Back in December we wrote a blog about Mike Dean’s incredible record when refereeing Arsenal games. Since then he’s refereed a couple more games but next Saturday’s game against Manchester United has got Arsenal fans already throwing in the towel.
We’ve taken this as an opportunity to update his stats which you can find on the original blog. Read More →
We’ve been asked a number of times for a list of Arsenal’s captains. The club has Mikel Arteta as the 46th permanent captain. However, we have 60 and the list is not 100% complete. During the season prior to professsionalism and the season after it was embraced by the club the captain was set on a monthly basis so there were as many as six captains in a season! The local press regularly made jokes about being unable to keep up with who was the chosen captain at any given point.
Our list shows the players that we can verify were captain and what season’s they captained the team. There are also notes where the captain changed during the season (1955-56 being particularly dynamic). Read More →
Our classic match for this game is described by many who were there as their most memorable Arsenal game ever. It was certainly a rollercoaster of emotions with Arsenal having been three goals down at one point in the tie (in contrast to yesterday when the team were three goals up!) and facing defeat at the final hurdle for the third season in a row. But…
The programme for that historic night
Click on the cover to read the whole programme
1989 wasn’t the first time Arsenal had played a Friday evening game needing a win to secure the League title. We take you back 36 years before that night at Anfield to an equally tense game at Highbury.
Programme for the game
Click on the cover to read the programme
In what was to become a landmark season for The Arsenal Football Club, they struggled to overcome a dogged Hull City team who were on their way to be being relegated from Division Two (that’s The Championship to our younger readers). We tell the story of a very feisty FA Cup semi-final replay.
Programme cover for the game
Courtesy of Leonard Evans
No doubt many of you will know that in April 1980 Arsenal had a massive fixture pile up caused by progression to the semi-finals of the FA Cup and the Cup-Winners’ Cup which coincided with the traditional Easter football fest. The situation was exacerbated by the FA Cup semi-final taking four games to come to a conclusion. At the start of all this, Arsenal had to play Tottenham on Easter Monday before playing Juventus at home on the Wednesday. Arsenal asked Tottenham if they could move the fixture, Tottenham refused so Arsenal fielded a weakened team and won 2-1.
However, this wasn’t the first time that an understrength Arsenal team had beaten an allegedly strong Tottenham team.
Ingrained within the heritage of The Arsenal is the long standing latin motto “Victoria Concordia Crescit”. Over the years there have been a number of variations of the translation but all are roughly the same: “Victory Grows Through Harmony.”
@JokmanAFC yesterday
But when was this motto first attributed to The Arsenal, and why? Read More →
This season we’ve been asked to write a regular page in the official Arsenal programme based on a classic match featuring the opponents for each game we play in. Programme editor Andy Exley has kindly given us permission to reproduce the match reports on our blog. We will also be including additional material that didn’t make the final edit of the programme. If you can’t get to The Emirates, the programme is available on iPad and iPod for a bargain 69 pence per issue.
For the Champions League qualifier, we were somewhat restricted with our options. Not having played Besiktas in a competitive game before this season we had to choose from one of three friendlies, and we opted for the game in 2003. Read More →
This season we’ve been asked to write a regular page in the official Arsenal programme based on a classic match featuring the opponents for each game we play in. Programme editor Andy Exley has kindly given us permission to reproduce the match reports on our blog. We will also be including additional material that didn’t make the final edit of the programme.
Our first game is the first leg of the semi-final of the Coca-Cola Cup in the year that Arsenal became the first English team to complete the domestic cup double.
