On 9 November 1968 Arsenal chose to celebrate their 50th consecutive season at the top tier of the English game. This entailed a Division One match against Newcastle in the afternoon which ended goalless despite George Graham and John Radford being up front, and the club held a banquet for 400 guests at the Park Lane Hotel, Piccadilly that same night.
“The purists would still want the FA Cup final at 3pm on the last Saturday of the season,” – Greg Dyke
Is the 3 o’clock kick-off time a tradition? Was it just a recent invention or does it have deeper roots in the competition? Is it progressive to alter the time of the kick offs, or just an utter waste of energy and another example of the FA bowing before BBC, Sky and BT dictats?
Extant concrete terracing from the Invicta Ground, Plumstead
Arsenal’s home between 1890 and 1893 was the Invicta Ground. It was a monumental location as Royal Arsenal moved there as an amateur team, but within a year the club had turned professional.
Despite the ground being replaced by housing in the late 1890s some of the stadium’s concrete terracing from 1890 still survives in the back gardens of houses in Hector Street.
A couple of years ago we embarked on a trip around Plumstead and this gives more detail to one aspect of the club’s time in Plumstead.
Postcard depicting the Arsenal train steaming past Highbury (image courtesy of Just Another Gooner)
Walking around the Arsenal Museum you may inadvertently miss a small gold medal in a case that holds some of the oldest known surviving memorabilia related to Arsenal Football Club.
The medal is approximately 4cm in diameter, and has the inscription “London Football Association Challenge Cup” along with the London FA’s coat of arms on the front. On the obverse it shows that the medal was won by P. Connolly of RAFC (Royal Arsenal Football Club) in 1890-91, and has a gold hallmark. Read More →
With Arsenal’s forthcoming FA Cup fifth round tie against Sutton United, we thought we’d take a look at how the Gunners have fared against non-league opposition in the past. When we say “non-league” we actually mean non-Football League as, technically, Sutton do play in a league.
We’ve also decided to review games since the end of World War 1 as before the war the Football League only consisted of two divisions, each with 18 teams. If we were to write a blog about all of Arsenal’s non-league FA Cup opponents, we’d be in the realms of a fair sized book!
But we have included a handy table of every tie at the end of this article. Which now includes the Sutton Result, as we await the Lincoln tie. (11/3/17) Read More →
The Arsenal History have just launched a sister website – The Arsenal Collection.
It is an online collection of Arsenal memorabilia including full copies of official and unofficial publications such as programmes and books, along with photographs and other items.
We’ve got a limited amount of content at the moment but will be adding more on a regular basis, so follow via email, twitter, instagram or facebook via the links on the website which is:
If you have the slightest interest in Arsenal’s long and glorious history, you will want to visit this website.
Don’t forget to subscribe to the blog (top right). You know it makes sense.
Or have a look at our other site: The Arsenal Collection for more Arsenal memorabilia.
Copies of our books Royal Arsenal – Champions of the South and Arsenal: The Complete Record 1886-2018 are still available from the publishers.
We rarely veer from the historical but for this blog we will regarding this weekend’s big win.
Now obviously from the title this is not about the football, as it was evident from Saturday’s win that, on the pitch, very little is right about the Wearsiders who showed why they are now favourites for the drop.
It is not about Brexit either, for while the Sunderland landslide “Leave” result at half past midnight showed the way the country was leaning we are a non-political concern.
Instead this is about a far sighted and imaginative scheme at Sunderland which caught our attention, in a sphere both Andy and myself have deep interests:
The Stadium of Light Sensory Room for those on the autistic spectrum.
Arsenal 1 Luton 1
Kenilworth Road, Luton
Pat Jennings
How is it possible? 39 years ago!!!
