By Nigel Tremlett

My father took me to my first game at the age of seven and I can remember it so well: a 3-1 defeat to Luton Town in March 1957.

Our goal was scored by Derek Tapscott, who drilled it in from the edge of the area, but I cried all the [...]]]>

By Nigel Tremlett

My father took me to my first game at the age of seven and I can remember it so well: a 3-1 defeat to Luton Town in March 1957.

Our goal was scored by Derek Tapscott, who drilled it in from the edge of the area, but I cried all the way home because we lost.

However, the set-back did not put me off and my dad took me regularly to all the home and local away games, but then, in 1963, Arsenal were drawn away to West Bromwich Albion in the FA Cup and I just had to go – and so told my parents the news! How things have changed over the years, as my mother actually went and bought me a train ticket and was happy to see her 14-year-old son go off to Birmingham, totally on his own. Can you imagine that happening nowadays?

I arrived at St Pancras station and was amazed that I was not alone. There were thousands of Gooners (although in those days the name didn’t exist!) and any nerves I had were soon gone.

I settled into a seat with magazines and papers and couldn’t wait for the match, but then it dawned on me. I had no idea where to get off or, more importantly, where in Birmingham West Brom actually was! After what seemed an eternity, we stopped at a station where most, but not all, Arsenal fans got off.

So I did the same and found myself walking behind a group of fans all the way to the ground. As it was not an all-ticket match you could stand anywhere you wanted, but I was worried about where I should go. But then, once inside, from the corner flag to the halfway line it was packed with Arsenal fans. And I thought I would be one of only a few there!

Although it was not a great era for Arsenal, our team tore into West Brom and we were 3-1 up at the break – I was really enjoying myself. In the second half my hero of the time, Vic Groves, got concussed, but in those days there were no subs, so he just played on. West Brom then got a second, then a third, and with their crowd going mad, Arsenal were really hanging on. I remember for the first time supporting Arsenal being totally scared that the other team were going to score the winner.

Somehow we hung on for a replay at Highbury and, as we left the ground, I was so relieved. An announcement came over that the station for Arsenal fans had changed.

I had no idea where that was and now was really worried. I asked a group of lads a few years older than me if they knew where to go and they took me under their wing and got me to the station just in time for the last train back – we had a carriage to ourselves and the trip back was wonderful. My new-found friends were so funny that I laughed all the way back to London.

My parents, who met me at the station, seemed very relieved to see me and I couldn’t wait to tell them about my big adventure, which was the start of me going to all the away games with my new gang of friends. Nowadays, though, it’s home games only for me, although my father, who has been going since 1927 and is now 90, still comes with me.

Nigel Tremlett

This is just one of dozens of nostalgic and evocative Arsenal fans’ stories from over the years that are featured in the excellent Arsenal Til I Die book. The #10 book is available in the Arsenal Club Shops or online now from www.tilidie.co.uk/buy.html

This season the official Arsenal programme will include a column called “Arsenal Uncovered”.

Now as you may know, I edit a blog called Untold Arsenal, as well as this history blog, and the fact that “Uncovered” is going to include quite a few history incidents, and that prefix “Un” appears in both [...]]]> by Tony Attwood

This season the official Arsenal programme will include a column called “Arsenal Uncovered”.

Now as you may know, I edit a blog called Untold Arsenal, as well as this history blog, and the fact that “Uncovered” is going to include quite a few history incidents, and that prefix “Un” appears in both you might start to assume that I have a column in the club programme this year.

And well, not to put too fine a point on it, I do.

The articles are not appearing in any specific historic order – the idea is that they will jump around from one time and one theme to another.   So in each programme you won’t know what you are going to get.

In fact I won’t either because I am writing the articles a little way in advance, so the programme editor can choose which piece goes with which game.

I can say that I have been writing a bit about Arsenal during the second world war, the rarely covered facts surrounding our greatest victory and greatest defeat, how Herbert Chapman reacted to failure, and the time when all the first team were given drugs.

Just everyday things in the history of the club.

I do hope that if you go to the ground for a match you will pick up a programme – and if you do, perhaps you would like to let me know

a) anything I have got wrong

b) any particular subject that you think would make a good story for the series.

