Wenger makes his first signings. Both are unknown one of whom is injured.

Here are the Anniversaries from 14 August – part of our regular daily look at Arsenal’s history.

Our most recent article is December 1913, the alleged redcurrent shirts, and Chapman comes to Highbury for the first time


14 August 1894: Jack Butler born in Ceylon; he played 267 games for Arsenal.  He was the first Woolwich Arsenal player who was born outside of the British Isles.

14 August 1963: Bob Wilson’s first friendly game.  Bob Wilson went to Loughborough College (now university) to train as a teacher.  He didn’t play his first league game until October.

14 August 1971: After the Double everyone expected more of the same, and got it with an opening match of Arsenal 3 Chelsea 0.  Unfortunately two wins were followed by three consecutive defeats.

14 August 1980: George Wood signed from Everton as understudy to Jennings. He was reported to have scored while playing in goal for East Stirlingshire v Queen of the South on 9 January 1971 kicking the ball out of his area.

14 August 1982: Lee Chapman’s first game, in a friendly.  He was top scorer with Stoke, but never made it at Arsenal, playing in the first eight matches of the season before being replaced after a sequence in which Arsenal won two, drew two and had four defeats

14 August 1993: A 0-3 home defeat to Coventry in the opening game of the season was followed by four consecutive wins and just two more defeats in the next 16 league games.

14 August 1996.  The first Arsène Wenger signings, Remi Garde (on a free transfer) and Patrick Vieira (£3.5m) joined Arsenal.  Wenger was still in Japan ending his contract and both players arrived carrying injuries.

14 August 1999: Last game for Luis Boa Morte (v Sunderland) before moving on to Southampton.  He had played 25 league games for Arsenal across two seasons and went on to play 14 for Southampton.

14 August 2003: Igors Stepanovs transferred to Beveren on a one year loan.  He played 21 times in Belgium before moving on to Grasshoppers where he played 50 games in two seasons.  

14 August 2005: Start of the final season at Highbury with game against Newcastle.  A 2-0 victory against a parked bus defence which Henry and Van Persie breached in the last 10 minutes.

14 August 2008: Middlesbrough made a bid for Justin Hoyte.  He was transferred two days later for £3m having played 34 league games for Arsenal and 27 while on loan at Sunderland.

14 August 2010:  Arsène Wenger signed a contract extension until June 2014.  Despite this being the era of Arsenal Austerity he kept the club in the top four and ready for a return to trophies with the FA Cup wins in 2014 and 2015.

14 August 2016: Arsenal lost the opening match of the season 3-4 to Liverpool.  Three players including Koscielny were out because of prolonged international duty while Mertesacker and Gabriel were injured leaving Arsenal with a makeshift defence.

Elsewhere on 14 August…

On this day in 1956 the RAF tracked a series of unidentified flying objects, some of which were tracked by ground based radar and one seen with the naked eye from the ground.  The objects were tracked as flying at 600mph, and were then lost as more RAF fighters were launched.


 

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.


 


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.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *