AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
by Andy Kelly Last Friday I was one of three people (Tony Attwood and Mark Andrews being the other two) that received an e-mail from Paul Matz of AISA asking if one of us would like to attend the unveiling of the three legends’ statues on 9 December. The club had invited 100 special guests to the ceremony. …
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—————————————– “Making the Arsenal” – the book of Arsenal’s rebirth —————————————– Arsenal.com have today picked up Walter’s “Jenkinson” article in their Media Watch section. Congratulations all round to Walter from everyone at Untold Towers By Tony Attwood In October 1956 Tom Whittaker, the club’s manager, died of a heart attack. He had won the league …
Read More “Into the darkness: Swindin leads us into the nine dead years of Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood We are staying in touch with Lyon this season because Remi Garde is now the manager there. And while doing this we’re having a look at Lorient as they have Joel Campbell playing. To start with Joel he has played four times as a sub, and played in the 1-1 draw with …
Read More “Olympique Lyonnais and Remi Garde (plus Lorient)”
By Tony Attwood Recently I published a couple of pieces about two prospective future managers of Arsenal: Remi Garde and Dennis Bergkamp. The reason for these stories was not the fact that these ex-players had declared their interest in the job, but rather because both were highly regarded by Arsene Wenger, as players, and both …
Read More “Tony Adams declares he would love to manage Arsenal”
by Tony Attwood I have mentioned already that the start of the 21st century saw the start of serious doubts about referees where bizarre decisions started to cost us games – not least in the cup final of last season against Liverpool. 2001 continued the theme and again we looked at Liverpool as the team …
Read More “Wenger in 2001/2: the violence of Old Trafford and the start of the maiming era”
By Tony Attwood In part one of the review of 1999/2000 we looked at a season opening that was a mix of injuries and the arrival of new players who took time to settle. It was no coincidence this season that Arsenal’s run of success had to wait until the end of the season, when …
Read More “1999/2000 – we end up 18 points behind Man U and lose on penalties in all 3 cups”
By Andy Kelly Who Was Arsenal’s Second Permanent Manager? According to every Arsenal history written since 1986, George Elcoat was Arsenal’s second manager. Up until 1952 he was only known as Mr Elcoat. Then Bernard Joy wrote “Forward, Arsenal!” and gave him an initial so that he became G. Elcoat. He remained this way until …
Read More “How all the history books get Arsenal’s second manager wrong”
By Tony Attwood What do you do after you have won the double in your second full season at a club? Answer: you do it again. That is what some fans expected. In fact the expectations were very high – and were dashed. 1998/9 started with four draws and a win. OK no defeats but …
Read More “1998/9 Mr Wenger’s Third Season: after the double, the Sheffield affair.”
By Andy Kelly and Tony Attwood . Henry Norris bought Woolwich Arsenal FC in 1910. Quite why he did so has always been something of a mystery, since he already owned two clubs – Croydon Common FC in the Southern League and Fulham FC in the second division. . Arsenal at the time were struggling, …
Read More “Why did Henry Norris have a fixation with Woolwich Arsenal”
By Tony Attwood The result in the league for 1997/8 look wonderful – we won the league with two games to spare, and finished five points ahead of Manchester U who ended up in second place. We also won the FA Cup – our second double. The winning match of the season, by which I …
Read More “1997/8 Mr Wenger’s second season. The close margin between success and failure.”
Untold Arsenal and Arsenal History on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Untold Arsenal Index History of Arsenal with a new series on the Rioch year, and onto the Wenger years. Making the Arsenal – the book of Arsenal death and rebirth By Tony Attwood If we look at the Premiership appearance figures for …
By Tony Attwood As we saw in the last article, Mr Wenger started out with the same sort of promise as Herbert Chapman. But it is what happened then that marked him out as a different type of manager. We are in an era before rampant match fixing and before the financial corruption that took …
By Tony Attwood What we have seen in the previous articles is that the time before Arsene Wenger took over the club was not a period of huge league success. It has been pointed out however that this is a somewhat unfair analysis since although George Graham’s team slid away in the league, there were …
By Tony Attwood My feeling is that there are many people who claim to be Arsenal supporters who believe the mantra that “this is the worst Arsenal team ever”. My personal remembrance, backed up by videos of the pre-Wengerian seasons is that what we see now is several million light years ahead of what we …
The season in question was 1995-6, and the man in charge was Bruce Rioch. As the previous article showed, Arsenal had been hunting in the lower leagues to try and find a man to take over from George Graham. They found a man who had had a few run ins with those in the clubs …
Read More “Arsenal before Arsène: What happened the season before Wenger arrived”
By Tony Attwood Rioch had one season at Arsenal – 1995/6. He can point to the season as having some success such as Reaching the UEFA Cup for the following year, having come fifth in the league League Cup Semi-Final, lost on away goals But we might also note that Arsenal were knocked out of …
by Tony Attwood It has become commonplace for people who don’t like Arsene Wenger to state that “this is the worst Arsenal team that I have ever seen, and I have been supporting the club for 30 years.” I was about to add to that sentence “or words to that effect” but actually looking at …
Read More “When Bruce Rioch managed Arsenal; the man, the myth”
By Tony Attwood Herbert Chapman followed Leslie Knighton as manager at Arsenal. Here’s how the last years of Knighton’s reign compared with Chapman’s opening years. Season Manager League Position Cup exit round* 1921/2 Knighton 17 4 (6) 1922/3 Knighton 11 2 (4) 1923/4 Knighton 19 2 (4) 1924/5 Knighton 20 2 (4) 1925/6 Chapman 2 …
By Tony Attwood This is the third article in the series which reviews the reign of Herbert Chapman season by season. Links to the earlier articles are at the foot of the page. 1927/28 was the third season of Herbert Chapman’s reign at Arsenal. In the previous two seasons he had broken new ground by …
By Tony Attwood Leslie Knighton was appointed manager of The Arsenal upon the return of the club to the first division at the end of the first world war, in 1919. Arsenal were promoted after refusing to back down on the match fixing scandal in the last pre-war season (which actually went on into the …
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here Victory Through Harmony By Tony Attwood We play Huddersfield Town rarely, so now that we have one of those moments it is worth, I think, having a look at the eternal link that binds the two clubs together: Herbert Chapman. In this article I focus on …
Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal Untold Arsenal on Facebook here By Tony Attwood I should start by making a confession (well not much of a confession because what I am going to confess is undoubtedly patently obvious if you have been reading through my jottings over the past couple of years. It is this: when I …
By Tony Attwood There are millions of stories about Arsenal that appear everywhere. But as we have already found on this site, sometimes those stories are just a little bit short of the truth. Here is another one. It is the story that says that Herbert Chapman changed the name of the club from The …
Read More “The proof: Herbert Chapman did NOT change the name of Arsenal”
Tony Attwood I raised the issue the other day that there should be a statue of Herbert Chapman somewhere at the stadium that we can all see and enjoy. As we established in the subsequent correspondence there is not just one bust of the great man, but three busts spread around, but nothing on display …
Read More “Arsenalisation: We need not just a Chapman statue but three statues”
By Tony Attwood OK, I know there is a bust, and it used to be in the marble halls at Highbury. Now it is at the Directors’ Entrance at Emirates Stadium and (according to the club) “greets the thousands of guests which visit the stadium each year.” Well, yes, up to a point. (Apart from …
Read More “Where is the statue of Herbert Chapman at the Emirates?”
