The Anniversary Files
Here are the Arsenal (and occasionally one or two non-Arsenal) anniversaries for today taken from the complete files of over 6000 Arsenal anniversaries which appear on the Arsenal History Society website. An index to the Anniversary files can be found in the left column of this site under “Pages”
The current historical series on this site is Henry Norris at the Arsenal. An index of all our series can be found on the home page.
11 June 1920: The third reading in Parliament of Sir Henry Norris’ anti-gambling legislation. Bookmakers would hand out coupons for punters to complete. At one Liverpool match in 1915 138,500 coupons were handed out and 79,000 were returned with money. With Liverpool players found guilty of match fixing it was felt it was time to act.
11 June 1925: Herbert Chapman became the manager of Arsenal, replacing Leslie Knighton who had been manager since the resumption of football after the first world war. Chapman went on to become the manager who gave Arsenal its first Championships, and its first FA Cup triumph before his untimely death.
11 June 1971: Liam Brady joined Arsenal as apprentice professional from St Kevin’s Boys, aged 15. He turned pro two years later. See also here and then again here
11 June 2002: Despite Vieira and Wiltord playing, World Cup holders France went out of the competition to Denmark in South Korea.
11 June 2009: Arsenal opened an Arsenal shop in Bahrain as part of the deal with Emirates Airlines.
11 June 2012: Sylvain Wiltord retired from football. In 2015, he competed on the reality show Dropped, which puts sportspeople in inhospitable environments. The day after his elimination from the programme, three contestants died in a helicopter collision. Wiltord played 104 league games for Arsenal and 526 league games all told.
The current series: Covering all aspects of 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 articles thus far are here.
“Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football” and “Making the Arsenal” are both available on Kindle. Please see here for more details
