AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
28th March 1910. 100 years ago. On that day Woolwich Arsenal played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. I don’t think anyone had invented the phrase “four pointer” at that time, but that is exactly what it was. Chelsea had had a good Easter programme and had pulled ahead of Woolwich Arsenal – whose dreadful run had …
Read More “The day the modern Arsenal was born – and the club doesn’t even know when it was!”
100 years ago London had three Division I clubs – Woolwich Arsenal (who were actually in a small town in Kent), Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. All three were having a tough time of it, and the only things that were keeping all three from being relegated were a) In those days, only two clubs went …
Read More “London football in crisis: but only two can go down. Chelsea v Arsenal 1910.”
. On Thursday March 24th 1910, Woolwich Arsenal players travelled 285 miles to Newcastle on Tyne. On Friday March 25th 1910 (Good Friday), they played Newcastle and drew 1-1 That same day they took a train back to London – another 285 miles. On Saturday March 26th 1910, the self same players (with just one …
Read More “285 miles and a match on friday; defeat on saturday”
. The Wednesday, whom Woolwich Arsenal played on Easter Saturday, 1910, came out of The Wednesday Cricket Club – a club which, as we can all guess, played cricket on a Wednesday. They turned to football to have something to do in the winter. They predated the Arsenal by 19 years – although they started …
. And guess what – we drew 1-1 in front of a crowd of 20,000. Wholly unexpected, but a point is a point, (especially in the days of only two points for a win) and it kept us out of the relegation zone. As I mentioned before, Woolwich Arsenal had to play on Good Friday …
Just about the longest journey that there was in football took place 100 years ago today, as Woolwich Arsenal set out from Kent, into London, across London, and then on the train to Newcastle. Arsenal v Newcastle in the FA Cup semi final 1906 Newcastle United started out in 1881, as a spin off of …
Easter 100 years ago ran from 25th March (Good Friday) through to 28th March (Easter Monday). Nothing spectacular there you might say, and I would thoroughly agree with you, save for the fact of the fixture list. For Woolwich Arsenal it read… 25th March – Newcastle United away 26th March – The Wednesday home 28th March …
Read More “Three matches in four days: what would today’s players say to that”
Today’s sponsor: ArsenalGifts.com is a one-stop shop for all things Arsenal related, from replica kits and retro shirts through to Emirates Stadium tours, memorabilia and novelty items. Visit http://www.arsenalgifts.com . The day Tottenham Hotspur tried to Buy Arsenal By the last 10 days of March 1910, the financial position of Woolwich Arsenal had reached breaking …
Oxfam have revealed that the most valuable shares ever left to the charity were shares in the originalArsenal Football Club. The original Woolwich Arsenal shares which were offered for sale to the people of Woolwich and Plumstead by Henry Norris in 1910 are still the shares that are traded now as Arsenal FC. When the …
Read More “Arsenal shares bring thousands of pounds to Oxfam”
Dire and desperate times, playing against an up and coming Bradford City team, in front of a crowd of 14,000. And we won 1-0. I have no idea how we did it, as I have no newspaper report, but we did it. After six games in which we won none and scored just two goals, …
Read More “Arsenal beat Bradford City, Tottenham slip into the relegation zone”
100 years ago Woolwich Arsenal were in desperate straits. One position from the foot of the table, and on the edge of administration. And today 100 years ago they went to Bradford City. Woolwich Arsenal had been formed in 1886 of course – a prime time for the creation of clubs. Bradford City were in …
. One of the amusing sidelines that emerged in researching 1910 in Arsenal’s history was just how far Henry Norris (who bought Woolwich Arsenal) would go to get his view in print. He wrote the programme notes, he wrote in various papers – but that was not enough. In July 1908 Norris was part …
Read More “Henry Norris and his eternal drive for publicity”
. . Arsenal 0 Manchester U 0, 12 March 1910 There’s no public records of this match that I can find – and quite possibly that is just as well. The crowd was a mere 5,000, and it took Woolwich Arsenal to five games without a win. The bottom of the table, after the match, …
Read More “Arsenal may have been bad but they were not as bad as Hull”
It would be wrong to think that large crowds in football are a modern phenomena. Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge was opened in 1905, and although the terraces started crumbling within a matter of weeks, it was proudly proclaimed as holding 80,000. Mind you it was built by Archie Leitch, who was always prone to such exaggeration. …
Arsenal’s darkest hour indeed. For in tracing the history of Arsenal FC 100 years ago we are now at the lowest point. Of course from this moment in history we know that Arsenal very much did survive, although not without a relegation first. But 100 years ago to the day, there was no certainty in …
Arsenal had no game this weekend because they had been knocked out of the cup. The match they should have played was moved to the monday (no hanging about for re-arranged fixture organisation or permission from the police 100 years back). Meanwhile Henry Norris had gone cool on the issue of Woolwich Arsenal, and predicted …
Read More “100 years ago it was cup weekend, and Arsenal had no game”
Quite how mid-week games were organised 100 years ago has always been beyond me. March 2nd 1910 was a Wednesday and Woolwich Arsenal were away at Forest. This being long before the era of floodlighting the match kicked off in the afternoon – probably 2.30pm although I can find no formal record of that. Forest …
Towards the end of February 100 years ago the word began to go around that despite all their problems Woolwich Arsenal did indeed have at least one terrific young player. He was 17 years old and playing in the reserves. There is a report of a match between the Reserves and Croydon Common in the …
There is a widespread view that the reason that Arsenal in modern times suffers so many terrible injuries to its players is because the word has got around that the best way to beat Arsenal is to kick them. Of course many of the people who advocate this approach in the media don’t actually say …
The disaster that was February 1910 concluded with three games and three defeats, one goal scored, eight let in. Two league defeats and Woolwich Arsenal were out of the FA Cup as well. The result was Woolwich Arsenal 1 Sunderland 2, the crowd a mere 8000. Once again the forward line were awful, and our …
Read More “Arsenal v Sunderland: another disaster, relegation looms”
The opening of Manchester United’s new ground was one of the big footballing stories of not just February 1910, but the whole of 1910. In the novel “Making the Arsenal” Jacko Jones is sent to Manchester with his photographer Edward Buckingham, to cover the first game there. Jacko has already started to ask questions about …
One of the themes in the book Making the Arsenal is that 100 years ago journalists could write and entertain, even with the most mundane subjects. In fact the first page of the story is football match report from 1910 in which the author thinks the game is so terrible, he wanders off into other …
Read More “The days when football journalists could write, entertain and make us laugh.”
Alf Common was mentioned in the last piece – the prelude to the Sunderland game. Here’s the full story on one of the men who helped stave off relegation for Woolwich Arsenal. Alf Common played for South Hylton and Jarrow before joining Sunderland in 1900. He got a runners up medal in 1901 and …
February 19th 1910 was third round of the Cup day, and with Arsenal having been knocked out by Everton in the Second Round, they had no match. But in the fixture list of the time there were games scheduled, and where both clubs were already out of the cup those games went ahead. As a …
While this web site does focus primarily on Arsenal and the football world 100 years ago, we do meander a bit to take in other eras – and in this case I am rushing forward 17 years from our regular 1910 haunt. Eddie Hapgood was a milkman who was signed by Herbert Chapman from the …
Read More “Eddie Hapgood Football Legend, and the origin of humour in football journalism”
