AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Danny O’Shea was born on 26 March 1963 and played six league games for Arsenal in the 1982/3 season – Terry Neil’s last full season in charge. As that is all I knew of him before starting this little delve into the archives I was rather amazed to find that he actually made 461 football …
Read More “Danny O’Shea – just 9 games with Arsenal, but success in lower leagues”
John McClelland (also known as Jack) was born 19 May 1940 and tragically died on 15 March 1976 at the age of 35 and played for Arsenal as a goalkeeper for four seasons. He was also an international for N Ireland gaining six caps. The names of John and Jack are confusing simply because there …
Read More “John (Jack) McClelland; one major season for Arsenal.”
David O’Leary was born 2 May 1958 and is Arsenal’s all time top appearance man. He signed as an apprentice for Arsenal in 1973 and played for the reserves from the age of 16, playing his first game for the first team on 16 August 1975, aged 17. Twenty years later, on 17 May 1993 …
Read More “David O’Leary remembered on the anniversary of his farewell game.”
By Tony Attwood The FA Cup Final of 1993 is one I particularly remember, having been there (which always helps the memory). It was played in the days when Wembley was, to my mind, a horrible, grotty ground where, as I recall, we sat on bench seats that had been put on the original terraces, …
Read More “15 May 1993: Arsenal v Sheffield W in the FA Cup”
Alf Kirchen was born 26 August 1913 in Shouldham in Norfolk and died 18 August 1999. In 1934 he was signed by Tom Parker manager of Norwich City (then of the second division – and the man who holds the record for consecutive games for Arsenal). With the club’s connection with Arsenal it was …
Read More “Alf Kirchen: scored on his debut for Arsenal against Tottenham”
Today’s anniversaries: 13 May 1904: Archibald Gray joined Woolwich Arsenal 13 May 1933: Eddie Hapgood made international début Part of the work on this site is to build the biggest ever Arsenal anniversaries record. At the last count we had articles on about 500 events related to specific days, but at certain times of the …
Read More “Archibald Gray and Eddie Hapgood. Our anniversaries for 13 May”
Alan Ball MBE was born 12 May 1945 and died 25 April 2007. He started out in football playing for Ashton United, signed a youth contract with Wolverhampton, who then decided not to take him on, tried his luck with Bolton who also decided not to take him on. The normal reason was that he …
By Tony Attwood On 11 May 1925 an advert for a new manager at Arsenal FC appeared in the leading sports journal of the day “Athletic News”. Athletic News was based in Manchester (a reflection of the fact that football was very much a northern sport in the early days). It started in 1875 or …
This is a re-run of an earlier piece about Dennis Bergkamp which contained a couple of errors (now hopefully corrected). . By Tony Attwood . What can one say about Dennis Bergkamp? . “He needs fewer touches to score. Sometimes just one, when others need two or three.” . That beautifully simple comment came from …
Reg Lewis was born in Bilston Staffordshire on March 7, 1920 and died in 1997 and spent all of his senior football career at Arsenal. He joined Arsenal as a schoolboy on 9 May 1935 – having played at Arsenal’s nursery club, Margate, and started out by playing for the reserves in the in the …
Read More “Reg Lewis: record goalscorer, and (almost) a one club man”
3 May 1971: Beat Tottenham 0-1 at WHL to win the league 1971 8 May 1971 Arsenal won the Double for the first time, beating Liverpool in the FA Cup. Arsenal won the FA Cup in extra time, after going 1-0 down to Liverpool in the first period of extra time. The first goal was …
Read More “8 May: Arsenal win the double for the first time”
On 7 May1938 Arsenal won the league for the second time under George Allison in four years. But as the date suggests and the league table shows is was a close run thing – going up to the final match – Arsenal 5 Bolton 0 on May 7 1938. Attendance: 40,500 It was close because …
Read More “On 7 May 1938 Arsenal won the league for 5th time in 8 years”
Arsenal 3 Manchester United 1 6 May 1991. On 4 May this is how the top ten of the table looked Pl W D L F A GD Pts 1 Arsenal 36 22 13 1 65 16 +49 77 2 Liverpool 36 22 7 7 74 38 +36 73 3 Crystal Palace 37 19 9 …
Read More “6 May 1991: the game, the championship, the song”
By Tony Attwood As you may know, if you have been keeping up, Arsenal played one game as Dial Square before becoming Royal Arsenal. That was all in 1886, and in 1890 things had moved on far enough for the club to sign a lease to rent the Invicta Ground in Plumstead – that lease …
By Tony Attwood A while back I wrote a little series of articles about the iconic moments in the history of Arsenal. Of course for one of them I inevitably include 3 May 1971: Beat Tottenham 0-1 at WHL to win the league 1971. Here’s the full list Part 1: Opening the club to all …
Read More “One of the iconic moments in the history of Arsenal”
David Rocastle was born at Lewisham on 2 May 1967 and joined Arsenal in May 1982, turning professional in December 1984. He was introduced into the first team by Don Howe and grew in stature under George Graham. However George Graham sold David, and having played his last game on 2 May 1992 he was …
By Tony Attwood If you keep a regular eye on the Arsenal History Society blog you’ll know that we run a section called Anniversaries. It tries to list most of the main events that have taken place in Arsenal’s history in order of the date. Then having put in the dates we try and write …
By Andy Kelly, Mark Andrews and Tony Attwood For much of its existence Arsenal has been dependant on benefactors – men who put their own money into the club in order that it may survive. One such was George Leavey, who, although now long forgotten by the club, was a man of whom it could …
Clifford Charles Holton known universally as Cliff was born on 29 April 1929 and died on 4 June 1996. Only 14 players in the entire history of the Football League have surpassed his career total of 293 league and cup goals, scored for Arsenal, Watford, Northampton, Crystal Palace, Charlton and Orient. Only Arthur Rowley, Jimmy Greaves, …
By Tony Attwood The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final was played in 1970 over two legs. It came at a time when Arsenal had in the two previous seasons lost two finals in the Football League Cup. In Cup Final terms it proved to be third time lucky and was our first European trophy. The story …
By Mark Andrews @RoyalArsenalMRA Arsenal Committee man and Director: 1891-1901 and silent saviour of the 1893 schism The 1893 schism focused on Royal Ordnance Factories FC (ROFFC)– a vanity project run by ex-directors of Royal Arsenal who couldn’t get their way at Royal Arsenal FC, and who perceived themselves to be of the gentlemanly class. …
Read More “George Lawrance: Born 27 April 1851 – First Benefactor of the Club”
by Andy Kelly (@Gooner_AK) Woolwich Arsenal’s final game of the disastrous 1912/13 season was played at home and, thus, was the last game that they played in Plumstead. Earlier on in the year the directors had announced that they would be leaving South London for Highbury. When Henry Norris and William Hall took control of …
Read More “26 April 1913 – Arsenal’s last game in Plumstead”
By Tony Attwood I remember as a child being so fed up that birthdays only came once a year. It was so long to wait – why did a year have to be that long? Now as a more senior member of society I think the opposite, and would very much like the Earth to …
by Andy Kelly (@Gooner_AK) I’m sure that you are aware that substitutes were introduced into English football for the 1965-66 season. Before this, if a player was injured and couldn’t play on then his team had to make do with ten men. This happened to Arsenal in the 1952 FA Cup Final when Walley Barnes …
On 24 April 1915 Arsenal beat Nottingham Forest 7-0. The football season had started just before the war against Germany had broken out, and the decision was taken to continue through the season. There was after all no conscription at this time, although much effort was made to recruit men to the front. Henry Norris …
Read More “The very last game Arsenal played outside the First Division; 98 years ago today”
