AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood, Andy Kelly, Mark Andrews 28 June 1913: Woolwich Arsenal gain possession of the Gillespie Road site and have 10 weeks before the first match of the season to make it ready. We know this dateof 28 June 1913 as it was taken from a comment in the programme for the first match. …
Read More “28 June 1913: Woolwich Arsenal gain possession of “Highbury””
Tony Attwood “His sparkling displays nearly gave him an England professional cap as well as amateur ones.” So said Bernard Joy of Reg Boreham, and that might lead you immediately to conclude that there would be a fair amount of material available about Reg. In fact there is currently no Wiki page on him (and …
Read More “Reg Boreham: the invisible man, another victim of Knighton’s story telling”
By Tony Attwood Each summer an update is done on the Manager by Manager file on this site, taking into account the latest activities of the current manager. And then we look again to judge who is the most successful and least successful of managers in Arsenal’s history. Taken at its simplest our most successful …
Read More “Arsène Wenger remains Arsenal’s most successful manager ever”
by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews (@Gooner_AK) (@RoyalArsenalMRA) The first instalment of this series showed that there was a high turnover of chairmen at Woolwich Arsenal during the first 17 years. The next 17 years saw just two men lead the club. The part they played in the club’s history cannot be understated. Woolwich Arsenal …
by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews (@Gooner_AK) (@RoyalArsenalMRA) The Golden Years and the nobility The events of 1927 decimated the Arsenal boardroom with Sir Henry Norris, William Hall, Jack Humble and George Peachey leaving. That left just Sir Samuel Hill-Wood, George Allison and John Edwards to run the club during the 1927-28 season. Sir Samuel …
By Tony Attwood Minor amendment made to this article 29 Dec 2013 Frederick Gordon Coles, known as Fred was a centre half and right half who joined Arsenal in 1910 from Nottingham Forest He is recorded by Dean Hayes ( l am struggling a bit here to find any other information and its all I …
Read More “Fred Coles, Arsenal 1900-1904 before moving to Sweden”
Emmanuel Laurent “Manu” Petit was born 22 September 1970 and was one of the early classic signings by Arsène Wenger, who brought Petit from his earlier French club, Monaco. Petit was born in Dieppe and was signed by Arsène Wenger at the age of 18 and soon became a regular player in the midfield. By …
It is strange that a man who played 176 games for Arsenal and got an FA Cup winners medal for the win against Manchester United in which Alan Sunderland scored in the last minute, is somehow not quite remembered. I’ve been working on the forthcoming book “Arsenal in the 70s” these past few months, and …
Read More “David Price: 176 games, and yet not quite remembered”
Robert Hamilton “Bob” Turnbull was born on the 1st anniversary of the foundation of Woolwich Arsenal (well, the anniversary of their first ever AGM) on 22 June 1893. He had a military training with the Royal Corps of Signals, and played initially for the Royal Engineers AFC – a club with a most illustrious history, …
Read More “Bob Turnbull born 22 June – Arsenal’s record scorer.”
