Alex James’ Cigarette Case
Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp and Alex James: these three names always crop up when discussing the best attacking player in Arsenal’s history, but the outstanding player from the 1930s is our subject here.
…On this day in 1937
“Butcher” Boulton downed most of the Arsenal defence
Frank Boulton puts paid to Herbie Roberts’ season and Arsenal’s slim title challenge in just three punches during a League game against West Brom.
Frank Boulton: The Arsenal goalkeeper 1936-1938
In an unprecedented series of events he managed to not only hospitalise Roberts, but knock out Hapgood and hit Crayston.
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Last year we thought it would be a good idea to put together a compendium of information relating to all of Arsenal’s FA Cup final appearances on one page so you don’t have to trawl all over the internet to find out the answers to all of those nagging questions.
We’ve updated the article and made some additions. We’ve added a brief match report for each game which we wrote for the Arsenal magazine last year, and most of the programmes for the games. We were hoping to have all of them ready in time for this blog but the later years take ages to scan as they are so big. We’ll add them as we scan them in. Be aware that these later programmes are huge, physically and electronically. With this in mind we’ve shown the file size for each one so you know what you are letting yourself in for. This article was originally posted in 2015 and has been updated to include all subsequent FA Cup final appearances.
Weekly Illustrated 25 April 1936.
The crowd celebrate the Triple Championship win in fine style: 4 May 1935
It is just over 80 years and three weeks to the day that Arsenal’s season ended as champions for the third time in succession.
On 22 April 1935 Arsenal travelled to Ayresome Park and won 1-0. Consequently this defeat of manager George Allison’s old club, Middlesbrough, meant Arsenal had managed to win their third consecutive First Division league championship.
Huddersfield were the only team to achieve the hat-trick previously, and they too had been shaped by Herbert Chapman, though after Chapman’s untimely death Allison had taken charge of Arsenal for the start of this campaign.
Earlier in the season, in March 1935, the anticipated ‘match of the season’ drew an all time home club record of 73,295 as Arsenal entertained eventual runners-up Sunderland who were vying with the Gunners for top spot.
Davidson: A Prototype Marinello?
Bobby Davidson made his debut on 20 February 1935, and scored with a header in a routine 2-0 win over Stoke at Highbury, and everything looked rosy for the new Gunners forward.
For this classic match report we go back to the 1930s for a historic game that rarely gets mentioned.
Many thanks to Middlesbrough fan Steve Roberts for providing a copy of the programme for this article.
Click on the programme cover to read it.
The Arsenal board constituent since WW2
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.