The one armed man who played for Arsenal

Here are the Anniversaries from 13 September  – part of our regular daily look at Arsenal’s history.

Our most recent article on Arsenal’s history is


13 September 1890: H. Simmons played for Royal Arsenal Reserves at centre forward for the first time, despite having only one arm.

13 September 1909: Ray Bowden born in Cornwall.  He started out as a solicitor’s clerk but his goal scoring with Looe (in one match he scored ten) led to him being spotted by Plymouth Argyle with whom won a Division Three (South) title in 1929/30 moving to Arsenal in March 1933 for £4,500.

13 September 1932: Birth of Ralph Guthrie.  He started out with Tow Law Town and was transferred to Arsenal in December 1952, at a time when the club already had Swindin and Kelsey on its books as keepers.

13 September 1933: John (Jack) Lambert last appearance.  The following month he was transferred to Fulham.  He had played 143 league games and scored an amazing 98 league goals plus 11 in 16 Cup games, and still some of the crowd booed him.

13 September 1949: Freddie Cox signed from Tottenham for £12,000.  Freddie served as a fighter pilot for the RAF during the war, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

13 September 1958: Arsenal beat Tottenham 3-1, with 65,565 inside Highbury.  Nutt and Herd (2) scored.  That made it 25 goals in the first seven games with five of the seven games won.

13 September 1966: Arsenal’s first ever League Cup match – at home against Gillingham.  It ended in a 1-1 draw with 13,029 present.  20,566 turned up for the replay, another 1-1, before Arsenal won the third game 5-0.  Baldwin scored in all three games, getting two in the final game, but Arsenal went out in the next round.

13 September 1977: George Armstrong sold to Leicester.  He played in both the League Cup finals under Bertie Mee that led up to the three triumphs, and was one of the three all-match players in the Double season.  He set up the winner in the final game of the league season against Tottenham.

13 September 1978: Steve Gatting first appearance for Arsenal versus Lokomotiv Leipzig; Arsenal won 3-0.  He then retained his place throughout much of 1978-79 but did not appear in the cup final against Manchester United.

13 September 1986: Perry Groves first game for Arsenal – Luton 0 Arsenal 0.  It was the second of four matches in which Arsenal failed to score, the first three being 0-0, the fourth a 0-1 defeat.

13 September 1997: Ian Wright broke Cliff Bastin’s record with a hattrick against Bolton (the second of which actually broke the record, although Wright revealed his celebratory t-shirt after the first goal).

13 September 1998: Guardian reported that Chelsea had just failed to hi-jack Arsenal’s bid for Ljungberg.  The notion of clubs attempting to “hi-jack” bids continued with evidence and was still going strong in 2015.

13 September 2003: Arsenal 1 Portsmouth 1.  The 5th league match of the unbeaten season.  Arsenal were hampered by a yellow card for Campbell on just 10 minutes and another for Toure on 40.  Henry scored to equalise an earlier goal from Sheringham.

13 September 2006: Tomas Rosicky scored his first goal for Arsenal in Hamburg 1 Arsenal 2 in the Champions League.  Gilberto Silva got the other goal.  Arsenal won the group, losing just one match, to CSKA Moscow away 1-0.

13 September 2008: At 16 years, 8 months, 4 days Jack Wilshere became Arsenal’s youngest player replacing Robin Van Persie on 81 minutes in the game against Blackburn.  Arsenal won 4-0

13 September 2011: Henri Lansbury signed a contract extension with Arsenal.  He had joined in 2007 and from 2009 took a series of loans to Scunthorpe, Watford, Norwich and West Ham before signing for Nottingham Forest in 2012, for whom he played over 100 games.

13 September 2016: Arsenal drew 1-1 with PSG launching a Champions League campaign in which, in the group stages, Arsenal won four and drew (the two against PSG to win the group.  Both sides had a player sent off in the third minute of added time.

Elsewhere on this day

In 1955, after protests about the lyrics of his record “Tutti Frutti” Little Richard recorded a new sanitised version removing references to gay sex.    The revised version became a hit.


 

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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