2 November: Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-0, watch the highlights

You can find the latest video each day on the home page of this site.   You can also find videos for previous days by clicking the articles in the left column of this page under “Recent Posts” or by clicking on the mauve headline at the top of the screen on the right, which will take …

Relive Chelsea 3 Arsenal 5 on this day 2011. Watch the video

You can find the latest video each day on the home page of this site.   You can also find videos for previous days by clicking the articles in the left column of this page under “Recent Posts” or by clicking on the mauve headline at the top of the screen on the right, which will take …

The passing of Sir Henry Norris, the man who saved Arsenal.

The Arsenal History Society is part of the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association – a body which gives positive support to the club, and has regular meetings with directors and senior officials of the club to represent the views of its members to the club.  You can read more about AISA on its website. For advertising contact Snack Media …

The Arsenal History quiz questions from last night’s Zoom quiz, plus the anniversaries

Last night Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association (AISA) had one of its regular “pub quiz” nights, held on line.  (Our new website will open very shortly, and I’ll give you the link to that when it happens). There were six rounds of five questions each, with a splendid time had by all.  Here are the five …

Whatever happened to Carl Jenkinson?

The story of Carl Jenkinson’s terrible injury problems are well known, and in 2018/19 he saw out the end of his contract with Arsenal.  Under Unai Emery, Jenkinson made eight appearances across all competitions. On 27 February 2019 he started his first Premier League match for Arsenal in 830 days, playing the full 90 minutes …

Celebrating the memory of Joe Shaw: club captain and manager

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Joe Shaw, one of the most important servants the club has ever had.   Sadly he is hardly remembered these days, but he should be.  Here is our announcement in the anniversary files, with a link to a piece about Joe Shaw 7 May 1883:  Joe Shaw was …

The Arsenal history quiz for 5 May. How much Arsenal history do you know?

Here are the quiz questions for today.   All the answers are to be found in the anniversary files after the questions. 1: Arsenal chose their new name – “Woolwich Arsenal” on this day.  What name did they have before this? 2: Arsenal played their first ever European match on this day.  Who was it against? …

How well do you know your Arsenal history? Here’s the 3 May quiz.

Seven questions below, all of which have some relevance to 3 May in Arsenal’s history.   All the answers are to be found in the Arsenal Anniversary files for 3 May which follow the seven questions. Good luck. 1: 3 May 1893 – one of the most important days in the history of Arsenal.  What happened? …

Happy Birthday Freddie Ljungberg, and remembering Ted Drake.

It’s Freddie’s birthday and we wish him many happy returns from the Arsenal History Society. It is also the day we commemorate the birth of Ted Drake, one of the all-time greatest Arsenal players, and the man who scored all seven goals in one game against Aston Villa. Here are the anniversaries for today.  You …

When the Boxers played the Jockeys at football at Highbury

On this day in 1951 there was a match at Highbury involving The Boxers v The Jockeys which when you come to think of the size of the average boxer and the size of the average jockey seems a bit unfair. This match was used in order to test out Highbury’s new floodlights.  We don’t …

Whatever happened to Kwame Ampadu?

Kwame Ampadu played just two games for Arsenal between 1988 and 1991, and had a six match loan spell at Plymouth Argyle during that time as well.  He then moved to West Bromwich Albion (49 games), Swansea City (144 games), Leyton Orient (72 games), Exeter City (162 games), Newport County (8 games) and finally Tiverton …

Whatever happened to Loughborough FC? Arsenal’s strange involvement

Loughborough FC may well not be a club you’ve heard of, unless you study Arsenal’s earliest history, in which case you might know they turn up several times. They won the Midland League in 1894/5 and then were elected to the second division of the Football League.  They didn’t fare well however and in 1900 …

Whatever happened to Tomas Rosicky?

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 …

Whatever happened to David Bentley?

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 …

Whatever happened to Benik Afobe?

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 – …

Whatever happened to Matthew Upson?

After joining Arsenal from Luton town in 1997 Matthew Upson played 35 times for Arsenal, and made loan spells to Nottingham Forest, Crystal Palace and Reading before moving on to the two main clubs of his career, Birmingham City (on this day in 2003) and West Ham.   He later played for Stoke, Brighton, Leicester and …

Why it is not always good to sack the boss after a run of poor results.

Letting in five for the third time in a season would be more than enough to lead to mass demonstrations against the manager these days.  Fortunately in the 1930s things were just a little calmer, since the manager was Chapman, and he offered to resign.  Fortunately the board said no and he stayed. Here are …

How the FA tried to cheat an Arsenal player out of compensation for an injury

Latest news: We are developing our own video channel.   It’s still at the experimental stage but you can get a feel here… Untold Gooner News   Although we tend to think that fake news is a modern concept, there are signs it existed as early as 1926.  Arsenal’s Tom Whittaker, who later went on to …

Imagine Arsenal as a club owned by its fanbase: we nearly got it.

By Tony Attwood When Henry Norris agreed to take over Arsenal in 1910, in order to avoid the club going into liquidation and thus ceasing to exist as a League club, he did so on the basis that he would fill the gap in the club’s finances, but then sell the club back to the …

The first Arsenal floodlit match over 100 years ago, and Tony Adams first game

5 November contains a mixture of curious Arsenal anniversaries.   The first report of an Arsenal floodlit match – in 1889! – Arsenal bottom of the league in 1921 with the local press pointing out that abuse of players and the manager is not a constructive argument (clearly the message didn’t sink home), and the last …

As history shows, fortunes in football can change very rapidly indeed

That fortunes can change in football very quickly has always been apparent, but few changes were more puzzling than the collapse of Arsenal in the early months of the 1935/6 season.  Arsenal had just won the league three times running, and in the final of those three seasons Arsenal had not just won by a …

When Arsenal scored 38 goals in five games.

In 1932 Everton won the league scoring 116 goals in 42 games.  That wasn’t the all time record however – for the season before Arsenal had scored 127 as champions, but Aston Villa had scored 128 in coming runners up. Arsenal came back and won the league again in 1933 with 118 goals scored and …

The anniversary of the passing of the man who saved Arsenal from oblivion

The Arsenal History Society site contains a wide number of series of articles – these are detailed on the right side of this page under the heading “Pages”.  You can find out more about many of them on our home page  as well as details of our books. Here we have today’s anniversaries, including the …

Why two clubs in a neighbourhood is better than one – and the anniversaries

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 …

Phillipe Senderos reaches the end of his career and the Arsenal anniversaries today

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 …