AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Looking at anniversaries in June one is bound to come across players who came to Arsenal but then moved on for it is the month for unwanted players to leave the club. Some never made it with the club (Archie Low and Elias Chatzitheodoridis turn up on our list today), while some looked like they …
Read More “Whatever happened to… Low, Chatzitheodoris, Hoyte, Butler and James?”
By Tony Attwood It is, of course, so easy today. If you want to know a score you can see it on TV at any time, both through teletext on the BBC and through Sky Sports News. If you are at the match at the Ems you can wait until half time or full time, …
By Tony Attwood Well, not to put a final point on it, I would love you to buy a programme at the ground this season, because, well, you know… The programme will feature a series this season called… “Arsenal Uncovered” written by… well….. me. The idea is that each article covers one bit of Arsenal’s …
Read More “Why I do hope you will buy a programme at the Emirates this season”
1908/09 1st round. Jan 16th. Croydon Common (away). Drew 1-1 Crowd 20,000 The Arsenal handbook that I am using as a guide to these matches has this game played at “Crystal Palace by arrangement,” which is a rather interesting comment. Where there is now the National Sports Centre there once was the home of the …
Read More “Woolwich Arsenal in the FA Cup: playing at the final stadium 1908/09”
ESPN up their anti-Arsenal propaganda By Tony Attwood ESPN’s distaste for Arsenal was chronicled on Untold Arsenal last year when the station got the rights to show Everton v Arsenal. They packed the studio and gantry with Everton supporters and then, as Arsenal sauntered to their 1-6 victory, spent much of the match showing pictures …
Read More “ESPN up their anti-Arsenal propaganda, but add a few more quotes”
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood This is a momentous season for Tottenham Hotspur and as we approach the home game with our nearest rivals, and as such it is only right that we should give space to the celebrations that will now follow. For this is a big …
Read More “Tottenham fans prepare to celebrate major anniversary at Arsenal this week”
When exactly did Royal Arsenal become Woolwich Arsenal? By Andy Kelly There is some confusion as to when Royal Arsenal changed its name to Woolwich Arsenal. Most club histories say that the name changed when the club adopted professionalism in 1891 whereas some say that the name changed when it became a limited liability company …
Read More “Royal, Woolwich, The Arsenal, Arsenal – when, what, where, who?”
By Tony Attwood This is the start of a new series on the Woolwich Arsenal site. The weekly review of 100 years ago will continue, but we are also going to run a series from the very start of Arsenal in the league – 1893-4. At the end of the 1892/3 season there had been …
Read More “Woolwich Arsenal from the start. Entering the league in 1893”
By Tony Attwood Paul Matz, of Arsenal Independent Supporters Association has kindly answered my request for a photocopy of the oldest Arsenal programme that could be found in his collection. It is Arsenal v Blackburn on Saturday November 13th, 1920 The programme is numbered Volume IX Number 16 and costs two pence (that is 2d, …
By Tony Attwood No transfer window, no internationals interrupting the week by week flow of the games, no European competitions, no “25” registered players, no safety certificates for the grounds, no alcohol restrictions, no pub licensing procedures, no smoking bans…. It makes you wonder sometimes what there was 100 years ago. For Woolwich Arsenal there …
100 years ago… Woolwich Arsenal resume league football – 1 September 1910 By Tony Attwood In the 19th century league football started on the first saturday in September. Not exactly the start of autumn but away from the “summer month” of August, which was given over to cricket. In fact cricket had the four months …
Read More “Arsenal prepare for the new season – 100 years ago!”
