AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood, Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews 26 May 1913 is a most important date in our “ISLINGTON 100” series – the series that tells of Arsenal’s move to north London – which will culminate with the 100th anniversary of the first match at Highbury in September 2013. An important date since it was …
Read More “Tottenham’s demand for anti-Arsenal League EGM, defeated: 26 May 1913”
Joe Wade was born 7 July 1921 in Shoreditch and joined Arsenal as an amateur in 1944 – while Britain was still at war. He was in the RAF at the time and based near Hereford, and also played for them during the war years. He is also listed as playing for Hoxton. He played …
Ernest Williamson (generally known as Tim) was born 24 May 1890 in County Durham Durham. Tim Williamson began his career at local sides such as Murton Red Star, and Wingate Albion before joining Croydon Common of the Southern League in 1913. During the first world war he was in the Royal Army Service Corps and …
By Tony Attwood (written 23 May 2013) Tomáš Rosický will be 33 within three months of the start of the 2013/14 season – and as the story goes Mr Wenger does not retain players over 30 years of age. Except of course he does, on occasion, and watching Arsenal in the 2012/13 season with Rosický …
This article by Tony Attwood was updated 26 January 2017 with pictures kindly supplied by Martin Levy. Jimmy Brain was born on 11 September 1900 in Bristol, and played for Ton Pentre having worked previously as a coal miner. In 1923 he was sold to Arsenal. The table below shows his league record, …
by Andy Kelly (@Gooner_AK) Ingrained within the heritage of The Arsenal is the long standing latin motto “Victoria Concordia Crescit”. Over the years there have been a number of variations of the translation but all are roughly the same: “Victory Grows Through Harmony.” But when was this motto first attributed to The Arsenal, and why? …
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, …
