How many years since they last won a trophy? And 1 June anniversaries.

By Tony Attwood

It was the favourite knocking copy of the media for around six years – telling us how long it was since Arsenal won a trophy.  Now they have the chance to knock other teams – but no, they don’t.  I wonder why not.

So I thought I would fill in the gap.

The question first off is, which competitions count.  I started out by excluding minor competitions such as the Full Members Cup, Floodlit Cup, Intertoto Cup etc and listed the main trophies.

FAC = FA Cup

LC = League Cup

CS = Community Shield

ITC = Inter toto cup.

Uefa = Uefa Cup, the cup that preceded the Europa League

The “Last exc minor” column excluded the Charity Shield and League Cup, and the Intertoto Cup.

	Club	League	FAC	LC	Last trophy	Last exc minor	Years
1	Manchester United	20	11	4	2013 CS	2013 League	2
2	Liverpool	18	7	8	2012 LC	2006 FAC	9
3	Arsenal	13	12	2	2015 FAC	2015 FAC	0
4	Chelsea	5	7	5	2015 League	2015 League	0
5	Aston Villa	7	7	5	2008 ITC	1981 League	34
=	Everton	9	5	0	1995 FAC	1985 FAC	30
=	Tottenham Hotspur	2	8	4	2008 LC	1984 Uefa	31
8	Manchester City	4	5	3	2014 League	2014 League	1

How many headlines are there around about how many years it is since Liverpool won a major competition?  Not too many – it is 25 years since they won the league, for example.

Clearly there are four players in the game at the moment – Arsenal and Chelsea who won trophies this year, Manchester City who are one year away, and Manchester United who are two years away.

To be completely fair I have listed the clubs in order of the number of major domestic trophies won, but if you look closely you will see that Liverpool and Arsenal have won the same number of really major domestic honours (25 excluding the league cup), so one more triumph will lift Arsenal to clear second on that reckoning, just five trophies behind Man U.

As for the rest, Liverpool are now nine years away from their last major trophy – and how many have been mentioning that in the press?  And then we have the clubs in their 30s such as Aston Villa, Everton and …. who is it next?  Oh.

Tottenham Hotspur.  31 years since a major trophy.

Here are the anniversaries including three at the start where the date in June is unclear.

? June 1892: Alf Singleton and Henry Stewart surprisingly failed to get elected to the committee running Royal Arsenal – the first sign of the split within the club that ultimately led to the formation of professional Woolwich Arsenal and amateur Royal Ordnance Factories as two separate clubs.

? June 1893: In response to the demand for a much higher rent for the Invicta Ground Woolwich Arsenal purchased the Manor Field opposite the Invicta as their new ground.

? June 1913: William Hall resigned as a director of Fulham, allowing him to focus full-time on the preparation of the Highbury ground and taking Woolwich Arsenal FC to Islington for the 1913/14 season.

1 June 1953: Alex James died suddenly from cancer on 24th anniversary of his signing.  During the war he served in the Royal Artillery, and in 1949 he was invited back to Arsenal to coach the club’s youth sides.  He was mentioned in the 1930s song “With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm” by Stanley Holloway.

1 June 1955: Ben Marden was transferred to Watford.  Although playing only 42 games for Arsenal these included the last game of the 1952/3 season to win the league and Liverpool 1 Arsenal 5 on 15 November 1952.

1 June 1999: Moritz Volz joined Arsenal from Schalke.  He stayed for five years but never played a league game (but did play two league cup games) before being loaned to Wimbledon and finally transferred to Fulham.

1 June 2001: Lee Conoville transferred to Torquay on a free transfer.  He had had a short loan spell with Northampton before playing 112 league games for Torquay, scoring two goals.

1 June 2001: John Lukic retired from football.  He is one of just a tiny number of players who have played top flight football across four decades.   Others were  Peter Shilton, Steve Ogrizovic and Sir Stanley Matthews.

1 June 2002: Sol Campbell, David Seaman and Ashley Cole featured in England’s 1-1 World Cup draw with Sweden.

1 June 2003: Philippe Senderos joined Arsenal from Servette having played 26 games in one season with the club.    He went on to play 84 times for Arsenal across four seasons before moving on loan to Milan.

1 June 2007: Gilberto Silva captained Brazil against England, becoming the first and thus far the only Arsenal player ever to captain Brazil.  In the last minute of the game Gilberto Silva provided the cross that allowed Brazil to score to make it 1-1.

1 June 2010: Aaron Ramsey signed a new long term contract having signed for Arsenal in 2008 and having made 27 league appearances in his first two seasons.

1 June 2010: Silvestre and Gallas left Arsenal at the end of their contracts.  Silvestre moved on to Werder Bremen while Gallas went on to play for Tottenham Hotspur.