AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
I guess that most people who look at any sort of anniversary files take a particular interest in what happened on their birthday. I’m no exception, and today is my birthday, which I am delighted to share with this being the date of the first ever AGM of Woolwich Arsenal FC – as the …
Read More “Arsenal’s first AGM, a great benefactor passes way, Chapman signs all on this day”
Successful runs of managers are hard to achieve, although Arsenal did this in the 1930s with Chapman, Shaw and Allison resulting in five league titles and two FA Cups in nine years. In one of the two years where nothing was won, Arsenal came second in the league and were beaten finalists in the FA …
Read More “Appointing a successful manager is not just a matter of finding an Arsenal man.”
Ronnie Rooke, who transferred from Arsenal to Palace on this day in 1949, played for Fulham before the war, and was 35 years old when football resumed in 1946. And yet despite this was still signed by Arsenal. Amazingly the plan worked and not only did Ronnie get 21 goals in 24 League matches in …
Read More “70 goals for Arsenal in 94 games – all after the age of 35!”
By Tony Attwood As I have noted before, these anniversary files which we publish each day, reflect all aspects of life at Arsenal – players being born, joining the club, achieving things, leaving the club, and ultimately passing away. Sometimes the snippets of information that we have are tantalising, as with Len Julians who was …
Read More “Remembering Len Julians. Arsenal man, and title winner in Kenya.”
Where do players end up after retiring from football? It is a theme we tend to come across at this time of year, when anniversaries are thin on the ground but player departures are more frequent. As we can see from the links below Andy Linnighan became a plumber, Paul Davis works for the FA …
Read More “Plumber, coach and FA employee – where players go after leaving Arsenal”
What day contained not one but two utterly brilliant signings? The answer is this day in 1997 when Marc Overmars, Emmanuel Petit both signed for the club. Overmars played 100 games for Arsenal and Petit 85. Not huge numbers but their impact in transforming the club from also-rans into double winners cannot be over-estimated. …
Read More “Which two of our most gifted players ever were both signed on this day in 1997?”
Feeder clubs – clubs which have a direct link with another club in a higher division – are outlawed within England, but it has not always been so. In 1934 Arsenal became one of the first clubs to join forces with a much smaller team, giving them somewhere that they could send promising young players …
The reason for Arsenal moving from Plumstead to Highbury can be summed up by two factors: the river to the north meant that Arsenal’s catchment area was effectively half what it might have been, and the supporters tended mostly to work in one place: the Royal Arsenal factories. So when there was no foreign war, …
Read More “How the torpedo factory and peace scuppered Arsenal”
Some players stay with one club all through their careers, others dot about here and there. Bobby Gould played for 10 clubs and managed 11 teams. But even these numbers were beaten by Francis Jeffers who played for 12 different clubs, but never had more than 55 games with any of them. At the end …
Read More “The man who couldn’t stay at any one club, finally settles down”
Actually that headline could apply to Arsenal in two separate ways: the end of the line financially which occurred on 13 June 1910, and the end of the line for Billy Wright. The 1910 tale has been followed in great depth on this site through Henry Norris at the Arsenal: There is a full index …
Chasing down the history of players after they have left Arsenal is always fascinating not least because by and large we generally know very little of the player beyond what we see on the pitch. I never saw Nelson Vivas as a desperately violent or hotheaded player while at Arsenal, so it is interesting to …
Read More “The Arsenal man who leaped into the stands and attacked a fan”
By Tony Attwood Of course in the history of Arsenal there have been many major changes in the way the club exists and works. The move to become the first professional team in the south in 1891, the rescue of the club from liquidation in 1910, the move to Highbury in 1913, the appointment of …
By Tony Attwood There were many reasons why Woolwich Arsenal moved from Plumstead to north London in 1913, including the low attendances at matches (which seemed hard to overcome for a club based near the river and thus with no fans to the north). But the fact that despite all the fuss made by supposed …