At this moment I don’t know for sure if the very first programme for the Emirates Cup will include the first of the series, since Emirates Cup programmes tend to be a little different from the regular games.   Indeed since I can’t make it to the Ems Cup this year I won’t be able to check myself – do let me know if you see one!

I hope you enjoy the series.

Tony

Tony Adams latest: he’d like to manage Arsenal

Arsenal History: The Index

Arsenal History: the book of 1910

Untold Arsenal

Saturday September 10th, 1910. One hundred years ago.

The crowd was 14,000 and the goalless draw left Arsenal with two draws and a defeat from the first three games, having scored 2 goals and let in three. At least having already lost three key players in the first two games there were [...]]]> By Tony Attwood

Saturday September 10th, 1910.  One hundred years ago.

The crowd was 14,000 and the goalless draw left Arsenal with two draws and a defeat from the first three games, having scored 2 goals and let in three.  At least having already lost three key players in the first two games there were no more injuries and it looked as if the same team could turn out for the next match away at Aston Villa in a week’s time.

After three games Arsenal were 12th out of 20, and just one point above the bottom placed club.   Aston Villa were 15th but had only played two games.  Top of the league was Sunderland, the only team with a 100% record.  Bottom of the league was Preston North End.

On the day before this game Henry Norris wrote a piece in the West London (the local daily) saying that he would be at as many Fulham games as he could, and would be doing everything possible to get them into the First Division.  There was not a single word in his report about Arsenal, which he now owned.

The whole story of 1910 is told from the point of view of a Fleet Street journalist of the time in Making the Arsenal.  It is available here and available on Amazon.co.uk

The current news about Arsenal is on Untold Arsenal

Meanwhile Henry Norris had gone cool on the issue of Woolwich Arsenal, and predicted [...]]]> Arsenal had no game this weekend because they had been knocked out of the cup.  The match they should have played was moved to the monday (no hanging about for re-arranged fixture organisation or permission from the police 100 years back).

Meanwhile Henry Norris had gone cool on the issue of Woolwich Arsenal, and predicted in the West London and Fulham Times that the club was about to go into liquidation.

Which is ironic, since I spend so much time 100 years on suggesting that half of the Premierships is about to go down the same river.

Certainly Woolwich Arsenal were bust, their crowds were down, the torpedo factory (where many of their supporters worked) was being moved to the Clyde, and they were out of the FA Cup.  It didn’t look good.

With no news on the football front for the day, 100 years ago, I could end this column at this point, but there was another interesting development at this time.

MI5 was founded.

It wasn’t MI5 then, and it didn’t look like MI5 and Spooks, but it was MI5 all the same.

The government had realised that since there was likely to be a war with Germany, and since the Kingdom had done so badly in South Africa, some new methods were needed.  There was a feeling that Germany had spies everywhere and knew everything that Britain was planning.  But we had no intelligence network – and so clearly were on the back foot.

What the British government did not know in 1910 was that Germany really thought the same – only in reverse.  They believed that Britain had a spy network in Europe, and knew all that was going on, but that they, the Germans, had nothing to rival the network.

So the government talked to the War Office and the Admiralty about setting the matter to rights.  Two men were nominated to work on the project, but in that very British way, the two men didn’t get on.  One went back to the Admiralty and eventually founded MI6, and the other stayed in the War Office.

That man was Captain Kell who single handedly set up MI5.

The story of what happened next, and how the newly formed secret service drew on the experiences in the Boer War in South Africa, is part of the “Making the Arsenal” book – the novel which describes 1910.   There are more details on www.woolwicharsenal.co.uk

More from the Arsenal in 1910 shortly….

——————————————–

ARSENAL IN THE PAST…

• The days when football journalists could write, entertain and make us laugh (a true newspaper report about Arsenal in the 1930s)
• Why did Arsenal move to Highbury and not somewhere else
• Chelsea get into the league - the biggest fix in Football League history
• How Arsenal got into the 1st Division in 1919, and why it wasn’t a fix

• “Making the Arsenal” – the novel.  The most extraordinary book about Arsenal ever.  And that’s unofficial.  Available from Amazon.co.uk and from the publishers direct.

