Last year, Northbank1969 wrote about his and his mates’ journey to see Arsenal play Middlesbrough in the FA Cup in 1977. I believed that one of his party was my brother who I knew had gone to the game. It turned out it wasn’t. Another group of North London lads organised their own trip up north to watch the game. Here is their story as told by Mick Kelly.
The Arsenal pre-season team photo
For this classic match we go back 30 years to a season that saw Arsenal play some scintillating football early doors but lost their way in November. Once again, we have the whole programme for you to read. This has been reproduced with the kind permission of Leicester City FC. There’s also a quiz question at the end of the article to test your knowledge.
Matchday programme
Click to read the whole programme
Having recently tweeted the question: “What did John Barrett do 752 times for Arsenal between 1968 and 1997?”, we thought we’d pay homage to Arsenal’s prolific crossword compiler. Below are John’s first and last puzzles.
13 August 1968 (click to enlarge)
We’re sure that most of you are aware that David O’Leary has played most first team games for Arsenal and that Thierry Henry is the club’s record goalscorer. But what about before them? Which players previously held those records? Read More →
After tweeting that Abou Diaby was celebrating his ninth year at Arsenal on Tuesday 13 January, someone pointed out that he is due a testimonial next year – if he has his contract renewed.
I was also asked if there was a list of Arsenal players that had been granted a testimonial. I wasn’t aware of one so I decided to put one together.
For those that aren’t aware, a testimonial can be granted to a player that has ten years unbroken service at the same club. This is irrespective of any loans, as he is still registered as a player of that club. Testimonials were introduced in the 1950s and, after a slow start, become a regular part of the fixture list during the 1970s and 1980s. The idea was to provide a financial bonus to a player coming to the end of his career. The testimonial. more often than not, involved a number of events throughout the year, the biggest usually being a game against attractive opponents, with the proceeds being handed over to the player. However, some players ended up out of pocket due to their club’s stinginess.
by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews
The Wealdstone Raider may have been talking about the first 40 years of Tottenham’s existence.
Well, not quite an Arsenal badge but an Arsenal Football Supporters’ Club badge.
I’ve recently been buying copies of football’s oldest fanzine – Gunflash. It has been going for more than 65 years having started in September 1949 by the Arsenal Football Supporters Club. The content of these publications is nothing short of fantastic: exclusive photographs, contributions from top journalists of the day, historical articles and a fascinating insight into Arsenal fans of yesteryear. And then there were the odd quirky items.
Gunflash – June 1950
The Cup Final Souvenir Issue of June 1950 edition included a pattern to knit your own Arsenal badge.
For this game, we go back to Arsenal’s pioneering days when they became the first team south of Birmingham to play in the Football League.
Sorry, but we don’t have a programme for this game. As far as we are aware there are none in existence.
We were recently asked if we had a list of Arsenal’s chairmen, directors, secretaries and chief executives since World War 2. The answer is “yes”, and we’ve put together a blog about the men and woman that have run Arsenal over the last 60 odd years.
Our classic match report for the Manchester United programme is the one that kicked off a rivalry that lasted the best part of two decades and would see a number of controversial incidents. Again, we’ve included a copy of the programme, in which you can read about the plans to develop the Clock End.
To read the whole programme, click on the cover