Jimmy Robertson (James Gillen Robertson) Jimmy Robertson was born on 17th December 1944 in the Glaswegian suburb of Cardonald and travelled to Middlesbrough to start a career in English football on the right wing. When that didn’t happen he went to Cowdenbeath and then St Mirren before being purchased by Tottenham in 1964, for £25,000. …
Read More “Jimmy Robertson, first player to score for Tottenham v Arsenal and Arsenal v Tottenham”
As you’ll know if you have read any of our commentaries on the crowds at Woolwich Arsenal, taking a punt on the outcome of football matches has been something the Arsenal crowd has done from the moment the club started playing in the league in 1893. Indeed as we’ve reported here in the past, and …
Read More “Gambling on the result of football matches – a historic perspective”
By Tony Attwood The Southern Professional Charity Cup was a competition that existed at least from 1901/2 to 1907/08 – although it may have lasted a little longer. Certainly Arsenal only competed in it during that period. Each year seven or eight teams took part. These included Portsmouth, Tottenham Hotspur, Millwall, West Ham United, Reading, …
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By Tony Attwood It was approaching a year since Chapman had died (January 6) and Arsenal as a team had marched on as if nothing had happened. With Joe Shaw having taken over as manager upon the great man’s death, Arsenal had won the league for the second time in succession. Now for 1934/5 Arsenal …
Read More “15 December 1934; 62 goals in 19 games but not top of the league!”
By Tony Attwood 14 December 1889, Two games in one day I’ve been finding it hard to get the exact low down on the The Kent Senior Cup. The Wiki page on the competition has it starting in 1889/90 but Andy Kelly’s statistical pages has Arsenal playing in it the season previously. The Kent FA …
Read More “14 December: Arsenal’s two games in one day (for the first time)”
This article updated at 11.20 on 13th December, clarifying the issue date of birth and death, after the original article showed inconsistencies in reports from other sites. The details we give below are, we firmly believe, the right ones James M Maxwell By Andrew Beattie and Tony Attwood James Morton Maxwell was born at Kilmarnock …
Read More “James M. Maxwell: the Arsenal player who “went missing” after a game in the north”
The days we played two matches at once. There are at least two days in which Arsenal were booked to play two games at once. One was 14 December 1889, but in this article I’m focussing on the second time it happened, in 1896. The event particularly involved Loughborough – the team against whom Arsenal …
Read More “12 December: One of the days when we played two matches at once.”
This article updated 14 December 2013, with the cutting confirming the date of meeting to set up the Dial Square club. The article was compiled from work by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews. ————- 11 December 1886. Eastern Wanderers v Dial Square. The first Arsenal match We’ve speculated about this day on this site from …
Read More “11 December 1886: the definitive story of the build up to the very first Arsenal game”
By Tony Attwood On 10 December 1892 Royal Arsenal beat Clapton at home 5-0 in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup. It was the fourth time Arsenal had been in the FA Cup and the first time Arsenal had won through the qualifying rounds to reach the first round. That is not to …
Read More “Arsenal win through the FA Cup Qualifying rounds for the first time”
James Boyle was born on 11 July 1886 in Springburn, Glasgow and started out playing for Towerhill – a team the for whom the only reference to which I can find is an entry for them playing in the 1876/7 Scottish cup. In 1890 he signed for Celtic and played his first game against Vale …
Read More “James (Jimmy) Boyle, played both centre half and in goal for Arsenal”
Arsenal 2 WBA 0; 8 December 2012 The score in relation to this match looks bland. So why bother with it? To me this game is the symbol of all the turmoil of the 2012/13 season and the start of our way out of it. On 17 November 2012 Arsenal beat Tottenham 5-2, after …
Read More “How the 2012/13 season was saved by a seemingly insignificant win”
Ian Ure was born 7 December 1939 and according to Wiki played for Ayr Albion – a club about which I can find out nothing. But after that the story is clearer, as he did indeed play for Dundee and as a member of their championship side is inducted into their hall of fame. He …
Read More “Ian Ure; a player unjustly condemned?”
