Remember 31 August 2011: five transfers in one day

by Miles Rackham Deadline day 2011. Arsenal fans eyes still wet from the departure of our beloved captain Fabregas, while being furious about the controversial departure of Nasri, whom was dubbed ‘$amir N€$ri’ (rightly as well). Then a moment of madness, well a day of madness, from Mr Wenger, 5 signings. Per Mertesacker, Andre Santos and …

The signings of Chapman: Bill Seddon

By Tony Attwood This article on Bill Seddon is one of a series looking at the players that Herbert Chapman bought year by year as he took Arsenal from relegation material to FA Cup winners and League Champions. William Charles Seddon was born on 28 July 1901 was born in Clapton, and after playing junior …

Joseph Hulme: Chapman’s brilliance with wingers

by Tony Attwood Joe Hulme was born in Stafford and started his football career with York City, before joining Blackburn in 1924 for £250. Herbert Chapman bought him to Arsenal in 1926.  and he spent 12 years at Highbury, thus sharing in all the great moments of the Chapman and post-Chapman era. When Joe made …

Bill Harper, an Arsenal man in the USA

By Tony Attwood This article is part of a growing series about the men that Herbert Chapman brought to Arsenal, or in a couple of cases, inherited from his predecessor, and who went on to take Arsenal to greatness in the 1930s. This piece is about Bill Harper, but to give an overall context here …

Tom Parker: 172 consecutive matches for Arsenal, and the first Arsenal man to lift the Cup.

By Tony Attwood Tom Parker was born in a suburb of Southampton, and he joined his local club playing his first season in the war leagues that carried on until 1919, then one season with the Saints in the Southern League.   In this third season (1920/21) Southampton moved into the Football League for the newly …

Arsenal win the league for the very first time

————- Our Woolwich Arsenal book nominated for an award —————- In his early years Herbert Chapman was a far better manager than his predecessor at Arsenal, taking Arsenal to their first major trophy in 1930 and their first league championship in 1931.  But, although as the chart below shows he was much more successful than …

Numbered shirts were introduced by Chapman; or were they?

By Tony Attwood On 25 August 1928 or put it another way, 84 years ago to the day, Arsenal lost 2-3 to Sheffield Wednesday in a match that is still regularly quoted in football history – for Arsenal came out wearing numbered shirts for the first time. In the mythology of Arsenal, it is often …

Arsenal History Quiz – answers (part 4)

by Andy Kelly And here we are, the final set of answers to the quiz. Thank you to all of you that entered. The two deserving winners are Jamie H and Sampat Prabhudesai who got 16 and 14 questions correct respectively. 16. Arsenal’s longest serving captain is Tony Adams between 1988 and 2003. Which Arsenal player was/is the second longest …

Arsenal History Quiz – answers (part 3)

by Andy Kelly We’re nearly there. Today we have the answers to questions 11 to 15: 11. Which player won a league title medal even though he wasn’t an Arsenal player at the start or end of that season? George Hunt who joined Arsenal from Tottenham on 1 October 1937, played 18 games and then left for Bolton …

Arsenal History Quiz – answers (part 2)

by Andy Kelly Following on from yesterday’s answers, today we have the answers to questions 6 to 10: 6. Which famous referee and football administrator was president of Arsenal during the 1980s? Sir Stanley Rous. 7. Who was the first player to play 100 league games for Woolwich Arsenal? Gavin Crawford on 3rd Aprl 1897. 8. Of …

Arsenal History Quiz – answers

by Andy Kelly The winners of the quiz where the prizes were two copies of Woolwich Arsenal: the club that changed football will be announced shortly. We’re going to give the answers over the next four days, with five answers each day. So, here we go with answers to questions 1 to 5: Who captained Arsenal …

The day when Woolwich Arsenal as a north London club actually began

By Tony Attwood The notion of a regular set of pre-season friendlies (and indeed the notion of the overseas tour) is quite recent – although occasional examples of such games can be found back in the early days of Arsenal. Back in 1913 the concept of playing lots of friends each season (see below) had …

Arsenal should have participated in the World Cup

By Tony Attwood The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was a competition that Woolwich Arsenal should have been in.  But by mistake they were not invited – which is sad because the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was in fact the original World Cup competition. Sir Thomas had the idea for an international club competition and in …

