Steve Walford – played for both Tottenham and Arsenal, but where are you now?

Stephen James “Steve” Walford is one of that handful of players who turned out for both Arsenal and Tottenham.   He was born 5 January 1958 in Highgate and started out with Tottenham in 1974 but he only played twice for them before Terry Neill, who of course himself at been at Tottenham, signed him for …

The Arsenal Anniversary Files: what’s happening now.

We’re now in the process of doing major overhauls and checking of the 5000+ entries that make up the Arsenal Anniversary Files. So although some new stories appear each week, much of the work is of the background variety in providing links, checking sources and so on. Quite regularly now whole sections of the Anniversary …

Two players with the shortest of appearances for Arsenal, linked on a single day.

14 October 1997: Jason Crowe who played 3 times for England’s under 20s, came on as a sub for Arsenal in a League Cup match against Birmingham City on 14 October 1997, as did the other subject of this article:  Jehad Abdussalam Muntasser. Both young men had very short Arsenal careers, but both interesting lives in …

Arsenal’s forgotten fourth double

By Tony Attwood Ask any serious Arsenal supporter how many times Arsenal have done the double, and your will almost certainly be told three.  Because we think of The Double as being victory in the FA Cup and the League Championship in the same season. And yes we have won three of those doubles.  But …

Syd Hoar: the player whose transfer helped expose the false history of Arsenal before Chapman

By Tony Attwood The view of Lt Col Sir Henry Norris that many people have had over the years has been thoroughly negative, influenced by the fact that he was guilty of a technical breaking of the financial rules of football at the time. From that story a whole imaginary life story emerged, including one …

Do trophies really matter? Only up to a point.

Arsenal’s season 1992/3 is one that, if remembered at all, is remembered for a unique double achieved by George Graham: the FA Cup and the League Cup. I was there, and I followed the club that season, and of course celebrated the fact that we were the first club to win the cup double. But …

Can it ever get better than this? Arsenal v Tottenham.

16 November 2002: On this most memorable of memorable days Arsenal beat Tottenham 3-0 to go back to top of the league.  Not only that the match included the Premiership Goal of the Season by Henry.  He took the ball from inside his own half, beat most of the Tottenham defence, scored and ran all …

Starting the third Double, but we soon came down to earth.

18 August 2001: Sol Campbell plays his first league game for Arsenal.  Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4.  Henry said after the game, “I saw something today I never saw last season – we played as a team.  It’s the most important thing in football.” Yes, this was the start of the third FA Cup / League …

Do we need a new centre forward?

By Tony Attwood Throughout much of 2013/14, the year in which Arsenal won the FA Cup, there was muttering from those opposed to Wenger, that we needed to score more goals and for this we needed a new centre forward. As the Daily Mirror said in the summer of 2014: After FA Cup success, Arsene …

Arsenal in the Uefa Cup final: 17 May 2000

By Tony Attwood In the 1999/2000 season Arsenal finished third in their Champions League group against  AIK, Barcelona and Fiorentina, and didn’t get through to the knock out stages, but instead dropped into the Uefa Cup – the precursor of the infamous Europa League.  Here are the results: 3rd Round 25 November 1999: Arsenal 3 Nantes 0 9 December 1999: Nantes …

What happened on Henry’s first game for Arsenal?

7 August 1999 Arsenal 2 Leicester City 1: The opening of the 1999/2000 season.   This was Thierry Henry’s first ever game for Arsenal – for having not signed until 3 August 1999 he did not play in any of the pre-season games.  Henry was the sixth and final transfer of the summer – the others …

Beware the pre-season friendly – it tells you nothing.

11 July 2003: Peterborough 1 Arsenal 0 Given that you are reading the Arsenal History Society blog I take it you’ll know what happened in 2003/4 – Arsenal were unbeaten in the league all season. But what about the pre-season friendlies?   They started with a 0-1 defeat to Peterborough followed by a 0-0 with Barnet …

The old boys at the 2014 world cup.

The Gunners through the years Four national teams featuring Arsenal players have made it through to the finals of the World Cup in 2014. Belgium, Costa Rica, France and Germany have all shown tremendous promise this year, while Spain and England each went home in the group stages, despite having Arsenal players on their side. …

Cyril Grant: part of the Arsenal at Gravesend

Cyril Grant was an Arsenal centre forward who was born in Wath, Yorkshire, on 10 July 1920 and played just two games for the club in the disastrous 1946/7 season. But he had a most interesting connection with one of the more unexpected tales we’ve unearthed on Untold. Some reports have Cyril starting his career with …

Stuart Taylor gets a club; but will it be the right one at last?

Leeds United have signed goalkeeper Stuart Taylor on a one-year deal. It was only a week or two back that we covered Stuart and wrote up his life as a goalkeeper of promise who spent most of his time as backup keeper at big clubs.  He played 18 games for Arsenal across eight seasons – …

3 July – Buchan, Eastham, Bergkamp, Pires, Campbell. All on this day.

By Tony Attwood Just look at these events all of which took place on 3 July. The revolution in tactics 3 July 1925: Charles Buchan, the man who helped develop WM, re-signed by Arsenal in £100/goal deal An England goal by the man who challenged the whole “retain and transfer” system 3 July 1966: George Eastham …

Puma take the Arsenal History Society approach

By Tony Attwood Puma have released their first video following their record breaking deal with Arsenal – and rather nicely for us, it focusses on Arsenal’s heritage and history, pulling together some of the stories we have featured on this site over the years. Better still, as Walter Broeckx, my colleague on Untold Arsenal, has …

Alan Sunderland, Flint McCullough, Billy Blyth… and so many more. 1 July anniversaries.

Some days – especially in June – we’ve been down to just a handful of events to commemorate when it comes to Arsenal. But if you noticed, there was a real upturn yesterday, and today we are back to the level of events on one day in history, that we are used to through much …