Five more ex-Arsenal players now in football management

By Tony Attwood In the last article I listed a number of Arsenal players now in senior management position in clubs other than Arsenal. Dennis Bergkamp Remi Garde Tony Adams Martin Hayes Brian McDermott Vladimir Petrovic Now here is the second list, which hopefully gets us to near completion.., the total seems to be eleven …

Ex Arsenal players in senior football management: a regular guide

by Tony Attwood I recently asked on Untold Arsenal for details of any ex-Arsenal players currently working as managers or in other very senior positions in clubs. This came about following the news of Dennis Bergkamp‘s appointment at  Ajax and Remi Garde‘s elevation at Lyon. The subsequent discussion gave me quite a few names, but …

Dennis Bergkamp: how the abuse of the moron fans nearly destroyed the greatest player

by Tony Attwood With Remi Garde in charge at Lyon we also now have Dennis Bergkamp as assistant manager at Ajax. I want to write a little about Dennis, but before I do I would like to consider who else from the Arsenal ranks is currently in senior management.  I must admit my mind has …

Disrespecting the cups. It wasn’t us!

Arsenal in the Cups  2001/2 By Tony Attwood After all the furore about the reserves played in the league cup last season Mr Wenger put out a more experienced side for the first league cup game of 2001/2.  It was against Man U, just at the moment when both teams had suffered defeats in the …

Wenger in 2001/2: the violence of Old Trafford and the start of the maiming era

by Tony Attwood I have mentioned already that the start of the 21st century saw the start of serious doubts about referees where bizarre decisions started to cost us games – not least in the cup final of last season against Liverpool. 2001 continued the theme and again we looked at Liverpool as the team …

Wenger stands up to answer the anti-Arsenal Arsenal

by Tony Attwood In the last article I wrote about the foundations of the anti-Arsenal Arsenal – a grouping of “supporters” who felt that Arsène Wenger should be removed from the managership of the club. The main complaint of the AAA at this stage was that the latest crop of signings were poor (Stepanovs was …

Arsenal’s next manager after Wenger makes his move

Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood From the moment they signed, I had the feeling that Gilles Grimandi and Rémi Garde were not just signed as players by Mr Wenger, but as future employees of the club.  …

When we lost 6-1 to Man U. Stepanovs and the rest in 2000/1.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood Continuing the story of the 2000/2001 season in the series that reviews Mr Wenger’s time at Arsenal. By the end of 2000 we had lost four matches including a horrible 4-0 …

Wenger at Arsenal 2000/2001. The transfers and the fiasco.

Untold Arsenal on Twitter is in the top 1% of all Twitter sites for followers @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Arsene Wenger had won the double with a team that included Anelka, Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit.  But by the summer of 2000, all three had gone. These days, as we contemplate the eternal …

1999/2000 – we end up 18 points behind Man U and lose on penalties in all 3 cups

By Tony Attwood In part one of the review of 1999/2000 we looked at a season opening that was a mix of injuries and the arrival of new players who took time to settle.  It was no coincidence this season that Arsenal’s run of success had to wait until the end of the season, when …

Wenger at Arsenal: 1999/2000 – part 1

A player being unsettled by the media, by other clubs, and by players of other clubs is something that Arsene Wenger has had to contend with all the time at Arsenal.   We are familiar with this as a daily issue over the comments from Barcelona players about Fabregas, and in 2011 from Manchester United players …

How all the history books get Arsenal’s second manager wrong

By Andy Kelly Who Was Arsenal’s Second Permanent Manager? According to every Arsenal history written since 1986, George Elcoat was Arsenal’s second manager. Up until 1952 he was only known as Mr Elcoat. Then Bernard Joy wrote “Forward, Arsenal!” and gave him an initial so that he became G. Elcoat. He remained this way until …

1998/9 Mr Wenger’s Third Season: after the double, the Sheffield affair.

By Tony Attwood What do you do after you have won the double in your second full season at a club? Answer: you do it again.  That is what some fans expected.  In fact the expectations were very high – and were dashed. 1998/9 started with four draws and a win. OK no defeats but …

Why did Henry Norris have a fixation with Woolwich Arsenal

By Andy Kelly and Tony Attwood . Henry Norris bought Woolwich Arsenal FC in 1910.  Quite why he did so has always been something of a mystery, since he already owned two clubs – Croydon Common FC in the Southern League and Fulham FC in the second division. . Arsenal at the time were struggling, …

1997/8 Mr Wenger’s second season. The close margin between success and failure.

By Tony Attwood The result in the league for 1997/8 look wonderful – we won the league with two games to spare, and finished five points ahead of Manchester U who ended up in second place. We also won the FA Cup – our second double. The winning match of the season, by which I …

1997/8 – part 2 of Mr Wenger’s second season

Untold Arsenal and Arsenal History on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Untold Arsenal Index History of Arsenal with a new series on the Rioch year, and onto the Wenger years. Making the Arsenal – the book of Arsenal death and rebirth By Tony Attwood If we look at the Premiership appearance figures for …

Mr Wenger’s second season: 1997/8

By Tony Attwood As we saw in the last article, Mr Wenger started out with the same sort of promise as Herbert Chapman.  But it is what happened then that marked him out as a different type of manager. We are in an era before rampant match fixing and before the financial corruption that took …

Mr Wenger’s first season: 1996/7

By Tony Attwood What we have seen in the previous articles is that the time before Arsene Wenger took over the club was not a period of huge league success. It has been pointed out however that this is a somewhat unfair analysis since although George Graham’s team slid away in the league, there were …

Arsenal: before and after Arsène

By Tony Attwood My feeling is that there are many people who claim to be Arsenal supporters who believe the mantra that “this is the worst Arsenal team ever”.  My personal remembrance, backed up by videos of the pre-Wengerian seasons is that what we see now is several million light years ahead of what we …

Arsenal before Arsène: What happened the season before Wenger arrived

The season in question was 1995-6, and the man in charge was Bruce Rioch. As the previous article showed, Arsenal had been hunting in the lower leagues to try and find a man to take over from George Graham.  They found a man who had had a few run ins with those in the clubs …

Rioch at Arsenal; the man before Wenger.

By Tony Attwood Rioch had one season at Arsenal – 1995/6.  He can point to the season as having some success such as Reaching the UEFA Cup for the following year, having come fifth in the league League Cup Semi-Final, lost on away goals But we might also note that Arsenal were knocked out of …

When Bruce Rioch managed Arsenal; the man, the myth

by Tony Attwood It has become commonplace for people who don’t like Arsene Wenger to state that “this is the worst Arsenal team that I have ever seen, and I have been supporting the club for 30 years.” I was about to add to that sentence “or words to that effect” but actually looking at …

Who were Arsenal’s worst players? The History Site investigates.

THERAPY – A GROUP EXERCISE With all this present day chit-chat about “Wenger Out!”, I’d like to offer a little perspective, stimulate some debate, and hopefully cheer everyone up a bit. You always read these polls about who were the best players to ever put on an Arsenal shirt, which always infuriate me: you’re always …

Herbert Chapman Season 4: flirting with relegation and the signing of Charlie Jones

By Tony Attwood Three seasons gone and the man brought in to bring trophies to Arsenal had delivered a couple of near misses but no actual trophies.  In the league we had been 2nd, 11th and 10th – far better than under the previous management.  In the cup we had lost in a final, lost …