Without the events of this day, there may well never have been an Arsenal football club.
For on this day Royal Arsenal FC voted at its AGM to turn itself into a professional side, making the club the first professional team in the south of England in a move proposed by Jack Humble. The club immediately tendered its resignation from both the Kent and London FA but this was turned down in both cases (although later reports suggested otherwise.
So Arsenal were very honourable in tendering their resignation – but the local clubs would have none of it for the simple reason that they knew that playing Arsenal home and away would bring them in the largest paydays of the season. Arsenal stayed with their local FAs.
Unfortunately the 1930 version of Arsenal’s handbook got the story totally wrong, and said that the move to professionalism “was most displeasing to their neighbours in the South, and at the outset Woolwich Arsenal – as the club was now styled suffered a serious boycott.”
Now this is untrue on two counts. First, the club did not change from Royal Arsenal to Woolwich Arsenal until 1893, and second there was no boycott. Royal Arsenal tendered its resignation from the London FA and the Kent FA after the Extraordinary General Meeting on 9 May but the two FAs both voted against a boycott of professional teams.