Read More “Why two clubs in a neighbourhood is better than one – and the anniversaries”
Anniversaries at this time of year tend to reflect players and staff leaving the club – the transfers not arriving until July and August. As for the backroom staff they tend the come and go unnoticed. However this was not the case one year ago when Colin Lewin was sacked by Arsenal; I am not …
Read More “Gary Lewin and Colin Lewin and a mysterious departure”
The last I heard of Phillipe Senderos he was playing for Houston Dynamo in the USA but I suspect he finished his contract there last year and has now retired. His reputation among Arsenal fans was not of the highest, but I saw him in a more positive light, as obviously did the Swiss national …
Read More “Phillipe Senderos reaches the end of his career and the Arsenal anniversaries today”
“Arsène Wenger” (CC BY 2.0) by Ronnie Macdonald Arsene Wenger is the measuring stick by which all subsequent Arsenal managers will be judged. Now that successor Unai Emery has completed his first season at the helm of the Gunners, how do their debut campaigns compare? Turning the clock back to September 1996 when Wenger’s appointment at Highbury …
Read More “How Unai Emery’s First Season at Arsenal Compares with Wenger”
Making fun of people who suggest there might be something amiss with football is a common substitute for proper debate. The very notion that it could happen in English football is thus considered laughable and not worthy of investigation. Those suggesting something is amiss are themselves held to be worthy of derision. Such was the …
Read More “When dismissing the notion of match fixing seriously backfired on the League”
If you follow the lives of ex-Arsenal players you will know of Thierry Henry’s managerial spell at Monaco which ended on 24 January this year with the club facing the possibility of relegation. What you might perhaps have missed is that the assistant manager at Monaco is another Arsenal man: Kwame Ampadu, who left Arsenal …
Does anyone remember Gilles Grimandi at Arsenal? I hope so because with us he won two Premier League titles and two FA Cups – in fact the two doubles under Mr Wenger. He also won the French League with Monaco. That might be enough for most people, but since then and playing 114 games …
Read More “The knighting of Henry Norris, the rioting at Wembley, the long serving Grimandi”
Manninger is the least remembered of that trio of keepers, and yet when called upon to play six games without conceding in his first season, following an injury to Seaman, he became player of the month. This day in 2003 and 2008 saw the departure of Seaman and Lehmann – the latter often ignored, …
Read More “Manninger, Seaman, Lehmann: 3 June is Arsenal goalkeeper day”
The ban on ALL English clubs from playing in Europe in 1985 following the behaviour of some Liverpool fans in the European Cup final, always seemed wrong to me. Yes, of course, people died and that was truly awful, but it was not something that involved the great majority of clubs in England. As a …
Read More “English clubs banned from Europe, and the similarity of Arsenal managers”
On this day in 1953 the great Alex James died. Contrary to what has been published in many copycat histories, Alex James is Arsenal’s second greatest captain; leading his team to three league titles, one FA Cup and one Charity Shield. Tony Adams is the only man to beat that with …
Read More “Arsenal’s two greatest captains in terms of trophies…”
On 31 May 1893 Woolwich Arsenal FC were elected to Division II of the Football League. It was an amazing moment for the club, because at the time it was under a ceaseless assault from a rival organisation – Royal Ordnance Factories FC, which had been formed by ex-members of the Royal Arsenal committee who …
Read More “How the enemies of Arsenal tried to extinguish the club just as it was born”
Publications We have a small number of copies of “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” now available in paperback. They are also available on Kindle. Please see here for more details. The series Henry Norris at the Arsenal: There is a full index to the series here. Arsenal in …
Read More “The Arsenal man who gave Chelsea their only title in 100 years”
If there were ever a black day recorded in English football’s history it was this, the day when Liverpool fans moved to attack Juventus fans in the European Cup Final in 1985. If there were ever a curious day in English football’s history it was also this, when Chelsea, a club with no players, …
Read More “Football’s blackest day and football’s most curious day.”
