The latest post from our series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal
1919: The first Christmas for the new expanded league
Below is our daily review of Arsenal anniversaries taken from the Arsenal day by day files prepared by the AISA Arsenal History Society. We expect to add 1000 new anniversaries to our files this year.
30 January 1893: Royal Arsenal 3 Sherwood Foresters 0. It was part of a three-win run but at the start and end of the run Arsenal lost games to university teams.
30 January 1897: Woolwich Arsenal 7 Ilkeston Town 0. Despite a full league programme in their first season in the league Arsenal continued to played friendlies against weak opposition in order to help the finances.
30 January 1899: Woolwich Arsenal 2 Millwall 4. Although crowds sometimes reached 14,000 only 1,500 turned up for this local derby between the teams either side of the Thames, as it was played on a Monday afternoon and Arsenal had just lost 0-6 at home to Derby.
30 January 1904: Man U 1 Arsenal 0. Arsenal played in front of 40,000 for the first time. The game was played at the Bank Street ground (now the car park of the Manchester Velodrome). In Arsenal’s previous league match against Burton, the crowd had been 2,000.
30 January 1915: Arsenal played their last FA Cup match for five years in a second round tie that ended Chelsea 1 Arsenal 0. The crowd was 38,000
30 January 1932: Raymond Parkin scored a hat-trick in a 4–0 victory over Manchester City. He only played 25 games for Arsenal’s first team but won the Combination (reserve) league five times. See also here.
30 January 1935: Arsenal beat WBA away 3-0, to make it five wins in five games, and a run (including the FA Cup) of four successive away wins, in a season in which prior to this point their away form had been modest to say the least.
30 January 1937: Arsenal 5 Man U 0, FA Cup 4th round. In the first three games in the competition this season Arsenal scored 17 goals letting in one, before going out to WBA. (Bastin, Davidson, Drake, Kirsten and an OG)
30 January 1946: FA Cup games were played over two legs this season and when Blackpool and Middlesbrough were still tied after the second match on this day the match was played once more until there was an outcome. That game lasted 151 minutes.
30 January 1954: Following a 1-4 home defeat to Sunderland in the league Arsenal lost 1-2 at home to Norwich City of the Third Division South in front of 55,767. Logie got Arsenal’s goal. It was the only time Arsenal lost an FA Cup tie at Highbury to a team outside the top 2 divisions. Alex Forbes of Arsenal and Bobby Brennan of Norwich City were both sent off early in the match – the first double sending off involving Arsenal since September 1922 (against Tottenham Hotspur).
30 January 1963: Arsenal 5 Oxford Utd 1 (FA Cup – Baker (2) Strong (2) and McLeod got the goals). The only game Arsenal played between Dec 15 and Feb 9 due to bad weather.
30 January 1965. Arsenal lost away to Peterborough 1-2 in cup and started a downward spiral which 18 months later led to the dismissal of Billy Wright as manager. Radford scored the goal.
30 January 1971: The 26th game of the first Double season: Liverpool 2 Arsenal 0, making it one win in four. The defeat left Arsenal five points behind Leeds who headed the table. See also here.
30 January 1974: Brendon Batson transferred to Cambridge United after making just 10 appearances across three seasons for Arsenal.
30 January 1974: Aston Villa knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup 2-0. Having been sent off on the Saturday for a dreadful foul on Bob Wilson Sammy Morgan was back in the team and taunting Wilson again from the off. The home crowd jeered Wilson and chanted “cheat” every time the ball came within 10 yards of the keeper.
30 January 1984 Tony Adams signed his first professional contract. He went on to become captain and control the defence of Arsenal into the Arsène Wenger era. In all he started 464 league games for Arsenal See also here
30 January 1987: Tommy Caton sold to Oxford Utd for £180,000. Highly talented but one of the wild bunch; he died aged 31.
30 January 1998: Jehad Muntasser granted a free transfer to Bristol City. He made one brief appearance but went on to play for numerous clubs as well as doing a huge amount of charity work with Friends of Libya’s Children.
30 January 2007: Alex Song loaned to Charlton. He later established himself in the team before moving to Barcelona and then West Ham.
30 January 2008: The Court of Arbitration in Sport laid down the Webster ruling that stated that all players can leave their club after three years, irrespective of what the contract says. Although rarely understood in the media, it became a major part of negotiations between clubs and players in the third year of a contract.
30 January 2014: Benik Afobe loaned to Sheffield W. An England international at various youth levels he went on a series of loans including a particularly powerful run at MK Dons before going to Wolverhampton and then Bournemouth.
30 January 2014: Having not been heard of much in England for a number of years Oleg Luzhny was suddenly quoted in the Daily Mirror in a report headlined “Liverpool target Yevhen Konoplyanka is a ”headless chicken” not suited to English football,”
Yesterday’s anniversaries:
Arsenal: when the team was selected by committee; going top and an upset Jens.
What’s on the Arsenal History Society site
An index to the various series that contain over 1,800 articles on this site concerning the history of Arsenal appears on our home page. Our current series is “Henry Norris at the Arsenal”
