AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Football seems to have become ever more myopic – whatever the problem is today, that is the BIG problem, and needs to be sorted out with BIG solutions – usually involving dropping half the team and sacking the manager. The thought that this sort of thing just happens, doesn’t seem to occur to supporters or …
Read More “Not every run of poor results is actually a major crisis”
by Tony Attwood Most people who take any interest in the history of Arsenal FC know that the first match for what might be called an Arsenal team was between Dial Square and Eastern Wanderers. Dial Square we know was the name of the factory within the Royal Arsenal on the south of the Thames …
Read More “What actually caused the formation of Arsenal football club?”
By Tony Attwood On this day in 1920 the Arsenal programme contained a piece by Sir Henry Norris, the club chairman, outlining the club’s array of injuries, and claiming that probably no team had ever suffered so many injuries at one time as Arsenal now had. The piece was taken up by several newspapers, and …
Read More ““Arsenal get the most injuries”. How the story began almost 100 years ago”
The notion of a referee having his own team and taking them touring around the country playing charity matches seems very odd today but that is what Roston Bourke did. As noted below he later became football correspondent for the Islington Gazette and so wrote regularly about Arsenal. The anniversaries for today, are printed below. …
Read More “The referee with his own team who became a journalist covering Arsenal.”
By Tony Attwood One of the most interesting things about gathering together all these anniversaries is that there can be a very curious mix of connections emerging on one particular day. And of course a lot of the time I am discovering these things as I go along. The court case mentioned in the headline …
It is always important for a club manager to have a good relationship with his players. When that goes, difficulties arise. Of course some people can set aside past disputes and disagreements but others seem to retain these for far longer than was necessary. We don’t really know enough about Herbert Chapman to know if …
Read More “How personal bitterness can lead to vindictiveness and recriminations”
Arsenal’s decline under Bertie Mee after winning the double in 1971 was one of the strangest and saddest periods in the history of the club. It is one thing to be a poor side, because that is what the club has generally been (as for example in the period from 1919 to 1925, and from …
Read More “How the first double team fell from grace in just three years.”
On 31 August 2003 The Times reported the league match against Man City as containing “the worst 45 minutes [by Arsenal] that any of their fans could remember”. It ended Man City 1 Arsenal 2. On 8 November 2003 Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-1 in the 11th league match of the season. The Observer …
Geoff Strong played for Arsenal from 1957 to 1964 and showed himself to be a singularly accomplished player. Then he was transferred to Liverpool on this day in 1964 – an utterly ludicrous move given that he was performing well with Arsenal and was able to play in a whole variety of positions. In his …
Read More “The days when Arsenal sold their best players: remembering Geoff Strong”
It is difficult to know how much damage Stewart Robson (who was born on this day in 1964) has done to Arsenal – if indeed any. His vitriolic attacks on Arsene Wenger on Arsenal TV and elsewhere certainly set the scene for others to copy, and Arsenal TV did take an indecently long time to …
Read More “Whatever happened to the extraordinarily negative Stewart Robson?”
5 November contains a mixture of curious Arsenal anniversaries. The first report of an Arsenal floodlit match – in 1889! – Arsenal bottom of the league in 1921 with the local press pointing out that abuse of players and the manager is not a constructive argument (clearly the message didn’t sink home), and the last …
Read More “The first Arsenal floodlit match over 100 years ago, and Tony Adams first game”
The wartime league programmes during both world conflicts are rarely remembered these days, but at the time they did produce some interesting matches with extraordinary results. The fact that Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 5-0 on this day in 1939 does not sound too unlikely, but considering that it followed victories with scorelines 7-0, 8-4 and …
Read More “When Arsenal scored 26 goals in four consecutive matches”
Herbert Chapman is of course revered by those who know about Arsenal’s history. And indeed it was the Arsenal History Society (which runs this site) which persuaded Arsenal FC to put a statue to Chapman up outside the Emirates Stadium, looking up at the ground as if to say “I created this”. But unfortunately one …
Read More “When Chapman was in danger of taking Arsenal down to the 2nd division”
That fortunes can change in football very quickly has always been apparent, but few changes were more puzzling than the collapse of Arsenal in the early months of the 1935/6 season. Arsenal had just won the league three times running, and in the final of those three seasons Arsenal had not just won by a …
Read More “As history shows, fortunes in football can change very rapidly indeed”
George Armstrong, who died on this day in 2000, was one of the most popular Arsenal players of all time, both for his skill and ability, and his endless willingness to run and chase, no matter how much the game was going against Arsenal. George spent 15 seasons at Arsenal and played 621 games for …
Read More “Remembering George Armstrong who died on this day, 19 years ago.”
Arsenal were champions and had their up and coming young striker Nicolas Anelka playing for them on this day in 1998. And indeed with Bergkamp out injured Anelka took up the challenge and scored the only goal of the game on this day against Coventry to make it one defeat in 16. As it happened …
Read More “When Bergkamp and Anelka were just not potent enough”
Although one likes to hope that the more serious newspapers might actually do a bit of research, this is sadly rarely the case, as witness the Guardian’s various attempts to smear the Arsenal with a totally fake account of Arsenal’s election to the first division in 1919. One of these pieces appeared on this day …
Read More “A perfect example of how the media will take any chance to knock Arsenal”
In 1932 Everton won the league scoring 116 goals in 42 games. That wasn’t the all time record however – for the season before Arsenal had scored 127 as champions, but Aston Villa had scored 128 in coming runners up. Arsenal came back and won the league again in 1933 with 118 goals scored and …
Freddie Ljungberg will forever be associated with Arsenal having played 216 games for the club – far more than he played for any other side. He was of course a great favourite with the crowds, and it was pleasing for many of us to see him return to the club in 2016 working with the …
The Arsenal match on this day in in 2015 is not widely remembered as a major upset, but perhaps it should be. In the league cup Arsenal were defeated by Sheffield Wednesday, with Arsenal putting out a strong side of senior players, while being second in the Premier League. But only Mertersacker and Giroud survived …
Read More “From defeat by Sheffield Wednesday to defeat by Bayern Munich.”
by Tony Attwood This is a day that is as good an anniversary of the foundation of football as any other – the day in 1863 that the FA was formed by a group of enthusiasts who wanted to write the rules of the game came together for that purpose. It is also the day …
Read More “The day that football got itself together, and Arsenal went top of the league.”
By Tony Attwood This was the day in 1924 when the ball hit Arsenal centre forward Jimmy Brain on the head and knocked him out, as it made its way into the goal. I doubt that such an event has ever happened again – (as in brain, head, goal) and for the sake of player …
Read More “Ball hits Brain, knocks player out, goes in net. You couldn’t make it up.”
It is probably Bernard Joy’s negative comments upon George Allison, that has ensured that Allison has never received much recognition as one of the great Arsenal managers – despite the fact that he kept the club alive in the second world war virtually single handed, and won the same number of trophies as Whittaker and …
Read More “How one man’s tales can overturn the true history of a great club.”
Finding out what players have done after they have left Arsenal is often fascinating. For example, Jens Lehmann famously criticised Arsene Wenger when he was a player, but then for the 2017–18 season, he returned to Arsenal as assistant coach leaving on 19 June 2018, in the clear out of Unai Emery. On 29 January …
On this day in 1949 Arsenal’s reserve team were accused of smoking after the game. These days such an accusation would be ignored by the club, perhaps because invented negative reports are so commonplace, but in 1949 Arsenal went on the attack and threatened to sue. The newspaper backed down and wrote an apology. Today …
Read More “Celebrating our most successful manager’s birthday”
