AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
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. …
Alexander Rooney Forbes (known as Red) was born 21 January 1925 in Dundee. He initially played for Dundee North End, and then after the war ended moved to Sheffield United. He played his first game for Scotland, against England,on 12 April 1947. However he had appendicitis and did not seem to make a full recovery initially …
Martin Hayes was born 21 March 1966 in Walthamstow Having played schoolboy football he joined Arsenal as an apprentice in 1982 and played centre forward and left wing. His first game in the first team was against Oxford United on16 November 1985 aged 19. It may be a reason for what happened latter, for Martin …
By Tony Attwood John James Rimmer known as Jimmy, was born in Southport on 10 February 1948. He joined Manchester United on schoolboy forms in 1963 and became a professional for the club in 1965. He stayed at Manchester United for nine seasons as second keeper to Alex Stepney, appearing 34 times in the league …
27 May anniversaries 27 May 1933: Alex Wilson purchased from Greenock Morton 27 May 1948: Doug Lishman signed from Walsall for £10,500 27 May 1953: Final game for Freddie Cox DFC 27 May 1973: Final game for Peter Marinello 27 May 1998: Ian Wright and Martin Keown play for England 27 May 1998: Remi Garde …
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 …
