 Arsenal 3, a publicity seeking chairman, and a journey to the double.”
By Tony Attwood A couple of years ago I ran a little piece here about Arsenal’s first foreign player. Much of the article was taken up with the issue of definition, but taking it at its narrowest finding Scottish players is a doddle (they were at Royal Arsenal from the start), and the rest of …
By Tony Attwood The defeat of Arsenal by Wrexham of the fourth division on 4 January 1992 was not just a big piece of giant killing, it was the giant killing of the league champions, and as such needs to be seen alongside the defeat of Herbert Chapman’s Arsenal by Walsall of the third division …
Read More “Wrexham defeat Arsenal in FA Cup and what happened next”
So where have we got to with the story of the early days of Royal Arsenal? Here’s the summary so far. Season 1 Plumstead Common (1886/7) Season 2 The Sportsman’s Ground (1887/8) Season 3 The Manor Field (1888/89) Season 4 The Manor Field (1889/90) growing crowds Season 5 The Invicta Ground (1890/91) the idea of professionalism Now …
Read More “Arsenal’s sixth season; forming The Southern League”
1890/91: Season 5 – the last season as an amateur club, the first season at the Invicta Ground By Tony Attwood Season five of the Royal Arsenal was an utterly momentus season in every way. Indeed it is quite amazing that it is not written more fully about in every Arsenal history book, for the …
Read More “Royal Arsenal at the Invicta – turning professional”
Arsenal have reached double figures in FA Cup matches on four occasions: 5 October 1889: Royal Arsenal 11 Lyndhurt 0 29 October 1892: Royal Arsenal 10 City Ramblers 1 14 October 1894: Woolwich Arsenal 12 Ashford United 0 9 January 1932: Arsenal 11 Darwen 1. There are two main differences between the first three of …
By Tony Attwood If ever there was a defining moment in the history of Arsenal FC it came in the summer of 1890 when the decision was taken to move the club from the Manor Field to the Invicta Ground. At the time this would have seemed just a natural progression for the club as …
Read More “The Invicta Ground – Arsenal’s home 1890/3 – the untold tales.”
By Tony Attwood There have been so many articles on this site about the formation of Arsenal and the events around it I thought I would create a single file showing all the dates we have in summary. 5 December 1885 Millwall played Eastern Wanderers on the Isle of Dogs. It had nothing to do …
Read More “Creating Arsenal FC – all the early dates and events”
On 29 December 2012 Arsenal scored seven in a match for the second time in the season – the previous event was the 7-5 win over Reading. The win was the last of four wins in a row: 8 December 2012: Arsenal 2 WBA 0 17 December 2012: Reading 2 Arsenal 5 22 December 2012: …
Even if you don’t know much about Peter Marinello, the table showing his clubs and the games he played for each, combined with the statements that a) he was football’s equivalent to the Beatles (at least according to the press), and b) he was full of natural talent gives you a clue of what was …
28 December 2008: Arsenal 1 Portsmouth 0. The game left Arsenal unbeaten in December, but with only six goals from five games, there were considerable concerns. The match itself was not very good (as you can read in the Gf60 review below), but it was part of a 21 match unbeaten run. Here’s Arsenal’s run …
Read More “28 December 2008: Arsenal 1 Portsmouth 0. Poor football, but a 21 match unbeaten run”
By Tony Attwood Royal Arsenal grew season by season, and by season four they were not only playing the 27 friendly games (similar to the number played in previous seasons) but also taking part in The London Senior Cup The FA Cup Kent Senior Cup London Charity Cup There were some monumental moments during this …
Read More “Beating Tottenham 10-1. Royal Arsenal season 4: 1889/90”
Ernest Coleman was seemingly known both as Ernie (for obvious reasons) and also Tim (for reasons I can’t fathom). The latter I mention because there was another Tim Coleman who played for Woolwich Arsenal. This article is about the the player who won a league winner’s medal in 1932/3. He was born in Blidworth Nottinghamshire …
Tommy Winship was born 14 July 1890 in Byker, Newcastle upon Tyne, and was known during his footballing career as ‘Wee’ or ‘Tiny’ being only five feet four inches tall. He started out playing for Wallsend Park Villa a team that played in the Northern Football Alliance and were champions of it in 1904. In …
Read More “Tommy Winship played in the first game at Highbury”
By Tony Attwood The notion of playing football matches on Christmas Day does not go back to the very start of league football in England but rather was introduced in the second season of the football league. The first league game was on December 25th 1889 when Preston North End beat Aston Villa 3-2. That was …
By Tony Attwood If you ever want to see an amazing run up to Christmas, consider 1932. 28 August 1932: The Times confirms Charlie Jones appointed captain 3 September 1932. Arsenal start an amazing 18 match run in which they won 15, drew 2 and suffered one defeat scored 66 goals in the process (3.66 …
Read More “24 December 1932 – a staggering Arsenal Christmas present”
Season 1995/6 was the Bruce Rioch year, the season between the final outing of George Graham (replaced in February by Stewart Houston) and Arsene Wenger (preceded by Pat Rice). On the morning of 30 October the league table looked promising PD W D L F A GD Pts 1 Newcastle United 11 9 1 1 …
Read More “23 December Liverpool 3 Arsenal 1, two wins in nine – but we end up 5th”
By Tony Attwood In my previous reviews of Royal Arsenal’s seasons, I’ve listed each game played. But by the third season, of 1888/89, the number of games is getting quite large, and there is in any case a full record in the statistics section. So this time I’ll just pick out some highlights and give …
By Tony Attwood As we saw in the previous article looking at the earliest seasons of Arsenal, the club started out with a ten game campaign playing home and away against five teams between December 1886 and March 1887. There was no Football League at the time, so if the season is to be defined …
Read More “Arsenal’s second season: what really happened in 1887/8?”
by Tony Attwood Across four consecutive league matches between December 31 and January 21 1899 Adam Heywood scored six goals, yet as with so many players from our past he is now forgotten. But in his day he was quite a hero. He was born in Burton on Trent on 23 March 1875 and died …
Read More “Adam Heywood – one of Arsenal’s early stars, who left for £50”
By Tony Attwood Generally speaking books which record Arsenal’s results start with 1893, when Woolwich Arsenal entered the league. But for six seasons before that Arsenal did play a mixture of friendlies and cup games. Although the FA Cup exploits of the club have long since been recorded, the other games played – the friendlies …
Read More “Arsenal’s very first season. 1886/7 – the games, the results”
William Hall: Woolwich Arsenal director, 1910 -1915 William Hall was born in Peckham in 1858 and after years in metals became a lead manufacturer, marrying Kate in 1899. He was also involved in the Masons at a local level with Henry Norris. It appears that it was William Hall who got Norris involved in the …
Read More “William Hall: the Football League man who helped save the Arsenal.”
