Arsenal buy Highbury, Rioch becomes manager

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.


 

15 June 1899: George Leavey elected chair of Woolwich Arsenal.  Although his business appeared to be a modest gentleman’s outfitters in Plumstead he contrived to be a major source of revenue for the club during its early days.  

15 June 1910: Woolwich Arsenal factories started to lay off men due to a long-term downturn in work following the end of the Boer War – spelling catastrophe for Woolwich Arsenal FC which depended on a vibrant workforce to boost its attendance figures.

15 June 1912: Andy Ducat sold confirming the club’s policy of selling off its best players in order to try and balance the books.  The policy led directly to relegation the following season with the worst Arsenal record of all time.

15 June 1919: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight.  (They took off on 14 June).

15 June 1925: Arsenal announced that the club had bought the Highbury stadium, and some additional land around it, and that the lease of the site had ended.  Sir Henry Norris’ huge gamble in taking the ground on a full-repairing lease had paid off.

15 June 1929: England played a tour of Australia, which included Tom Whittaker and Joey Williams. Joey played 22 games for Arsenal but only two on this tour, despite travelling across the world by sea.

15 June 1935: Arsenal signed Jackie Milne for a fee reputed to have been £5000.  He played 49 league games and scored 19 goals.

15 June 1935: Ray Swallow born.  Aside from playing 13 times for Arsenal he also played 38 first class cricket matches for Derbyshire.    

15 June 1974: Trevor Ross signed as a professional.  He played 58 times for Arsenal before moving on to Everton.  He later became a non-league manager before becoming an HGV driver.

15 June 1995: Bruce Rioch became Arsenal manager and simultaneously Stewart Houston resigned from his post as temporary manager.  Rioch lasted just one season and managed a European slot on the final day of the season, before being sacked.

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