By Tony Attwood and Gerry McLeod Woolwich Arsenal’s first ground at the Manor in Plumstead could hold a maximum of around 32,000, although it was rarely full. Twice in the 1905/6 season gates of 30,000 were recorded – on April 13 1906 against Aston Villa in the league and for the 5-0 thrashing of Sunderland …
Read More “The first 50,000 crowd at Arsenal”
Go in the Arsenal shop and you’ll find a load of Arsenal Christmas gifts. Including the three books that the Arsenal History Society have produced. But here’s an incentive. You can get them in time for Christmas direct from the Arsenal History Society (that’s us) at a discount price. Also if buying Making the …
Read More “When you are looking for an Arsenal Christmas present, try this…”
By Tony Attwood and Gerry McLeod 17 March 2009 is not a day that Hull City FC are likely to want to remember. It was the day on which their increasingly erratic and downright odd Hull manager Phil Brown claimed that he had seen Cesc Fàbregas spit at the Hull assistant manager Brian Horton at the end of …
Read More “The wild men of Hull and their extraordinary antics v Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood and Gerry McLeod November / December 1968 was the first time ever that Tottenham and Arsenal met in the semi-finals of not just the League Cup but also the FA Cup. It was an event which following a match in this round of the League Cup many years later, gave the …
Read More “Arsenal v Tottenham end their first ever cup semi-final encounter on an anniversary day”
3 December 2011: Wigan 0 Arsenal 4, making it six wins and a draw in the last 7 Arsenal had started 2011/12 disastrously with a 0-0 draw at N ewcastle, a 0-2 home defeat to Liverpool, the 8-2 away defeat to Man U, and only finally in the fourth match, a victory 1-0 against Swansea. …
Read More “How Arsenal went from 15th to 5th in the table in just two months. The tale of 2011.”
2 December 1933: Arsenal 2 Liverpool 1 making it 8 wins and two draws in last 10. As a result Arsenal sat proud at the top of the league after this game. Crowd; 38,362. Goals by Hulme and Dunne. The club was already champions having won the league in 1932/3, and although the free scoring …
Read More “2 December 1933: Arsenal 2 Liverpool 1. Success and the prelude to tragedy”
By Tony Attwood After years of work my colleagues Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews of the AISA Arsenal History Society finally resolved the details of the first game of the club that was to become Royal Arsenal, Woolwich Arsenal, The Arsenal and finally Arsenal. As Andy reported in an article on this site on April …
Read More “The date on which Dial Square FC and ultimately Arsenal FC was founded”
30 November is one of those curious days in which two linked events across different years happen. Most curiously those events happened just one year apart. . November 2002: . Arsenal entered this season as league and cup holders, but without Tony Adams who had retired. On 28 September 2002 Arsenal beat Leeds 4-1 away, …
Read More “November: the day of ending the scoring records”
By Tony Attwood The season 1930/1 was the first season in which Arsenal won the first division. A totally amazing result considering that in the previous four seasons the club had come 11th, 10th, 9th and 14th. The opening nine games of seven wins and two draws gave an indication of what was to come …
Read More “November 1930: Arsenal announce to the world – we mean business”
By Tony Attwood You have to hand it to the FA. If there is a way of cocking it up, they cock it up. Take the Youth Cup. If, for example, you were writing a little article about the Cup, its history, its organization and so forth, you might turn to the FA’s site on …
Read More “28 November: Arsenal’s biggest ever win in the FA Youth Cup”
A couple of typos in this script were corrected on 11 August 2014. So all encompassing has the “49” unbeaten run and the unbeaten season itself become, and so overwhelming the baying of the journalists who insist that nothing is right because Arsenal have not won a trophy for a number of years, that we …
Read More “27 November 2007: Arsenal lose 3-1 to Seville and thus end 28 games unbeaten.”
One look at the chart that lists all of Lee Chapman’s clubs tells the story – nearly 600 games, 200 goals, but for Arsenal only four goals in 23 games. What he could do at Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds Utd, and indeed Nottingham Forest he could not do for us. 1978–1982 Stoke City 99 34 …
Read More “Lee Chapman – won the league but not with Arsenal.”
By Tony Attwood It was called “One of Arsenal’s most mature performances” producing what was said to be “one of the greatest results in their history.” As a result of it Arsenal knew that they would qualify for the group stages of the Champions League if they beat Lokomotiv Moscow at Highbury in the …
Read More “10 years ago today; one of our greatest results and performances of all time.”
