Woolwich Arsenal Subbuteo team
156: John ‘Tim’ Coleman (Military Medal)
Tim Coleman being painted
Kit season: 1906/07
Position: inside forward.
The Woolwich Arsenal Subbuteo side
H. MacDonald
J. Murrell J. Shaw
P. Sands (Capt) C. Jenkyns S. Theobald
J. Mordue T. Coleman C. Satterthwaite A. Ducat G. Crawford
For the past few years the famous and influential Arsenal Merchandiser @Shewore offers the first 50 lucky subscribers to one of his many tweets the chance to have a handmade “my favourite Arsenal Subbuteo team” produced by a craftsman. This year I was lucky enough to be within the first 50, but had other ideas. Rather than struggle to pick my favourite team within my lifetime, I requested to be able to have a team from just one era – the Plumstead based Woolwich Arsenal of 1893-1913. And it was granted, indeed the chap who makes them was appreciative as it was a different challenge for his artistic skills, from the usual Thierry Henry or Dennis Bergkamp figures. I must also stress that the 50 subscriptions were taken up with a few hours of the offer going out, so there are no more places left unfortunately.
Owner, majority shareholder or something else?
If you’ve read any books that tell the history of Arsenal (or even Chelsea or Tottenham) it is very likely that you would have read about Henry Norris arriving like a knight in shining armour to save Arsenal from extinction in 1910. Some histories will say that he bought the club, some will say that he was the majority shareholder.
However, neither is correct. And by quite a considerable way.
The Architects plans for Highbury 1913
These block plans sat in a dusty file for over 100 years until put up for auction in a general sale of various aspects of a member of the pre WW1 Islington planning dept. Stamped as being received by the Islington Engineering and surveyor’s department on both 22 May and then 9 June 1913.
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
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.
…on this day in 1910
Sorry to disappoint you “Kroenke Out” fans but this happened 106 years ago.
The 1909-10 season was something of a watershed for Woolwich Arsenal FC. Having hit the highs of promotion to the First Division in 1904 and FA Cup semi-finals in 1906 and 1907, things turned decidedly sour for the Reds over the next three years. The main problem was that they were no longer the only club in London and the south in the top tier of English football. Chelsea had gained promotion in 1907, whilst Middlesex’s Tottenham followed suit two years later.
Woolwich Arsenal 1904 – The Good Times
The Arsenal Crowd at Woolwich
Referee JB Brodie knocked insensible by Woolwich Arsenal fan
Manor Ground closed for 6 weeks
If you cast your mind back to last season there was a lot of media talk about a pitch invasion in the FA Cup tie between, our opponents in the final, Aston Villa and WBA. Much of it was hyperbole, and as they managed to demonise a relatively peaceful crowd intrusion, we wonder what the modern media would have made of the following episode!
Woolwich Arsenal was the first Football League club to have their ground closed for crowd disturbances according to the extant records of the Football Association. This was borne out of the league game against Burton Wanderers on 26th January 1895. Both teams, but particularly Arsenal in seventh place, had outside chances of promotion from Division Two, and a crowd of 6-7,000 was attracted to the Manor Ground in Plumstead to witness the duel.
288: Harold Adrian Walden 1920-21
Recently Andy has published a full and definitive list of every Arsenal player to appear in a first team competitive match during the history of the club, and as a corollary we are currently researching each player who appeared between World War One and World War Two.
The two hundred and eighty-eighth player only played twice for the Gunners but had a life that made for an interesting and rounded story. Walden had a pre-football career in the army and then joined up for WW1, and was a-typical in that post football he was more celebrated and reported upon than his football one.
Arsenal Players Remembered 1914-1918
This is the final post on the theme of Arsenal and WW1. The past few days have seen the Gunners at War and the Gunners at home
Today we pay tribute on Armistice Day to the players who before the war represented Woolwich Arsenal FC but who weren’t necessarily with the club at the beginning of the War. These men paid the ultimate sacrifice being Killed In Action or dying as a result of the war. We have also included players who received career ending wounds.