AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Sky News seem to have missed it, and it is not featuring on any of the blogs that I can see but the biggest match fixing scandal since 1914/15 is about to hit football. Let’s do the history first, since this is primarily a history site – but I will move onto the current situation …
Read More “UNTOLD ARSENAL raided by police, Ireland guilty, Platini arrested, Iraq banned”
So we had had a draw away from home last weekend against Sheffield Wednesday. Now a home match against Bristol City. The draw had done nothing for our league position, and we were still firmly bottom of the league, but it had been preceded by two defeats, and that therefore was a step forward. Also …
Of course you could all be laughing at me (if you remember me at all) but the fact is that in ten years it will be possible to go back and look at the blogs and commentaries of a few years before, and look at how stupid all the commentators were. At the risk of …
Read More “In ten years time we’ll all be laughing our heads off”
When Arsenal went unbeaten for a whole season much was made by the snarling sniveling gutter press who never like to give credit for anything that the club does, that this was not the first time this had happened. Preston North End had done it once before. In fact PNE did go a season unbeaten …
Read More “Just how many games can you lose in one season and still win the league?”
Assuming you read fiction at all you will know a few genres. Science fiction maybe. Detective fiction, Historical fiction, War fiction, the Wild west… you name it, fiction has it. Except… football fiction. Our biggest sport, the issue that occupies much of the nation not just at weekends but every day of the week. And …
Saturday November 13th, 1909. Sheffield Wednesday vs Woolwich Arsenal. The omens were poor. Our record was played 12, drawn 1, won 2, lost the rest. Bottom of the league. Worse, only five members of the team who played on the opening day of the season in September were still playing. One player McDonald was playing …
Read More “Arsenal v Sheff W – at last the improvement begins”
MI5 was originally known as MO5, and was set up as part of a network of secret government committees in the aftermath of the Boer War. During the Boer War, which ended in 1902, the government had set up Section H, which was effectively a spying network – the first serious attempt by the British …
It is a question that must be circulating around the minds of a number of club supporters at the moment. Clubs that are supposedly ok for money, clubs which are maybe successful. And then suddenly it begins to unravel. Of course what many people do is just pretend the difficulty doesn’t exist – and it …
Read More “What does it feel like when your club goes bust?”
MAKING THE ARSENAL is a novel – the diary of a football journalist in 1910 who is given the job of covering the story of the collapse of Woolwich Arsenal, its take-over by Fulham and its re-birth as a new club. But the story is more than just football – it is a story about …
Here’s a story related to today’s game of Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers which you might not believe straight off… In the summer of 1967, Wolverhampton W. played in the United Soccer Association – a league of 12 clubs in Canada and the USA. Each club was a club from elsewhere in the world, rebranded with …
November 6th, 1909. 100 year ago exactly. The world looks bleak. Arsenal are bottom of the league division I, having never been relegated in their history. Their record is played 11, drawn 1, won 2, lost 8. There was light on the horizon at the start of the day, as after a terrible run of …
Read More “Storm clouds gather: is this the end of Arsenal?”
The 100th anniversary campaign gets official recognition On November 4th 2009, what we had hoped for happened: Arsenal FC gave official recognition to our campaign to commemorate the events of 100 years ago when Henry Norris took over Woolwich Arsenal and began the journey that led to Highbury (1913), promotion (1919), and Herbert Chapman (1925). …
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This web site was set up in order to draw attention to the events that occurred in the 1909/1910 season during which Woolwich Arsenal went into liquidation and were taken over by Fulham. That might seem an odd thing to celebrate – but the result of that takeover by Fulham led directly to three things… …
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Manchester United 1 Woolwich Arsenal 0 October 30th, 1909 One hundred years on, joy was unconfined as Arsenal slaughtered Tottenham 3-0 at the Emirates, incorporating one of the most inspiring and amusing goals of all times – Fabregas from a Tottenham kick off. But back at the end of the first decade in the 20th …
Read More “Manchester United 1 Arsenal 0; no chemical injuries, but no joy”
By Tony Attwood There was an interesting piece on the Guardian web site on 30 October 2009 which contained a commentary on various Arsenal/Tottenham matches and concluded with a piece about Arsenal’s promotion in 1919. It repeats the age old stories about the “fixed” promotion which are by and large lifted from the Tottenham Version …
Manchester United’s ground described as “a toxic waste dump” The season 1909/10 which we chart here (that being 100 years ago of course) was the last season that Manchester U played away from Old Trafford – to which they moved in 1910. But as Woolwich Arsenal prepared for their away game on October 30th 1909 …
Read More “Manchester United’s ground: “a toxic waste dump””
Woolwich Arsenal and George Morrell Poor George Morrell – doomed for ever to be known as the only manager ever to relegate Arsenal. He came in at a time when Arsenal changed managers as often as they changed their shirts – he was the fifth man in charge in ten years. He had managed Glenure …
This site is dedicated to following the history of Arsenal 100 years ago. A couple of weeks back we had the amazing coincidence of Arsenal playing Blackburn almost 100 years to the day to another Arsenal Blackburn game. We can’t say the same about West Ham today because the two clubs were not …
This is an extract from the novel, MAKING THE ARSENAL which records the history of the takeover of Woolwich Arsenal by Henry (later Sir Henry) Norris of Fulham. At this point in the story, Jacko Jones, the journalist, is trying to piece together Norris’ past activities in football. And he hits on a rather …
This is a series of articles commemorating the birth of the modern Arsenal in 1910. The book MAKING THE ARSENAL which tells the full story is available from the links below where you can read extracts and further information about the book. http://tiny.cc/RHd9k – if you are in the UK http://tiny.cc/Fsc6p – if you …
If you read the daily ramblings on UNTOLD ARSENAL you’ll know that we’ve been talking on occasion about injuries, and whether Liverpool’s manager is right when he says that they have been hit by them like never before. The general feeling on the Untold blog is that over the last three years Arsenal have had …
Here’s an extract from MAKING THE ARSENAL – the new book which covers the collapse of Woolwich Arsenal and the take over of the club by Henry Norris. There’s details of how to purchase the book at the end. At this point of the story, Jacko Jones, football reporter at the Daily Chronicle has …
Read More “Making the Arsenal: extract from the most detailed book on Arsenal’s history”
The strange case of Hugh McDonald Hugh McDonald was a goalkeeper who signed from the Scottish club Beith in the 1905/6 season. He is one of hundreds of players who played for Arsenal and whose lives and histories are now forgotten. But Hugh McDonald deserves to be remembered – and he is a …
What sort of man was Norris? In 1910 he took the club over, and over the coming years turned Arsenal into a prime force in English football. He moved the club to Highbury, he took us into the First Division and kept us there, and then brought in Herbert Chapman. But what sort of …
Read More “Henry Norris made the Arsenal: read the start of the story”
16 October 1909, one hundred years ago. Sunderland 6 Arsenal 2, Crowd: 10,000 So there it was: four defeats in a row, during which we scored three and let in 19. It doesn’t get much worse. In fact it couldn’t because we were bottom of the league with a set of results thus …
