Although oft reported as a founding father of Arsenal he was at the club only a very short while, and although he stood for election to the Committee that ran the club, in 1892, he was not elected because his views on the future of the club did not coincide with the majority. Danskin wanted an amateur club, while the majority of the committee favoured paying the men who gave up their time to play for the club.
And it is interesting that the story of Danskin as part of the heart of Arsenal lives on, for in fact, after he was voted off the committee Danskin went so far as to work with others to create a rival club whose main aim was to bring about the demise of Woolwich Arsenal FC..
This rival club was Royal Ordnance Factories FC, the club whose own committee included men who had sought to bankrupt Royal Arsenal’s members by bribing the owner of the Manor Ground (which Royal Arsenal were moving into) to up the rent of the ground dramatically, after the directors of Arsenal had personally guaranteed the loans that were necessary to pay for converting the field into a football ground.
Fortunately for Arsenal, the landlord of the Manor Ground was made of more honourable stuff and he refused to be part of such an underhand trick, and so Arsenal moved grounds while Danskin helped form a new amateur team: Royal Ordnance Factories FC which played on the opposite side of the road.
This club took a number of Royal Arsenal players with it, including: Peter Connolly, William George, Jack McBean, Jimmy Meggs and Mr McKenzie (whose first name is now lost). Bobby Buist and William Stewart of Woolwich Arsenal joined a little later – probably around 1895.
However Royal Ordinance Factories FC never really thrived and there were financial problems throughout. Peter Connolly, one of the leading lights in the club, died in 1895, and the club left the Southern League after playing just the first seven games of the 1896/97 season. All the games were lost and apparently the side let in 46 goals.
ROF’s final game was a friendly against an actors’ XI.
Quite how Danskin’s reputation was retrieved after such a shameful association with the group that tried to destroy not only Woolwich Arsenal FC but also the lives of the men who guaranteed its loans, I can’t say.