This is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society.
Here are the stories from this day in history…
17 December 1896: John Anderson signed from Crook Town. He made his debut on 1 January 1897 and went on to play 144 league games for Arsenal over seven seasons before moving to Portsmouth in 1903.
17 December 1902: Arsenal 5 Brentford 0; FA Cup supplementary round. Arsenal went out in the next round, but only had two more years of playing in the qualifying rounds before they gained automatic continuous entry to the 1st round proper.
17 December 1904: Arsenal scored five in the 1st division for first time in a game away to Notts C, with the local paper making a special positive mention of the vibrant Arsenal away support
17 December 1944: Jimmy Robertson (the first player to score for each side in north London derbies) was born. Having failed to get into the Middlesbrough team he went to Cowdenbeath and then St Mirren before being purchased by Tottenham in 1964, for £25,000.
17 December 1955, Dennis Evans scored one of the most famous own goals in history when a whistle in the crowd resulted in Evans kicking the ball into his own goal to make the result Arsenal 4 Blackpool 1. It was only Arsenal’s 7th win in 21 games.
17 December 1960: Arsenal 2 Burnley 5. Strong and Herd got the goals. The result meant that in the last four games Arsenal had scored 13 and conceded 13. It also meant Herd had scored seven in five league games.
17 December 1983: Arsenal 3 Watford 1. First match as manager for Don Howe. Raphael Meade got a hat trick – his first goals of the season.
17 December 2008: Following a dispute Lady Bracewell-Smith left the Arsenal board of directors without indicating what would happen to her shares.
17 December 2009: Brian McDermott became first team manager of Reading. He stayed until 2013 and then managed Leeds for one season before returning to Arsenal as chief scout.
17 December 2012: Reading 2 Arsenal 5. Santi Cazorla scored his first hat trick.
The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
Norris at the Arsenal. 1-10 December 1918; allegations of corruption heard in court.
Yesterday’s anniversaries:
Arsenal go 15 matches and get just four wins
Special feature:
Highbury: from start to end with previously unseen pictures of the end of the stadium.
What’s on the Arsenal History Society site
An index to the various series that contain over 1,700 articles on this site concerning the history of Arsenal appears on our home page.
