AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood Alex Wilson was an Arsenal goalkeeper who played his first Arsenal match on 27 January 1934 – a 7-0 win over Crystal Palace. Frank Moss was the keeper at the time, but he was injured for this match, and Wilson took over – one of six games he played in that season …
Read More “Alex Wilson – the keeper who started under Joe Shaw.”
Dr Kevin O’Flanagan played for Arsenal between 1945 and 1948 making a grand total of 16 Football League starts and scoring three goals. Hardly the most illustrious of our men to be remembered on the Highbury Wall at the Ems, but he was such an extraordinary man that he really needs to be be remembered …
by Andy Kelly On 10 March 1919 the English Football League held a special meeting to decide whether to expand the League from two divisions each with 20 teams to two divisions each with 22 teams. They would also decide which teams would constitute each division. One of those decisions has been a cause of …
Read More “Arsenal’s Election To The First Division In 1919”
By Tony Attwood Colin George Pates was one of George Graham’s purchases at Arsenal when he joined us on 19 January 1990. He was born 10 August 1961 in London and started out at Chelsea in 1979, and eventually became their captain as they gained promotion from the second division in 1984. He continued to …
Read More “Colin Pates; an unsuccessful Graham recruit, now working at a top private school”
By Tony Attwood The 1960s were not Arsenal’s finest era, and the start of the decade certainly suggested things were amiss. In 1959/60 we came 13th in the First Division and were knocked out of the FA Cup at the first hurdle by Rotherham United. Our manager was George Swindin and he lasted two more …
Read More “When fans says “we want our Arsenal back” hopefully they don’t mean 18 January 1960″
By Tony Attwood Wally Hardinge has already had one reference on this site – for he played in a match on 23 September 1912 for Sheffield United. Harold Thomas William Hardinge, to give him his full name, was born 25 February 1886, and died in Cambridge on 8 May 1965. He was not only an …
Read More “Wally Hardinge, played in Arsenal’s first Highbury game, and a top cricketer too.”
FA Cup 1st round replay. Jan 15th 1913. Croydon Common Home. Won 2-1 Crowd 9000. The crowd for this match and the original drawn match which caused this replay were in total 17,000 compared with 35,000 in 1909. So what had gone wrong? Why were Arsenal crowds so down in 1913? First, for the earlier …
Read More “15 January 1913: Croydon Common v Arsenal; our first home victory of the season”
By Tony Attwood John Hartson started games 54 times for Arsenal, and scored 14 goals over three seasons from 1994 to 1997. He was born on 5 April 1975 in Swansea. He joined Luton Town aged 16 but following the theft of a credit card (which was used to provide funds for gambling) he was …
Read More “13 February 1995 John Hartson signed for Arsenal”
Andy Kennedy was born in 1897 and died December 1963 who was signed by Leslie Knighton for Arsenal in 1922 having played original for Glentoran. He played 24 league games and two FA Cup games in his first season for the Arsenal, starting on December 9. We have no record of the transfer fee paid, …
By Tony Attwood January 1979. Arsenal were heading for another mediocre season. Results over recent years had been poor: Season Manager League pos FA Cup League Cup 1973/4 Mee 10 4th (A Villa) 2nd (Tranmere) 1974/5 Mee 16 Final (WHU) 2nd (Leicester) 1975/6 Mee 17 3rd (Wolves) 2nd (Everton) 1976/7 Neill 8 5th (M’boro) 5th …
By Tony Attwood On January 8th Arsenal played their first undisputed match. It is “undisputed” because the details of the game were carried in the press. It is the “first undisputed” because the game normally considered the “first” (against Eastern Wanderers) is covered in mystery and uncertainty. The mentioning of Royal Arsenal v Erith in …
Read More “January 8: Anniversary of the first undisputed Arsenal match”
By Tony Attwood There are two reasons for choosing Arsenal v Bedford as the topic for January 7, apart from the fact that the result was remarkable. First, we are obviously talking cup football at the moment, following our draw on January 6 2013 with Swansea. And second January 7 is not exactly Arsenal’s favourite …
Read More “January 7: Arsenal 2 Bedford 2, on our least favourite day of the year.”
