AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Today, it is virtually unknown for newspapers and their websites to criticise TV coverage of a game, and certainly it is unheard of for a newspaper to suggest that TV coverage gave an unfair or unreasonable coverage of a match. And yet it was not always like this for back in the 1970s there were …
Read More “When the newspapers criticised TV for giving a false impression of matches”
John Hawley’s name won’t resonate with most Arsenal supporters; he played for the club 20 times between 1981 and 1983. But I want to reproduce part of an article on John that appears on this site, because his name crops up in the anniversaries as a goal scorer against Tottenham in 1982. You can read …
Arsenal was Malcolm Macdonald’s last major club. He played 84 league games for us and scored 42 goals, but injury cut his career short. He achieved similar goal to game ratios with Luton (49 goals in 88 games) and Newcastle (95 games in 187 games). After 1979 he had one final club, playing nine times …
The Arsenal Anniversary Files contain details of over 7000 events relating (for the most part) directly to Arsenal FC since their foundation as Dial Square and up to the present day. A full index of all the anniversaries can be found in the 12 monthly cumulative files indexed under “Pages” in the right column on …
The Arsenal Anniversary Files have been compiled and published by Arsenal History Society, and consist of over 7000 events of note in the history of the club, in day order. You can access the whole set of files on this site – just see the “Pages” section on the right of this page, and select …
Read More “What have Arsenal done on 9 April throughout their history: a rundown.”
By Tony Attwood Jon Sammels played for Arsenal between 1963 and 1971 at which point he was sold to Leicester for £100,000. He played 215 league games for Arsenal and scored 39 goals, but went on to 241 games with Leicester. After that he played for Vancouver Whitecaps for a season, and then Nuneaton Borough, …
All told Paul Davis played 447 times for Arsenal and scored 37 goals. Paul left Arsenal in 1995 and had a spell in Norway before making a final bow with five appearances for Brentford, retiring in 1995. The following season he joined Arsenal as a youth coach and stayed in that position until 2003 when …
Lauren (Laureano Bisan Etame-Mayer) was, of course, one of the invincibles during the unbeaten season. In all he played 159 league games for Arsenal, having played previously for Utrera, Sevilla, Levante, and Mallorca. He left Arsenal in 2007 and moved to Portsmouth for two seasons before playing a final five games for Cordoba. He also …
Arsenal hold the record for the longest unbeaten away run in top flight football of 27 games, starting from 5 April 2003. There were the inevitable moans at the previous away league game on 15 March when Arsenal lost 2-0 to Blackburn, a result which was followed by an away defeat to Valencia in the …
Read More “Arsenal start out on the longest unbeaten away run in top flight football”
4 April 1896: Grimsby 1 Woolwich Arsenal 1. A goal for Boyd gave him 13 for the season and made him top league scorer as Arsenal moved towards 7th position in the final league table in the club’s third league season. He became our most prolific goal scorer ever. 4 April 1903: Woolwich Arsenal …
Read More “Arsenal on April 4: what happened to the club on this day through history.”
Remi Garde, whose birthday it is today, was Arsene Wenger’s first signing as Arsenal manager. He played 31 games for Arsenal before retiring as a player in 1999. He then worked on French television before returning to Lyon as coach, and later assistant manager. In 2010 he became the director of Lyon’s training complex, and …
On this day in 1951 there was a match at Highbury involving The Boxers v The Jockeys which when you come to think of the size of the average boxer and the size of the average jockey seems a bit unfair. This match was used in order to test out Highbury’s new floodlights. We don’t …
Read More “When the Boxers played the Jockeys at football at Highbury”
Here are the Arsenal anniversaries for 1 April. 1 April 1889: Debut of David Howat, Arsenal 6 – 2nd Rifle Brigade 1. He became a league regular in 1893/4 and 1894/5 but then suddenly moved to Third Lanark, and we know no more of him. 1 April 1897: Reflecting Woolwich Arsenal’s change of status within …
Brian Marwood had played over 300 games for Hull City and Sheffield Wednesday, scoring 80 league goals before he came to Arsenal in 1988. Across two seasons he then played 52 league games and scored 16 goals, and was a clear fans’ favourite. In 1990 he moved to Sheffield United and then on to Swindon …
Marc Overmars won the Double in his (and Mr Wenger’s) first full season playing on the left wing using his great speed alongside Dennis Bergkamp. In March 1998 he scored the all-important goal to beat Manchester United 1-0, and then (as often shown in films) looked around as if to say “where are the rest …
Rhys Wilmott only played eight times for Arsenal between 1980 and 1989, but did have successful loan career with Herefore, Leyton Orient and Swansea City, before moving to Plymouth Argyle, playing 133 league games for them between 1989 and 1922. He then played 33 games for Grimsby (1992/4) and 6 for Crystal Palace (1994/6) before …
Steve Morrow played 62 games for Arsenal in the league and 23 games on loan for Barnet, QPR, Reading and Watford. He signed for QPR in 1997 and played 91 league games for them and finally 41 games for Dallas Burn in 2002/3. He was also a Northern Ireland international playing 39 games. In 2004 …
Graham Rix played 351 league games for Arsenal and scored 41 goals. He then moved on to France and played 89 times cor Caen and 12 for Le Havre, before finishing his career with Dundee (14) and Chelsea 1 game. However that one game was as emergency cover – he was primarily on the coaching …
Mr Wenger once touted Mark Randall as a really important player for Arsenal with a huge potential. But it never happened for him, and he has moved regularly from club to club. And yet despite that constant urge to move on he has (according to the latest figures) played over 230 matches almost all in …
Kwame Ampadu played just two games for Arsenal between 1988 and 1991, and had a six match loan spell at Plymouth Argyle during that time as well. He then moved to West Bromwich Albion (49 games), Swansea City (144 games), Leyton Orient (72 games), Exeter City (162 games), Newport County (8 games) and finally Tiverton …
On this day in 1907 Arsenal lost in the FA Cup semi-final for the second year running. They did not make it back to the semi-final for 20 years. At the time of writing (March 2020) Arsenal have not only reached more finals and won the cup more than any other team they have also …
Read More “Arsenal fall to their second successive semi-final, but there is better to come”
Yennaris was born in Leytonstone,to a father of Greek Cypriot origin and a mother of Chinese origin. In view of what happened later, those details are relevant. He played just once for Arsenal and after a couple of unsuccesful loan spells he moved to Brentford and played 144 games between 2014 and 2019. Then in …
Read More “Whatever happened to Nico Yennaris? You might be surprised.”
Martin Hayes was never a particularly favourite at Arsenal, except that there were a few of us who saw exactly what he could do for the team. And indeed for one season our top scorer, and the player who kept the team in a reasonable position in the league. That season was 1986/7, George Graham’s …
Arsenal signed Andy Linighan for £1.2m in the summer of 1990. Given that we had Tony Adams and Steve Bould, two players revered in Arsenal’s history it seemed something of a strange move by Graham. He had played over 70 games with each of the clubs he had previously been with (Hartlepool, Leeds, Oldham and …
Billy McCullough was a great Arsenal player from 1958 to 1966 playing 253 league games, who had the great misfortune to play under two managers (Swindin and Wright) who managed to achieve precious little beyond keeping Arsenal in the first division. The league position and cup record were awful, and Arsenal were always seen as …
