12 men played football and cricket for England. 3 of them played for Arsenal.

This is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day  files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society.  I am sorry the service is intermittent at the moment, as I am in Cyprus rather than England, but I will try and get some days’ anniversaries up while I am absent.

Our headline is taken from this day in 1951

28 November 1895: Sidney Hoar born in Bedfordshire.  He was signed by Leslie Knighton for Arsenal even though Knighton claimed in his autobiography that he was forbidden from signing players at the time and had no funds so to do.

28 November 1925: Arsenal 2 Sunderland 0.  Arsenal 5th consecutive win – a sequence which included 10 goals in those five games for Jimmy Brain who scored 34 goals in 41 games in total in the season.  The sequence also included five goals from Charlie Buchan.

28 November 1927: Alf Baker’s only international appearance. Rather unusually Arsenal did not have to play on this day.  England lost 1-2 to Wales at Burnley.  England ended the home championship bottom of the table with no points, while Wales came top, winning two and drawing the third game.

28 November 1931: Arsenal 6 Liverpool 0 – Division 1.   Jack 2 Lambert 3 Hulme 1. It was the start of a four match unbeaten run in which Arsenal scored 14 goals.

28 November 1934: Another rare outing for Norman Sidey in Arsenal 4 Manchester City 0 played at Highbury in front of 10,888.  Arsenal won the Charity Shield for the second year running

28 November 1937: Racing Club de Paris 0 Arsenal 2

28 November 1951: Arthur Milton’s only international appearance at football.  He played six test matches for England at cricket.  Only 12 men played for England at both cricket and football (excluding wartime games).  Three of them Andy Ducat, Wally Hardinge, Arthur Milton, were Arsenal men.

28 November 1956: John Barnwell became a professional with Arsenal.  After playing as an amateur for Bishop Auckland he moved to Arsenal in 1955 turned pro in 1956 and started playing for the first team in the match against Sunderland on 13 April 1957.

28 November 1962: Arsenal 12 Ford United 0 in FA Youth Cup.  Ford United were an early incarnation of the club now known as Redbridge FC.  Ford played in the Aetolian League which they won twice, but by 1995 the club was in serious financial difficulty, until Sky Sports was signed up as a sponsor thus rescuing the club.  

28 November 1964: Last game for John Snedden.  He joined Charlton Athletic for £150,000 in March 1965 and towards the end of his career went to South Africa.

28 November 1970: Arsenal 2 Liverpool 0.  League match 19 of the first Double season.  Graham and Radford scored.

28 November 1990: Arsenal 2 Man U 6 in the League Cup.  It was an extraordinary game.  Arsenal were unbeaten in the league, second in the table and 12 points ahead of Man U in 7th.  Man U had only won two of their last six in the league, but as Man U took the league, Arsenal seemed to say, “we’ll give you that; we’ll have the league”.

28 November 1999: Henry scored two goals in one game for the first time in a match that ended Arsenal 2 Derby 1.  It meant Arsenal had won all three of their November league games and were unbeaten in six.

28 November 2012: The month ended with 1-1 draw to Everton making it 3 draws 1 win and 1 defeat in the month.


The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal

Arsenal in the summer of 1918. The new league planned as the end of the war approaches.

Special feature:

Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.


 

A full index of the various series of articles on this site appears on the home page.

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