Football needs fixing: Recent stories from Untold Arsenal

• Football needs Fixing: an open letter to the FA
• Complete review of EPL clubs’ debts, and why it is getting worse.
• EPL owes more money than rest of Europe put together
• You don’t know what you’re doing
• Financial stability or ambition.  Which do you want?
• Arsenal’s own liquidation, and their rise from the grave

Woolwich Arsenal met with Blackburn Rovers in the Football League Division I on Saturday, It was too cold for standing on the terraces, with a fierce wind blowing across the pitch so [...]]]> First, Jacko Jones’ review of Arsenal against Blackburn 100 years ago where the writer states that he watched from a hot air balloon….

Woolwich Arsenal met with Blackburn Rovers in the Football League Division I on Saturday,    It was too cold for standing on the terraces, with a fierce wind blowing across the pitch so the majority of the fans gathered in a hot air balloon hovering just over the centre circle.

Both teams were weak in shooting throughout the game and although it appeared nothing could be worse than the opening session after the turnabout it was so awful I lost consciousness and had to be revived by our trusty photographer.

It then got worse again.  Before getting worse.  And I had to be revived by two charming nurses who happened to be on hand.

Then a little while latter it got worse.

Towards the end of the game one of the Blackburn men scored, but by then most of the crowd had departed.  However those who remained were so outraged and so cold that they jumped down from their flying machine, invaded the playing field and attacked the referee, who walked off the field, returning only after five minutes when order had been restored.

Hot punch and rum were not served, so the death toll among the hardcore fans is likely to be high.

If it is true that there are German spies on every street corner, the simplest way to defeat their dastardly plans is to force them to watch the next game at Woolwich Arsenal.  Their pleas for mercy will be heard across the North Sea, and the German fleet will arrive, not to invade, but to take its advance guard home.

——

In his diary Jacko then adds…

I persuaded Edward to take a picture of the empty ground after everyone had gone, and gave it the caption, “one of the highlights of Saturday’s game”, but just in case Mr Holloway [the sports editor at the Chronikcle] had not suddenly discovered the notion of humour I also included the picture of the on-pitch riot.

——-

This piece is taken from “Making the Arsenal” by Tony Attwood.   For more details on the book please click here.

And now on to the question…

What time of day did Arsenal’s first ever football match kick off.   This is not a quiz in the sense that I know the answer, but I’ve had the issue put to me, and I don’t know the answer.  So if you have a clue, do write in.

OTHER ODDS AND THINGS…

Why did we move to Highbury and not somewhere else

From Manchester United to Mansfield – different ways of running a football club (or league)

Daily Rumours. All the greatest rumours about Arsenal, before they appear anywhere else, appear at the end of all articles on Untold Arsenal

Would you like to write for Untold Arsenal or the Making the Arsenal web site?  If so send your story or an idea for a story to Tony@hamilton-house.com   Please send the text as a word file – not within the email.

However I have a real feeling that very few people actually realised just how desperate things were that weekend – and indeed if one didn’t go to either of the meetings on [...]]]> On 22 January 1910 Arsenal won a league match (a rarity in itself in a rotten season), but events elsewhere overshadowed the win.

However I have a real feeling that very few people actually realised just how desperate things were that weekend – and indeed if one didn’t go to either of the meetings on the day, one would have lived in ignorance save for a small article that appeared in the Chronicle on 24th January.

The first meeting, before the game, was for shareholders, and revealed the fact that the club was about to go bust.  The second meeting, after the game, was open to everyone, and aimed to set up a Fund Raising Committee to try and save the club.  You can read an extract from Jacko Jones’ diary for the day on the Making the Arsenal web site to see what the meetings (and indeed the game in between) were like.

The first real twist in the affair, however, did not occur until that monday, following the appearance of the report.  On Monday, 24th January,  Henry Norris used the new fangled communication device – the telephone – to call the Daily Chornicle and ask to talk to the journalist who had written up the details of the two meetings the previous saturday.  And that was the start of the grand adventure that leads inevitably to Highbury.

In his diary Jones recalls how he had had a particularly heavy night, on Sunday (there were no licensing laws in 1910 and pubs were open whenever and however they wanted to be), and he was not in any fit state to meet with a man of the eminence of Norris – the owner of second division Fulham FC.

In fact Norris didn’t have that much to tell Jones – save the fact that he was concerned about the demise of London’s senior club (meaning, the first professional club in the south).

It was clear that what Norris wanted was to try and get further information out of Jones, but in this he failed, for even in his hungover state, Jacko was unlikely to give away information that could make a good article.