By Tony Attwood Herbert Chapman made Arsenal – of that there can be no doubt. And therefore you won’t be surprised to find more articles about Chapman on this site than any other manager. The index to the Herbert Chapman articles shows just how much work we have put into this project, analysing his style …
Ted Platt Ted Platt was born in Romford on 26 March 1921 and at the time of writing is still with us, having reached the age of 91. He started out with Colchester United of the Southern League and was transferred directly from them to Arsenal. Ted Platt then signed for Arsenal on January 5 1939 …
Read More “Ted Platt: wartime keeper who could not replace Swindin or Kelsey”
By Tony Attwood 3 January 1951: Arsenal sign Dennis Evans from Ellesmere Port Town for £1500 Dennis Evans was born on 18 May 1930 in Ellesmere Port and played for his local side. He was signed from them directly to Arsenal, by Tom Whittaker who was building his next league winning side with Dennis …
By Tony Attwood This coming weekend, as we all know, Arsenal play in the FA Cup third round – which as always is their first match in the competition. The FA Cup, as you’ll know if you follow Untold Arsenal, starts way back in August with the Extra Preliminary Round, and this season we saw …
Read More “Jan 2: Arsenal play in the fifth qualifying round of the FA Cup”
By Tony Attwood January 1st 2005 and… Emmanuel Eboué joins Arsenal from Beveren. Eboué started playing football for ASEC Mimosas based in Abidjan which in fact is a story in itself. The club is the most successful side in Ivorian football, and it has within it Académie MimoSifcom which has produced players such as Bonaventure Kalou, Didier …
Read More “ASEC Mimosas, Beveren, Emmanuel Eboué, Arsenal, Charlton”
31 December 1994: John Jensen scores – Arsenal 1 QPR 3 John Jensen was a defensive midfielder, a cult hero, and the man whose transfer ultimately brought down George Graham. When we bought him he had already been Danish Player of the Year, and played in a UEFA cup semi final with Brøndby. He was …
Read More “31 December 1994: John Jensen scores – Arsenal 1 QPR 3”
By Tony Attwood If you have read “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” (see link below) you will know that Woolwich Arsenal became a professional club in 1891, but did not join the Football League until 1893, and thus became the only southern club in the league. Naturally this meant that all away games …
Read More “December 30: Anniversary of Arsenal’s first away league win”
By Tony Attwood There is already a full article about George Male on this site, so no need to repeat his story – I have just added a link in the Anniversary section to this date and his first appearance. But it is interesting to pause and see how Arsenal ended 1930. We had so …
Read More “Arsenal 7 Blackpool 1, Dec 27 1930. George Male appears; first championship in site”
By Tony Attwood Bill Linward was an outside left who joined Arsenal from West Ham United in December 1902 and made his début against Millwall Athletic on Boxing Day 1902. On the following day he played at number 11 in a division 2 match against Burnley. We won 5-1 – quite a turn around after …
Read More “Bill Linward joined Arsenal and played 2 games in 2 days”
By Tony Attwood Watch the big screens at the Ems prior to any match and just before you see the players come out you will see a stream of old film from the days of past glory. Among these pictures is a grainy black and white sequence of Liam Brady scoring a goal from the …
This article was updated on 8 December 2013 —————————– On 10 December 1898 Woolwich Arsenal played New Brighton Tower, the score being New Brighton Tower 1 Arsenal 3. No crowd figure is recorded. In the return match on April 8 1899 Arsenal won 4-0. In the following season Arsenal won 2-0 away and 5-0 at …
Read More “Arsenal against New Brighton Tower; one of the artificial clubs of football.”
By Mark Andrews. Last year we reviewed the Woolwich Arsenal Christmas programmes from 1904 and 1905 in http://www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk/2011/12/23/christmas-scheduling-past/ For this festive season we are looking at Royal Arsenal’s scheduled Christmas programmes in a snowy 1890, a beery 1891 and a fractious 1892. Being an organised amateur club and “Champions of the South” they were in touch with Northern …
By Tony Attwood Joe Shaw already has several articles about him on this site – and there is an index of these here. But what the earlier articles don’t do is focus on Joe as a lifelong servant of the club. He played for Arsenal, managed the reserves, and for half a season managed the …
Read More “Joe Shaw – the greatest long term servant Arsenal has ever had”
