Below are the anniversaries of Arsenal for 21 April
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April 1922: Arsenal and Man U fight against relegation. Only one survives.
The current series:
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, our current series of articles is on Henry Norris at the Arsenal. The series is being worked on daily, and the articles thus far are here.
A list of many of our major series (including complete detailed reviews of Arsenal in the 30s and Arsenal in the 70s, and links to the anniversaries throughout the year, is given on the AISA Arsenal History Society home page.
Here are the anniversaries.
21 April 1880: Birth of Charles McGibbon. He was the 7th centre forward of the 1909/10 season and came with no league experience but scored three goals in the last four games of the season to ensure Arsenal continued in the first division.
21 April 1894: Following the end of their first season in the football league Arsenal played five friendly matches, several of which got higher crowds that the League games. On this day it was Arsenal 2 Burnley 0 in front of 4000.
21 April 1908: Hearts 1 Arsenal 3. With the league season having finished the day before with a home game against Sheffield Wednesday, Arsenal immediately boarded a train and started a crazy tour of eight matches in nine days in Scotland.
21 April 1917: James Maxwell died in action against the Turks (fighting with Indian troops/Black Watch in 51 Division) in the Samarrah Offensive. His body was not recovered and no grave is known.
21 April 1917: Arsenal beat the London Combination champions West Ham 2-1, with both director William Hall and Arsenal’s programme writer George Allison in the stand.
21 April 1918: With Sir Henry Norris’ plans not to conscript in Ireland overthrown by the government, Catholic bishops declared the conscription decree in Ireland an oppressive and unjust law, and called on Catholics to resist “by the most effective means at our disposal” and an anti-conscription pledge was taken at the church door on this day
21 April 1930 Leicester City 6 Arsenal 6: the all time record top league score, Four goals for David Halliday, but that wasn’t enough to get him a place in the cup final.
21 April 1930 was also the last first team game for Dan Lewis. Despite being blamed for the 1927 cup final defeat he played over 30 times in each of the next three seasons. Indeed from 12 March to 21 April Arsenal had five wins, five draws and one defeat. And in the midst of this Arsenal got to their second FA Cup final.
21 April 1934: A 3-1 win for Arsenal over Huddersfield left Arsenal four points clear of their prime rivals at the top of the table with a better goal average. It was a defining moment on the way to the second consecutive championship..
21 April 1936: The demolition of the old East Stand at Highbury began. even though Arsenal had two more home games (against Chelsea and Leeds) to play. The new stand was opened on October 24, 1936.
21 April 1959: Arsenal 0 Rangers 3 – part of the continuing run of games between the clubs which was initiated by Herbert Chapman.
21 April 1963: Jock Rutherford died. He had already retired twice from football when he came back for a third and final time in January 1926 under Chapman to become the oldest man ever to play for Arsenal. Over 40,000 turned up for the Chelsea game, despite the building work.
21 April 1964: Don Howe signed from WBA for £42,000 – a record for a full back. He played on until 1967 when he became chief coach moving to caretaker manager in 1983.
21 April 1970: Sammy Nelson made his international debut for N Ireland v England. He played 51 times for the Province, all while with Arsenal except the last four (when he was with Brighton).
21 April 1971: Peter Storey’s international debut for England v Greece. He played 19 times for his country between 1971 and 1973.
21 April 1979: Derby County 2 Arsenal 0. One of nine Arsenal games in 32 days, but despite this high level of activity Arsenal nevertheless went on to win the cup. See also here.
21 April 2001: Arsenal 4 Everton 1, as Arsenal moved to being runners up for the third year running. This was also the start of the longest ever sequence of scoring in home games. It lasted until November 2003.
21 April 2002: Arsenal 2 Ipswich 0. One of the 13 consecutive victories; League match 34 of the 3rd Double season. Ljungberg got both goals. The result left Arsenal one point clear at the top of the league with one game in hand.
21 April 2009: Arshavin scored four in 4-4 draw at Anfield. The crowd was 44,424. If only 20 more had turned up everything would have been four-square. See here for the context