Light Hearts and Unbounded Optimism. Arsenal enter Highbury in 1913

Ordinary is Pointless The Great History of Arsenal Competition: There’s the first of our clues in today’s article ——————–   More from the very first programme issued at Highbury ——————- “We are making our making our re-entry into the second division of the Football League with light hearts and unbounded optimism.” What a way to …

16 August 1925 Arsenal buy Highbury

 Ordinary is Pointless By Tony Attwood Today is the anniversary of the day on which Arsenal FC finally bought Highbury for £64,000 – which was about one tenth of the cost of some of the more interesting apartments in the redeveloped Highbury when the land was redeveloped following the opening of the Emirates Stadium. I’ve …

Alex James: great player and fantastic (but forgotten) captain

—————— Hint: This article contains help in answering the Great Arsenal Competition in which you can win a copy of Woolwich Arsenal the club that changed football – or one of our other books. —————— By Andy Kelly Some players are great.  Some – a few – are beyond greatness.  We may think in the …

Rémi Garde (now manager of Lyon) signs for Arsenal – 14 August

———————————- Ordinary is Pointless ———————————-   14 August is the anniversary of the signing of Rémi Garde by Arsenal.  But you will not find it noted much since it is also the day we signed a certain Patrick Vieira. Curiously although the two were utterly different players and at different stages in their careers, but …

A season ticket at Highbury in 1913: £1.05p. Bring your own lady and get a discount.

By Tony Attwood Anyone picking up the very first programme issued by Arsenal at Highbury, and reading it through from cover to cover might well have felt that the club was going overboard a bit with the money raising activity through trying to sell shares.  There were adverts on virtually every page for £1 shares …

After one 4-0 victory let’s remember another similar scoreline on this day

By Tony Attwood Arsenal 4 Tottenham 0, 13 August 1988. The Makita tournament was a summer tournament in London, which Arsenal organized initially as the Wembley International Tournament in August 1988.  Of course was the era of the first division so we didn’t have Premier League Betting, but after what happened I was sorely tempted …

Exploding the myth that Knighton could spend no money, and Chapman could spend anything.

Ordinary is Pointless by Tony Attwood The story of Arsenal’s post-first-world-war era is that Sir Henry Norris refused to allow Leslie Knighton to buy players, but allowed Chapman to buy anyone he wanted.  That at least is how it is generally reported – not least because a lot of Knighton’s autobiography (the only real source …

The Ref Review from the past. Man U 2 Arsenal 0; the unbeaten run is over

By Walter Broeckx As you may know, Untold Arsenal reviews the performances of referees.  On many occasions people have said that they would have loved to having us around in the past so that we could have commented on key matches that Arsenal seemed to lose due to strange referee decisions. And in particular they …

The Battle of London: how it felt to be an Arsenal fan in days gone by

By Tony Attwood Towards the end of last season I wrote an article with the snappy title, “When was the last time Tottenham finished above Arsenal?”  You may realise why I was moved to write that piece was created at that moment. As it turned out, once again Arsenal finished above Tottenham.  In fact as …

9th August 1997: Overmars, Petit, Grimandi start first game v. Leeds managed by Graham.

By Tony Attwood 9th August 1997:  Overmars, Petit and Grimandi all start their first game for Arsenal.  And of all people to play: Leeds United managed by G Graham Esq.  At Elland Road. Did we know these men: Overmars, Petit and Grimandi?  No – well at least I didn’t.  Did we know that Petit / …

Behold! The programme for the first ever game at Highbury 99 years ago.

———————– Ordinary is Pointless ———————————- By Tony Attwood If you are a regular reader you will know that this site is taking a long run up towards the 100th anniversary of the move of Woolwich Arsenal FC from Plumstead to the ground that we eventually got to know as “Highbury”. The reason for this is …

The Great History of Arsenal competition – with prizes

By Tony Attwood We have got a couple of copies of Woolwich Arsenal, the club that changed football to give away.   And in case you already have a copy, we’ve got some alternative prizes too. To win, all you have to do is to enter Andy Kelly’s fiendish Arsenal History Quiz.  Better still, you don’t …