This series takes a look at what was happening to Arsenal and in the world around them on this day at one point in Arsenal’s past.
Arsenal anniversaries 28 February – 6 March
28 February 1913: Arsenal admit that they are leaving Plumstead to go to Highbury.
28 February 1959: The result on this day was Arsenal 3 Man U 2, Arsenal making it six wins and two draws in eight. The result left Arsenal one point clear at the top of the table.
1 March 1987: Having lost at Highbury in the first leg of the league cup semi-final Arsenal now beat Tottenham 2-1 away to set up a third game between the two on 4 March (see below)
1 March 2015: Arsenal beat Everton: the video, and a bonus
2 March 2002: The greatest Arsenal goal of all time: the video
24 February 1964: William Garbutt, the Arsenal player who took football to Italy, and who is still revered in that country as the founder of football, passed away.
Arsenal anniversaries: the club’s first England cap, 17 February
James (Jimmy) Ashcroft is a player of enormous importance in the history of Arsenal as a club – a player who would adorn the outside of the Emirates Stadium if they took into account players from the Woolwich era.
He played for Woolwich Arsenal for eight seasons from 1900 – 1908 in goal, making 303 appearances of which 273 were in the league. He was the first goalkeeper to play for us in the first division, the first Arsenal player to play for England (he won three caps, his first on 17 February 1906), the first Woolwich Arsenal player to get over 300 games, and the first player to play eight consecutive seasons getting over 30 league games a season. Having joined the team he played 154 consecutive matches, (something only exceeded once – see below). He was also in the two cup semi-finals that Woolwich Arsenal played.
Jimmy was born in Liverpool, on 12 September 1878 and is listed as playing for Wilbyn’s United, Anfirled Recreation Club, Garston Copperworks, Everton and Gravesend United, before reaching Woolwich Arsenal. He is recorded as being an amateur for Everton, and so presumably was also for the clubs listed before that. What took him to Gravesend is not clear, but Gravesend is only 18 miles from Woolwich and so he was probably talent spotted at that club – or noticed when Arsenal played Gravesend (see below).
Gravesend were not as obscure as we might think today, and they did win the Kent Senior Cup in 1898 a competition Arsenal played in, and were in the first division of the Southern League in 1899/1900 (as were Tottenham Hotspur).
Having transferred to Arsenal Jimmy missed the first two games of the season, before playing against Burton Swifts on 15 September 1900 and then did not miss a single match for four years – something that has only been beaten once – by Tom Parker in the 1930s.
From this first game on he only let in 26 goals in 34 games that season, including 17 clean sheets and had six consecutive games without conceding a goal (a club record, that was not equalled until Alex Manninger did it in 1998). In 1903/4 he let in 22 goals in 34 game with 20 clean sheets.
In May 1908, Ashcroft signed for Blackburn Rovers for whom he played 114 games, before moving on to Tranmere Rovers at the end of the 1911/12 season. He continued to play there until the outbreak of the first world war, when he retired from football. He died in 1943 aged 64.
16 February 2020: the new young stars emerge as AFC score four.
Arsenal anniversaries 14-20 February
14 February 1925: The Arsenal league game played under experimental offside rules
15 February 1907: Reports of explosions and fires at Arsenal’s ground
15 February 2015: 85 years to the day after Arsenal beat Middlesbrough on the way to their first trophy, Arsenal again beat Middlesbrough in the FA Cup.
16 February 1886: Andy Ducat, one of our greatest ever players, was born.
16 February 2020: New young stars emerge as Arsenal score four (video)
17 February 1906: An Arsenal player wins an England cap for the first time
15 February 1907: Reports of explosions and fires at the Arsenal ground
In February 1907 there was a Storage magazine explosion at the Chemical Research Buildings based on Plumstead Marches. The Kentish Independent stated on 15 February 1907:
“…what the explosion did wreak it’s vengeance on without stint, was the refreshment department behind Spion Kop. It is a dreadful wreck. There must have been a dreadful waste of that which you – some of you – turn to for consolation at half time, for I saw bottles, temperance and otherwise neckless and useless lying about, and beer engines put hopelessly out of gear…”
The Daily News reported that the explosion was so powerful that people were woken from their sleep as far afield as Braintree. It appears that this bar was built 3 years earlier as part of the expansion of the Spion Kop as an article in the Woolwich Gazette on 19 August 1904 noted that the architect, Archibald Leitch, was utilising the back of the Abbey Wood End slope for refreshment bars.
On 30 Sept 1913 the Woolwich Gazette reported that the whole North stand Grandstand was gutted by fire which started at the refreshment bar, at the junction with the western end of the stand. It was apparently witnessed by more people than had seen the team play for much of the previous season!
Refreshment stands were obviously open to problems because the records show that on Good Friday 1898 the Tottenham refreshment stand collapsed in a game against Woolwich Arsenal. This was at their Northumberland Park ground. The reporter goes on to say that the cause was because the bar was:
““…as full as a sardine box, and after the game had been in progress about 20 minutes, a terrific roar… caused all eyes to turn in the direction of where the refreshment bar once stood. This had disappeared and the swaying crowd alone indicated that something serious had happened”.
The worst injury was that one “unfortunate” obtained a broken leg and 2 “fellows” had broken ribs.
