AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
By Tony Attwood I missed this yesterday, but Yogi’s Warrior, who runs the excellent Arsenal on this Day site kindly pointed it out to me. I am hoping he doesn’t mind if I take his kindness further and reprint the whole thing as it is a rather find instance of how widespread the interest in …
Read More “Season Tickets On Sale at Arsenal, (24th July 1905)”
If you think you know your Arsenal history – it is time to think again. Never before has one book so transformed what we know about a football club. Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football. —————————————- Herbert Chapman – an overview of his achievements By Tony Attwood When Herbert Chapman became manager he took over …
Read More “Herbert Chapman – just how great were his achievements”
—————— If you think you know your Arsenal history – it is time to think again. Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football. ————– By Tony Attwood These days we often spend our time on Untold Arsenal telling players that if they leave Arsenal life will never be so good. We’ve charted the career of player …
By Tony Attwood I wanted to write a piece about Liam Brady turning professional on this day (23 July) in 1973. The problem is that although some sources such as “The Gunners: Day to Day Life at Highbury” say (and I quote exactly) “signed his first professional contract for Arsenal” on this day, while Wiki …
Read More “Liam Brady: who may (or may not) have signed pro forms on this day in 1973”
By Tony Attwood Woolwich Arsenal never won the league, never got further in the FA Cup than the semi-finals, and didn’t provide the backbone of the England or Scotland national sides. So how can we claim that the club changed football? Woolwich Arsenal’s most obvious claim to fame is that they brought the Football League …
If you think you know your Arsenal history – it is time to think again. Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football. ———————– By Tony Attwood Anders Erik Limpar (born 24 September 1965) In many ways Anders Limpar started a revolution. By no means our first non-British Isles player, but he joined a team in …
Read More “Graham’s players: Anders Limpar – and an insight into the sale of Rocastle”
By Tony Attwood Bob McNab was born on 20 July 1943 in Yorkshire. Happy 69th Birthday Bob. After playing 68 times between 1963 and 1966 for Huddersfield, he was signed by Bertie Mee in October 1966 – two months into Mee’s reign. He replaced David Court at right back on October 15th in the away …
Read More “Bob McNab: happy birthday to one of Mee’s key men”
By Tony Attwood I was writing recently about the time when a ref stopped an Arsenal / Tottenham game at Plumstead because of bad language from the crowd. The full story of that, and the incidents I relate here are given in Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football which is published this weekend. After …
Read More “When the Tottenham keeper hit an Arsenal supporter during a game”
By Tony Attwood Bernard Joy (who died on 18 July 1984) played 86 games for Arsenal between 1935 and 1947 under the management of George Allison. He is also responsible for publishing a letter which has for years acted as one of only two sources of information about Arsenal’s first ever game. The letter is …
Read More “Bernard Joy – captain of the GB Olympics football team 1936”
By Tony Attwood Today, there isn’t that much of a problem at Arsenal’s home games. I remember some issues with Everton supporters a couple of years back (they blame us, we blame them, and I was four blocks along from where the incident took place, so I don’t really know) but not too much else. …
Read More “When the Arsenal / Tottenham Hotspur game was stopped by the ref due to bad language”
Today, 16 July we have the anniversaries of two players who played a significant part in the history of Arsenal – Joe Baker and Bob Wilson. You can read more about them here 16 July 1962 Joe Baker joins Arsenal 16 July 1963 Bob Wilson signs Arsenal History Society has an anniversary list which we …
Read More “Joe Baker and Bob Wilson – two anniversaries on one day”
By Tony Attwood At this moment when we are having our attention drawn towards players and their on field behaviour, and with some journalists now linking that to the chants that can be heard from the stands, it is interesting to spend just a moment thinking about how it was in the past. What is …
Read More “What was it like in the crowd 100 years ago at Woolwich Arsenal?”