By Tony Attwood In 1913 there was a bit of a rumpus. If you are a regular on this site, or indeed if you know your footballing history, you’ll know what it was: Woolwich Arsenal, after two years under the ownership of Henry Norris, decided they had had enough of Kent, and started looking for …
Read More “How Tottenham H invented the concept of football franchising”
This article repeats a little of the article on Henry Norris and the Southern League. I have included the info about the start of the Southern League again, so you don’t have to keep zipping backwards and forwards. If you know about the Southern League bit, just skim down the page. . It all started …
Read More “How Tottenham have tried and tried again to stop The Arsenal”
This article continues from the one published yesterday – it explores the fact that by the summer of 1910 Henry Norris owned three clubs – Croydon Common in the Southern League, Fulham in Division 2 and Woolwich Arsenal in Division One. The first part of the article can be read here. ——- Today we think …
Read More “Henry Norris, Croydon, Woolwich Arsenal, the Southern League”
By the summer of 1910 Henry Norris owned three football clubs: Woolwich Arsenal (division 1), Fulham (division 2) and Croydon Common (Southern League). What was he doing? Well, it seems he thought of himself as the man who could build football in the south of England into something as powerful as the football league in …
Read More “Henry Norris owned Fulham FC, Arsenal FC and Croydon Common FC. Why? How?”
So on 18th May 1910 Woolwich Arsenal’s board met the Football League, at the Imperial Hotel in central London, with a view to explaining if the club could go forward for next season. The League were anxious to know because they wanted to settle down and draw up the fixtures for the coming season. Chelsea …
The days between 13th and 16th May, 1910 were a poker game as far as Woolwich Arsenal were concerned. The club had gone into administration. A new club (Arsenal Football and Athletic Club) had been formed and the shares had gone on sale, but the requisite number had not been sold. As with today, shares …
Read More “Tottenham and Chelsea show an interest in buying Arsenal”
Today’s Sponsor: Gooner Gifts – everything for the real Arsenal fan ——————- May 2010: some Arsenal supporters are expressing discontent. Equally many are very happy with the progress of the team, seeing the progress as reaching a moment of great excitement with so many of the youngsters who joined us six or seven years ago …
Read More “End of season feelings, 100 years ago and today.”
With one more saturday of the season to go, but no game to play, Woolwich Arsenal could watch the rest of the world of football, and look at the shambles of their own finances, and wonder. In the league itself, Bolton Wanderers were already relegated, and Aston Villa had won the title. At the bottom …
Read More “Arsenal prepare for the close season in fear and trepidation”
Tottenham Hotspur: the dark history How an underhand strategy and a desire to rewrite history has transformed how people think about football in London. To begin, somewhere near the start, and take you into an interesting world of politics and sport unlike anything you’d see today in football, poker online or any professional sport… In …
28th March 1910. 100 years ago. On that day Woolwich Arsenal played Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. I don’t think anyone had invented the phrase “four pointer” at that time, but that is exactly what it was. Chelsea had had a good Easter programme and had pulled ahead of Woolwich Arsenal – whose dreadful run had …
Read More “The day the modern Arsenal was born – and the club doesn’t even know when it was!”
100 years ago London had three Division I clubs – Woolwich Arsenal (who were actually in a small town in Kent), Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. All three were having a tough time of it, and the only things that were keeping all three from being relegated were a) In those days, only two clubs went …
Read More “London football in crisis: but only two can go down. Chelsea v Arsenal 1910.”
. On Thursday March 24th 1910, Woolwich Arsenal players travelled 285 miles to Newcastle on Tyne. On Friday March 25th 1910 (Good Friday), they played Newcastle and drew 1-1 That same day they took a train back to London – another 285 miles. On Saturday March 26th 1910, the self same players (with just one …
Read More “285 miles and a match on friday; defeat on saturday”
Dire and desperate times, playing against an up and coming Bradford City team, in front of a crowd of 14,000. And we won 1-0. I have no idea how we did it, as I have no newspaper report, but we did it. After six games in which we won none and scored just two goals, …
Read More “Arsenal beat Bradford City, Tottenham slip into the relegation zone”
. One of the amusing sidelines that emerged in researching 1910 in Arsenal’s history was just how far Henry Norris (who bought Woolwich Arsenal) would go to get his view in print. He wrote the programme notes, he wrote in various papers – but that was not enough. In July 1908 Norris was part …
Read More “Henry Norris and his eternal drive for publicity”
