AISA Arsenal History Society: preserving Arsenal's heritage
Finding events on 29 February is of course tough, and indeed even searching for the last Arsenal game played on this date turned out to be an activity that took me back to the last century. I may have missed one but I think the last Arsenal league game on 29 February was almost 50 …
Read More “Whatever happened to Pal Lydersen and the leap day anniversaries”
Steve Walford started out with Tottenham before moving to Arsenal between 1977 and 1981, playing 77 times. He then went to Norwich (93 games) and West Ham (115 games) before having a series of loan spells from 1987 onward. He ended his playing career with Lai Sun and (possibly, although records are unclear) Wycombe Wanderers. …
Jay Emmanuel-Thomas was with Arsenal from 2008 to 2011, but only made one first team appearance for the club. He had loans at Blackpool, Doncaster and Cardiff before signing for Ipswich in 2011 where he made 71 appearances. In 2013 he moved to Bristol City where he played 82 times scoring 24 goals. After that …
The most recent news we have of Tomas Rosický became comes from 2018. In January he became assistant to the new Sparta sport director Zdeněk Ščasný. Then on 17 December he replaced Ščasný as a sports director, soon after Ščasný became Sparta head coach. In Germany, as a player he gained the nickname “The Little …
The league results for Arsenal under George Graham, from mid-January 1987 to early April that year looks like just about the worst set of results one could imagine. It wasn’t just the results, but the fact that across these ten games Arsenal scored just two goals. Can you imagine the media coverage of such a …
Read More “The most awful run of results for Arsenal in the league. But…”
In 1991, Michael Thomas was transferred to Liverpool, for whom he played 124 games scoring nine goals. In his final season with them in 1998 he was loaned to Middlesbrough. After that he moved to Benfica for the 1998/9 season playing 18 games, and then ended his career in 2000/1 by playing for Wimbledon. After …
On 1 May 2006 Diaby suffered a severe ankle fracture after an atrocious tackle from Sunderland’s Dan Smith. In a disgraceful response Sunderland manager Kevin Ball defended Smith stating “Smith is not a malicious, dirty player and I think it’s unfair to make that call on him and say he deliberately went to do it.” …
Read More “Whatever happened to Abou Diaby and the man who crippled him: Dan Smith.”
Nicolas Anelka joined Arsenal for just £500,000 and won the PFA Young Player of the Year in 1998/9. I believe the nickname Le Sulk came from the Sun, and it was a tragedy that it was taken up by some supporters (although I don’t recall hearing it too often at games). He played 72 times …
Glen Helder joined Arsenal in 1995 from Vitesse Arnhem and played 39 games for the club before moving on to Benfica on loan. After that he had seven clubs but never managed more than 10 games for any of them. His final club in 2009/10) after six years of not playing professionally was DOTO, a …
Peter Marinello came to Arsenal as the great hope – the man who would take Arsenal forward to the next level. This vision was based on just 45 games in the Scottish league, and between 1970 and 1973 with Arsenal, despite all the hype, he only played 38 games. After that he played for Portsmouth, …
The anniversaries of 19 February do indeed remind us of the media’s constant theme: Arsenal are not good enough. They ply this line no matter what Arsenal are doing, because whatever Arsenal achieve, the media demand more, in order to keep up the negatives. Even the unbeaten season was greeted with comments that it wasn’t …
Read More “The media’s constant tune: Arsenal are not good enough”
In 2015, Wiltord competed on the TV reality show Dropped, in which sportspeople were dropped by helicopter into inhospitable environments. The day after his elimination from the programme, there was a mid-air helicopter collision which killed ten. Since then we’ve not heard of him, and that of course is thoroughly understandable given the horror of …
Untold Videos Our videos explore some of these issues in depth – do take a look Joe Haverty was one of those wingers who was loved by the crowd because of the excitement he generated running up and down the left, and when he left Arsenal in 1961 after seven years by the club …
Untold Videos Our videos explore some of the current issues of football in depth – do take a look On 23 February 2008, Eduardo suffered a broken left fibula and an open dislocation of his left ankle in a match against Birmingham City, following a tackle by Martin Taylor, for which Taylor was sent …
On 13 June 2014, David Bentley announced his retirement from professional football at the age of 29, having failed to find a team who would sign him since being loaned by Tottenham to Blackburn the year before, where he had played five matches. In an interview he called modern football “robotic” blaming the influence of …
After playing 225 games for Arsenal and scoring nine goals Kolo left the club in 2009 and played for Manchester 82 times until he moved on to Liverpool in 2013 and finally Celtic for the 2016/17 season in which he played 20 games under his former manager Brendan Rodgers. He was thus part of the …
After Kanu left Arsenal he played 53 times for WBA and then between 200 and 2012 he played 143 games for Portsmouth. In return Portsmouth failed to pay him, and ended up owing him £3m. The debt was never paid. After that Kanu became a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador and brand ambassador in Africa for the …
Benik Afobe – whose birthday it is today – was registered with Arsenal from 2010 to 2015, but never played for the first team. He had loans with Huddersfield, Reading, Bolton, Millwall, Sheffield Wednesday and MK Dons before signing for Wolverhampton (scoring 22 goals in 46 games), and later Bournemouth and most recently Stoke – …
On this day in 2013 Andre Santos was loaned out to Gremio after finding himself just the latest in a long string of players against whom some in the Arsenal crowd had turned. Despite playing 24 times for Brazil he was deemed by some as unsuitable for Arsenal after he had been seen swapping shirts …
On this day in 2001 Arsenal found themselves having been criticised for having no ambition (having sold Anelka, Overmars and Petit for £55m) but were clear at the top of the league. Unfortunately, they lost the next game 6-1 to Manchester United and finished the season in second, with widespread reports that they were not …
Read More “Why it’s never good to judge a club on just one result or a set of player sales”
Kyle Bartley never played for Arsenal’s first team but had loan spells with Sheffield United and Rangers before moving on to Swansea City on 16 August 2012 for £1 million. On 2 July 2013, Bartley agreed a season-long loan move to Birmingham City. The loan was ended the following January after he had played …
Johann Djourou was always a reserve player at Arsenal and in his ten years registered with the club only made 86 first team appearances. After loans to Hannover (January 2013) and Hamburger SV (1 July 2013) and in April 2014, Hamburg confirmed that they had signed Djourou on a permanent deal He played 74 times …
On 7 February 2019, goalkeeper James Hillson from Reading was brought into Arsenal on loan for the rest of the season from Reading as cover in goal for their Under-18 team after losing Karl Hein to injury. This came after Arsenal had to use 15-year-old Hubert Graczyk as a substitute for the FA Youth Cup …
Clem Voysey was an Arsenal player who was endlessly tracked by the Football Association who were desperate to show that there was something amiss with his signing by Arsenal. Not because they disliked the player, but because he was signed while Henry Norris was at the club. In fact not only was nothing ever proven, …
After playing for Roma and LA Galaxy on 21 January 2019, Cole joined Derby County then managed by Frank Lampard. He was released at the end of the season and on 18 August 2019 announced his retirement. Among his many other achievements, on 27 February 2011, Cole shot a 21-year-old student on work experience …
