Arsenal’s Hat-trick Heroes

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Complete List of Arsenal Players to Score Three or More Goals in a Game

Following the Arsenal v Basel Champions League game on 6 December 2016 in which Lucas Perez became the third Arsenal player to score a hat-trick this season, we were asked what is the record for most hat-tricks scored by Arsenal players in a season. And then, what is the record for most number of different players to score a hat-trick in the same season.

Not ones to shirk from very important questions like this we decided to put together a list of all of players to score three or more goals in a competitive match for Arsenal. For the sake of clarity, competitive means Football League, Premier League, FA Cup, Football League Cup, European Cup, Champions League, Cup-winners’ Cup, Fairs Cup and UEFA Cup.

As we all know, football fans love lists so we have two. The first is a season by season breakdown of how many hat-tricks were scored and who the players were, with their individual totals. The second is a list of the top ten players to have scored most hat-tricks. We’ve also included some items of hat-trick trivia. Read More →

Arsenal’s First Game In Europe

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Arsenal’s Great Danes

Staevnet 1 Arsenal 7

Arsenal: McKechnie, Magill, McCullough, Brown, Ure, Groves, MacLeod, Strong, Baker, Eastham, Armstrong.

53 years ago today Arsenal made their first foray in European competition when they played Staevnet, a combined Copenhagen XI, in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup. The Gunners had qualified for the competition, despite having finished seventh in the First Division, by virtue of the fact that teams above them were not eligible as the cities in which they were based did not host an annual trade fair. Possibly the most obscure qualifying criterion for a football competition. Read More →

Arsenal’s 1919 election – Tottenham’s Final Argument Mythbusted

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Who ya gonna call?

Almost a century on, Arsenal’s election back into the First Division in 1919 continues to rankle Tottenham fans. Having shown that the reported events of that year have been the result of idle hands, there was one last tenet that Tottenham fans continued to spout as “the truth.” They have continued to put forth “precedence” as a reason for being wronged. If you don’t believe me you only have to do a simple search.

Deluded sp*rs fan

Deluded sp*rs fan

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Arsenal’s History – Is It True?

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Today we launch a new page on the website:

Is It True?

Over the last few years we’ve discovered that Arsenal’s history isn’t quite how many historians have recorded it. We’ve written a number of blogs explaining what is wrong and how it came about; some stories have been misinterpreted whilst some have been complete fiction!

Henry Norris - not all bad

Henry Norris – not all bad

There are also some stories that don’t appear to be true but actually are, so we’ve given more detail about them.

Now we have started to collate them into one place so that they are easily accessible.

You can access the page via the menu at the top of any page on the website.

There are still more myths that we know of and we will be adding them to the page as we write about them.

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Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog (top right).

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The books…

Arsenal Deliberately Lose to Relegate Tottenham

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Except it’s a load of old cobblers

One of the stories about Arsenal that Tottenham fans like dredge up due to their seemingly perpetual inferiority complex is that the Middlesex club were relegated in 1928 because Arsenal deliberately lost games to ensure this happened.

Even worse is that it gets an airing in some histories written about Arsenal, even the club’s official history!

So, is it true? Of course not.

mythbusters

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Arsenal Chairman Given Lifetime Football Ban

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But not when most people think

Sir Henry Norris. Depending on which team you support, Sir Henry was either Arsenal’s saviour or the scourge of Tottenham. Even to some Arsenal fans he is thought of as a villain. Many of the negative stories about Sir Henry have been shown to have been exaggerated or even fabricated. However, one fact that cannot be ignored is that he was banned from the game for life by the Football Association for a number of financial indiscretions.

Sir Henry Norris

As we at The Arsenal History have discovered over the last few years, there is a major discrepancy in the facts of this story. Read More →

Where Did Stan Kroenke Get His Arsenal Shares From? – Part 2

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by Andy Kelly, Phil Wall and Mark Andrews

Part two of this look at Arsenal ownership examines the time since Stan Kroenke came on the scene.

For part one see here.

Again this is jointly written with Phil Wall whose excellent blog can be viewed here.

2007

It’s well-known that Stan Kroenke was introduced to Arsenal by David Dein, whose thinking was that Kroenke’s money could help Arsenal compete with the newly rich Chelsea, who were benefitting from Roman Abramovich’s billions.  It is understood that Dein brokered the deal between Granada and Kroenke, with the view that Kroenke could take over the club and make cash available to cover Arsenal through the potentially tricky period between building the new stadium and finishing the redevelopment of Highbury and other sites linked to the property deals. Bear in mind that this was still before the financial crisis, and the club expected to easily make eight-figure profits from the property development. Kroenke bought Granada Media’s 6,216 shares (9.99%) and by the end of May 2007 he held 7,584 (12.2%). He’d bought 659 of these from Danny Fiszman, who’d decided to round his holding down to exactly 15,000 shares. It’s believed that Fiszman didn’t realise at the time he was selling to Kroenke and was not pleased about it.

At this stage Kroenke was still not welcomed by the rest of the Arsenal Board, who considered Dein had gone behind their backs. This was one reason for a falling-out between old friends Dein and Fiszman. As a result Dein was dismissed from the Board of directors in April 2007. Read More →

Where Did Stan Kroenke Get His Arsenal Shares From? – Part 1

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by Andy Kelly, Phil Wall and Mark Andrews

Ownership of Arsenal football club is an ongoing story, as disquiet has grown among fans about the direction of the club under Stan Kroenke. Is Kroenke a good or bad owner? Would Alisher Usmanov be better? How did the two of them come to own 97% of Arsenal between them? How did they get involved and where did they get their shares from? We’ll try and explain.

To produce the definitive story we asked Phil Wall if he would collaborate with us. We can highly recommend Phil’s blog which has a number of articles about Kroenke, Usmanov and Arsenal ownership.

kroenke

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