The Arsenal Anniversary Files
Below 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.
You can find an index to all the anniversary files in the Pages section on the left… just scroll down.
The AISA Arsenal History Society is part of the work of the Arsenal Independent Supporters’ Association. If you want to join AISA contact them at membership@aisa.org
Alternatively you can join their new campaigns list and receive information on AISA’s work and campaigns by emailing campaigns@aisa.org
4 July 1931: Tommy Black joined Arsenal from Strathclyde. He played 16 reserve games in 1932/3 before playing in the notorious defeat to Walsall in the FA Cup. He was transferred to Plymouth Argyle six days after the Walsall game.
4 July 1977: Six weeks after winning the FA Cup with Man U Tommy Docherty admitted his affair with Mary Brown, the wife of the club’s physiotherapist. The club’s directors decided that he had broken their moral code and he was sacked.
4 July 1990: Andy Linighan purchased from Norwich for £1.2m. He had previously
played for Hartlepool, Leeds and Oldham.
4 July 1998: Dennis Bergkamp became the Netherlands top scorer. He went on to score 37 goals in 79 international games – despite not wishing to fly to away matches.
4 July 2002: Start of the Alex Manninger adventure at Espanyol which ended 7 weeks later with the club saying they never had the money to buy him. The fee was £760,000.
4 July 2013: Hector Bellerin signed a new long-term contract. Having transferred
from Barcelona in 2011 as a youth player he had been on loan at Watford during 2013/14 before in September 2014 making his Arsenal debut following a spate of injuries to other defenders. In 2016 and 2017 he was daily reported across all media as moving back to Barcelona. Amazingly it was all lies but not one single journalist ever apologised for getting the story so wrong.
4 July 2014: Hugo Keto joined Arsenal for an undisclosed fee from HJK Helsinki. He has since gone on to be the under 21 keeper for Finland and under 23 keeper for Arsenal.