Norris did however reveal how bitter he was about Chelsea – the club that in 1905 had entered the football league without having ever played a game.  Indeed they had not even got a team.  At that moment Chelsea literally had no history.  All they had was a very hastily built ground, which as Jacko notes later in his diary, was already crumbling badly.

But it was enough of a ground to cause problems to Fulham, because it soaked away support from the neighbouring team – and of course 100 years ago money through the gate was the only income the clubs had.

But Norris’ interest in Woolwich Arsenal was there, right from the first moment that it was clear that Arsenal was in trouble – and he kept up that interest for the rest of his life in football.

You can read more about the book, Making the Arsenal, by clicking here.  You can also order it direct from the publisher, or via Amazon.co.uk `

Tony Attwood 2010.

For details of Arsenal’s world today, please visit UNTOLD ARSENAL

Today’s topic: the towel.

In the summer of 1967, Wolverhampton W. played in the United Soccer Association - a league of 12 clubs in Canada and the USA.

Each club was a club from elsewhere in the world, rebranded with [...]]]> Here’s a story related to today’s game of Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wanderers which you might not believe straight off…

In the summer of 1967, Wolverhampton W. played in the United Soccer Association - a league of 12 clubs in Canada and the USA.

Each club was a club from elsewhere in the world, rebranded with a new name, aiming to get a bit of publicity of “soccer”.  They had a name that mixed the locality with the club.  Wolverhampton Wanderers transmuted themselves into the Lost Angeles Wolves and actually won the league, beating Washtington Whips (that’s Aberdeen FC to you and me) in the play off final.

I mention that because we are playing Wolverhampton today, but also because it is just plain weird.  Weirder than game 39 in fact.

Which makes me think – isn’t it odd that no one mentioned this when game 39 was being debated?

When I started planning MAKING THE ARSENAL (my new book of which I have already bored you to death) I planned it as a straight history book – the story of Arsenal in 1910 – the club going bust, the buying of Arsenal by Fulham, and the attempt to merge the two clubs.

But the more I wrote the more weird it all became.  What was Norris doing trying to merge the clubs?  He already owned two clubs (Fulham in Division II and Croydon Common, who were in the Southern League) – why did he want a third.

And there were hints, just hints nothing more, that Tottenham were trying to buy shares in Arsenal, and that the Woolwich Arsenal armaments factory was actually the centre of a spy scandal.  The newly formed MI5 (known then as MO5) was involved in investigating the situation but made a total balls up of the job.  Even Winston Churchill (the Home Secretary) was involved.

The trouble with carrying on writing the book as a straight book of history was

a) Too much information is missing - there are tantalizing hints which can’t be resolved

b) Much of this is utterly unbelievable. Winston Churchill getting involved in Woolwich Arsenal?  No, I didn’t believe it either.

Yes I know, it seems utterly unlikely.   But then, so does Wolverhampton W trotting off to the USA, being renamed and playing a summer season in an American League.

So I turned it into a novel – the story of Arsenal in 1910 as seen through the eyes of a journalist covering the events.   There’s details on the MAKING THE ARSENAL page.

Meanwhile what of Wolverhampton? 100 years ago we didn’t play them.  They had won the FA Cup in 1908, while in the second division, but failed to make it up to the first, and eventually slipped into the Third Division North.  Woolwich Arsenal were in the first – although bottom of the league.

In fact after some ups and down Wolverhampton declined to the Fourth Division by the 1980s, bankrupt and with half the ground condemned as unsafe for human habitation (or some such).    One of the last games I saw with my father (who was totally responsible for my love of Arsenal and my devotion to football) was Torquay United vs Wolverhampton in the fourth division – my parents having retired to Torquay.  Torquay have been my “second team” ever since.

So, back to where I started, is it real or made up? Actually I don’t think you could make some of this up.   Wolverhampton winning the American league, and ultimately falling into the 4th division.   MI5 getting involved in a possible attempt to overthrow the whole state, based around the events at Woolwich Arsenal?

But yes, it’s fact.  Wolverhampton doesn’t figure in MAKING THE ARSENAL but the MI5/Winston Churchill bit does.   Hope you enjoy it

You can order Making the Arsenal direct from the publishers at www.emiratesstadium.info

(c) Tony Attwood 2009