AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
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.”
Although I suspect most Arsenal fans with even a passing knowing of the history of the club will have heard of George Allison, his is not a name that has the same instant recognition as that of Herbert Chapman. And yet Allison had the same record of achievement as Chapman, with two league titles …
Read More “The forgotten Arsenal manager with two league titles and an FA Cup win”
On 22 January 2015 I wrote a little piece in Untold Arsenal about a change in the law in Switzerland which meant that corrupt Fifa officials could be arrested in that country and then prosecuted for their crimes. It was not a piece that got that much attention beyond the regular Untold readership and I …
Read More “How we tipped off Fifa about a raid, but they took no notice.”
Publications We have a small number of copies of “Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” now available as printed books. 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 …
Read More “Arsenal’s forgotten great manager, and a certain match v Liverpool”
Granit Xhaka is one of those players that some journalists and fans get on the back of, call useless, and demand the end of. No matter what the statistics and evidence show (his successful pass rate is in the Gilberto league for example) the word is out – he is useless, he has to go, …
By Tony Attwood Just how wild and crazy are the stories that circulate in the media about Arsenal can be seen by the tale which was doing the rounds at this time in 2010 – that Arsenal were going to be bought by a Nigerian businessman. They were not, and on this day the gentleman …
Read More “Arsenal and the Nigerian takeover, plus the supposed dispute with Tottenham.”
By Tony Attwood The revolutionary nature of Arsenal FC throughout its history is often forgotten, it seems to me. And today’s first anniversary – the first report of Arsenal becoming a club that paid its players – is an example of that. Clubs in the north of England had been paying their players for several …
Read More “The revolutionary nature of Arsenal Football Club.”
The answer to the question above is Jack Lambert – one of the most extraordinary footballers ever to have taken on the Arsenal shirt. I won’t try and summarise his story here, but rather suggest that if you are interested you might like to follow the link in the first anniversary article, commemorating the …
Read More “Who scored 38 goals in 34 games, and 74 in 90 games – and was booed?”
Fifa getting the rules of football in a muddle – whoever would have thought it! But seemingly they did get the issue of whether a goal could be scored from a corner completely muddled up, and had to do some hasty re-writing in 1924. But even now they still can’t get their own story right …
Read More “Fifa cock up the rules, ball dropped from plane, Vieira’s last kick”
The answer to the question above is Ian Wright, and I mention it today, because today is the anniversary of Arsenal winning the FA Cup in 1993 – the cup double season. It was the first time any team had won both the League Cup and FA Cup in the same season. Wright got ten …
Read More “Who scored 15 cup goals for Arsenal in one season?”