by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews (@Gooner_AK) (@RoyalArsenalMRA) Following the recent announcement that Sir Chips Keswick had replaced Peter Hill-Wood as chairman we thought it would interesting to look at Arsenal’s previous chairmen. With 22 people having held this position we have broken this down into more readable articles. Royal Arsenal (1886 – 1893) During …
Alan Hudson was born 21 June 1951 and played for Arsenal for two seasons. Although he left us after arguments with the management he did bring an extra flair and solidity, if not stability, to a side that was starting to exert its presence once more thanks to the extraordinary development of Liam Brady. He …
Two of Arsenal’s most remarkable goal scorers Arsenal’s record during the 1930s was something to behold: League Champions five times, Runners Up once, Cup Winners once, losing finalists once. The question was asked more than once, could anything stop Arsenal? The answer of course was yes, but it wasn’t a football club. It was the …
Read More “Reg and Ronnie: Two of Arsenal’s most remarkable goal scorers”
By Tony Attwood At 10pm on Saturday 22nd June the commercial radio station Talk Sport are doing a programme about the history of football. I don’t have much in the way of details about the programme but I do know a little because in preparation for the programme Talk Sport came and interviewed me about …
Read More “Arsenal History Society on Talk Sport this weekend”
Edward John Paul McGoldrick known as Eddie was born in Islington 30 April 1965 (although he played for the Republic of Ireland) and is one of the continuing line of people from Herbert Chapman onwards who has been involved with clubs in Northamptonshire and with Arsenal (you will recall Chapman’s first managerial post was with …
Ray Daniel war born in Swansea on 2 November 1928and died 6 November 1997. He started at his local club Swansea Town and in 1946, as clubs started to get themselves together for the first post-war championship he was signed by Arsenal. He elder brother had also played for Arsenal and died in the …
Read More “Ray Daniel, the man who left Arsenal for an illegal opportunity”
Lee Harper was perhaps the most curious signing of George Graham – or maybe George Graham saw something in the goal keeper that no one else could see. Here is his Arsenal career in brief: He was signed by Graham in June 1994and cost the club £150,000 – apparently one of the biggest fees paid …
Read More “Lee Harper – the Arsenal keeper who never let in a goal”
Jovan “John” Lukic was born on 11 December 1960 who played for two spells with Leeds and two spells with Arsenal playing 668 league games in total, across four decades. He was also an England under 21 and England B international. He played first for Leeds as a schoolboy and then started with the first …
Read More “John Lukic shares a remarkable record with Stanley Matthews, Shilton and Ogrizovic”
This article is based on the more detailed approach provided in “Woolwich Arsenal: the club that changed football” Everyone who was involved in professional football in 1910 knew one thing: Woolwich Arsenal FC were in severe financial trouble. The white knight who had so often ridden in and save them in the past, George Leavey, …
Read More “13 June: The day Arsenal came within five minutes of extinction”
Ian Buchanan McPherson was born 26 July 1920 and died in St Albans in March 1983). He is one of those Arsenal players who tends to be forgotten despite his vital contribution to one of the club’s league winning sides. Indeed he does not even warrant any text on Arsenal.com. He started with Rangers but …
11 June is the day Herbert Chapman signed for Arsenal and became the manager that started our road to glory. As you might expect, the Arsenal History Society site has a mass of articles about the great man – and we ourselves have done a little somethng to help commemorate Mr Chapman, for it was …
Jumpers for Chapman’s Iconic Kit Design By Mark Andrews (@RoyalArsenalMRA) and Andy Kelly (@Gooner_AK) Recently, Andy and myself had a long chat with Patrick Barclay about Arsenal stories for his impending and eagerly awaited new book on the greatest manager of all time: Herbert Chapman. One of the topics we discussed was the change of the shirt design from red …
Read More “Jumpers for Goalposts…No! Jumpers for Chapman’s Iconic Kit Design”
By Tony Attwood Alexander “Alex” Manninger was born 4 June 1977 and has one of the most extraordinary histories in modern football I have ever seen. So odd is his story that I have no idea which bits are right, not least because I am having trouble with Alex’ basic appearance figures for Arsenal as …
Robert Hewitt “Bobby” Gould was born 12 June 1946 and started his football career with Coventry City – his home town, playing for them at the age of 16. He offered great potential by scoring 40 goals in 82 games, and helping with the winning the second division in 1966/7. On the basis of such …
The heart of our work at the moment is to expand the Anniversary section of the site – although we are also interested in continuing to develop the Arsenal Managers section. Arsenal manager by manager. Arsenal’s anniversaries. If you know of an anniversary that we have missed or which we have not yet written up, …
Read More “Do you know your Arsenal history? Would you like to contribute to this site?”
Norman William Sidey was born 31 May 1907 joined Arsenal as an amateur from Nunhead (in the Isthmian League) in March 1929 before turning professional two years later in February 1931. He was a midfield player and made his début in playing at number 4 on December 27 1932 in a 0-0 draw with Leeds. …