It may seem that the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal (the AAA) is a recent phenomenon, Indeed that is how the AAA like to portray themselves with their “I have been an Arsenal supporter for 50 years and I have never seen a team this bad” stuff (forgetting perhaps in 1974 we spent a period bottom of the …
Read More “Celebrating 120 years of the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood Does that headline sound familiar? The club reaches heights that no one has seen before, and then everyone moans and calls for the manager to be sacked. Sounds a bit like the 21st century at Arsenal, with an endless stream of top four finishes met with comments from the Anti-Arsenal Arsenal that …
Read More “Arsenal does better than ever before… and everyone complains”
———————————- ——————– Publication on July 20th: Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football. The book that re-writes the Arsenal story. ——————————— By Tony Attwood There is this image that I have that when a player seeks a new move there are negotiations, chats with agents, thoughts, discussions with possible new clubs, debates. And …
Read More “Walley Barnes: football as a series of accidental events”
by Mark Andrews Now that the wait is over and the quite revolting new purple and black striped away kit is revealed, and given that we are only days away from the publication of the publication of the definitive book on the early years of Arsenal as a professional club, I thought it would be …
By Tony Attwood Frank Stapleton’s career at Arsenal spans the reigns of Bertie Mee (1966-76) and Terry Neill (1976-83). He joined us in 1972 as an apprentice (having tried his hand first with Man U) and played his first game in 1975 against Leicester in a 1-1 home draw. This was Bertie Mee’s last season …
Read More “It is Frank Stapleton’s birthday (born 10 July 1956)”
The Arsenal Anniversary File is an ever growing record of the important dates in the club. We only started it a few months ago and already it has well over 100 important dates listed, with more being added each week. Today, 9th July, is the 36th anniversary of Terry Neill signing as a manager. Terry’s …
Read More “9th July 1976: Terry Neill becomes Arsenal’s manager”
Tom Whittaker is one of Arsenal’s managers. Here is his record Season League FA Cup 1947/48 1st 3rd (Bradford) 1948/49 5th 4th (Derby) 1949/50 6th Won 1950/51 5th 5th (Man U) 1951/2 3rd Final (Newcastle) 1952/3 1st 6th (Blackpool) 1953/4 12th 4th (Norwich) 1954/5 9th 4th (Wolverhampton) 1955/6 5th 6th (Birmingham) 1956/7* 5th 6th (WBA) …
Read More “Tom Whittaker: Arsenal’s 4th longest serving manager”
By Tony Attwood NOTE: This article is taken from a section of Woolwich Arsenal: the club that changed football, which is published in a couple of weeks time. —————————- Britain became involved in the first world war on 4 August 1914, but the decision was taken to continue with the league programme for the 1914/15 …
Read More “James “Punch” McEwen: Arsenal’s manager in the first world war”
This article in the series about Arsenal’s managers is about George Graham the manager. A separate article will appear in due course about his playing career. George managed four clubs: Millwall, Arsenal, Leeds, and Tottenham. His win percentage at Arsenal (48.91%) was the best of his career. At Tottenham it was 39.68% George took over …
Read More “George Graham: Arsenal’s second most successful manager for trophies”
Stewart Mackie Houston was born on 20 August 1949 in Dunoon in Scotland. In all he had two separate spells in charge of the club, making him unique in Arsenal’s history. He was manager number 21 and 23. In his first spell after the sacking of George Graham from March to May 1995 he took …
Read More “Arsenal managers: Stewart Houston – still with Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood This is part of what is becoming a fairly large series of articles on Arsenal’s managers. There is a full chart of the managers with links to numerous articles about them, and their players. Also we have a range of charts on that page which highlight the achievements of each manager. Rioch …
By Tony Attwood Steve Burtenshaw was Arsenal caretaker manager between March and May 1986. His appointment followed the resignation of Don Howe amidst rumours that he (Don) would be replaced. Steve was himself replaced by George Graham. His record as a manager of Arsenal was a win rate of 27.27% winning 3, losing 6 and …
Read More “Arsenal Managers: Steve Burtenshaw, our least successful manager”
By Tony Attwood Older supporters of every team will tell you (when they are being honest) that after years of watching their team, some games fade from the memory. You know you were there, but for the life of you, you can’t remember the game. So it is with me, but there is one moment …
