Farewell Bruce Rioch; make way for Mr Wenger

Here are the Anniversaries from 12 August – part of our regular daily look at Arsenal’s history.

Our most recent article is The rebirth of Arsenal after the move to Highbury: November 1913.


 

12 August 1917: Frank Boulton born.  He started out with Bristol City, before moving on to Bath City, from where he was transferred to Arsenal for £700 in October 1936. He then played in the 1937/8 title winning team

12 August 1949: In a fitting benefit match for Dennis Compton Arsenal played Middlesex county cricket club… at cricket, at Highbury. Exactly as his brother did in 1955.

12 August 1977: First appearance of Pat Jennings in a friendly v Luton.  Apparently he played for the under 18 team of Shamrock Rovers while aged 11, and then moved across to Gaelic football returning to Association Football with Newry Town before moving to Watford in the third division in 1963.  And then Tottenham.

12 August 1989: Arsenal lost 1-0 to Liverpool in the Charity shield.  Arsenal had won the league in the last couple of minutes of the season, but Liverpool got a tiny amount of revenge.

12 August 1994: Goalkeeper Alan Miller transferred to Middlesbrough for £500,000.  He played just nine games for Arsenal and had three separate loan spells before going on to play 57 times for Middlesbrough.

12 August 1996: After four consecutive pre-season defeats against Birmingham, Celtic, Rangers and Fiorentina, Bruce Rioch was sacked as Arsenal manager.  The only victory came in the opening game against St Albans City on 19 July – 6-0.

12 August 1996: Stewart Houston took over the management of Arsenal and immediately oversaw a 1-3 away defeat in a pre-season friendly against Northampton. He later left to be manager of QPR with Rioch as his assistant.

12 August 2007: Arsenal continued their unbeaten run from the end of the previous season by beating Fulham 2-1 in the opening day’s game Van Persie and Hleb scoring.  Arsenal played 19 more games before facing defeat – in the Champions League.

12 August 2012: Arsenal beat Koln 4-0 in the final pre-season friendly having lost to Man C and drawn with Kitchee.

12 August 2015: Following goalkeeper Josh Vickers’ release on 10 June 2015, he signed for Swansea City.

Details of the whole list of 5000 Arsenal anniversaries and other activities undertaken by the Arsenal History Society are below.

If you spot any errors please do write in and say, and we’ll correct them.  We think we’ve got up to about 97% accuracy, and anything you can do to help us weed out the final 3% of wrong-uns would be much appreciated.

 


Also on this day

  • 3 – yes the year 3AD.  On this day Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction in the sky and would have been clearly visible around dawn and dusk in the night sky.  This is thought by some to be the “star of Bethlehem” which led the three Wise Men.  The “star”, if not a unique image from God, must have been one or more planets or a supernova – to have “led” the “Wise Men” and there is no supernova mentioned in Chinese records of the era which are comprehensive on night sky matters.
  • 1914 – World War I: The United Kingdom declared war on Austria-Hungary; the countries of the British Empire follow suit.
  • 1981 – The IBM Personal Computer was released, transforming the digital revolution from being something that affect the corporations to being something that transformed the lives of us all.  It is doubtful that mankind will ever recover.

The current series from the Arsenal History Series being developed on this site is  Henry Norris at the Arsenal, covering all aspects off the life and work of the man who rescued Arsenal from extinction, secured the club’s future by moving it to Highbury, and then brought in Herbert Chapman as manager.

The previously untold tale of how it was that Norris came to choose Highbury as the suitable location for Arsenal’s new ground.

The series is being worked on daily, and the articles thus far are here.

Among the many other series we have run are…

There are details of many other series covered by this site on our home page.

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