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.
Why we celebrate losing to Tottenham on 8 February
At the moment of writing this (8 February 2023) Arsenal and Tottenham first teams have played each other in 207 competitive matches ranging from the United League in the 19th century, through the Southern and District Combination at the start of the 20th century, the London League after that, and finally in the First Division and Premier League.
Of these games Arsenal have won (as of 8 February 2023) 86, Tottenham 67 and 54 have been drawn. Many of them have been highly memorable of course, but as a sequence of such games surely none can replace the three league cup matches in February and March 1987 of which the first took place on 8 February.
To give some contetxt in 1979 Arsenal won the FA Cup against Man U in possibly the most famous ending to a final of all time. Alan Sunderland attained immortality and Terry Neill’s tenure as manager got a cup to polish.
But then life went a bit downhill.
1980: Losing finalists in the FA Cup
1981: Third in the league
1982: Fifth in the league
1983: 10th in the league and two semi-finals
1984: 6th in the league, and Terry Neill is replaced by Don Howe
1985: 7th in the league
1986: 7th in the league and Don Howe is replaced by Steve Burtenshaw
1987: George Graham’s first season as manager, we rise to 4th in the league and win the League Cup. It seemed a long time coming.
The league programme did not start well for George Graham in his first season as manager as we only won two of the first eight games.
On the evening of October 27 1986, after a 0-1 defeat to top club Nottm Forest, Arsenal were 15th below such luminaries as Norwich, Coventry, Wimbledon, Luton, QPR and Oxford United.
What was really awful was that the forward line of Niall Quinn and Charlie Nicholas simply couldn’t score, but with the addition to the squad of Steve Williams, Perry Groves and Martin Hayes things picked up.
These changes didn’t happen all at once, but by match ten the new format was getting established as Arsenal went on a 17 match unbeaten run.
On 4 January 1987 Arsenal beat Tottenham away 2-1 with goals from Tony Adams and Paul Davis with just 37,723 in the stadium. (Crowds were low at the time throughout football. Only 17,561 turned up for the next match at Highbury against Coventry, while Wimbledon and Luton were getting under 10,000 for their home games in the top division).
What was particularly exciting was that after that poor start, by the time of the Coventry game Arsenal had reached the top of the league.
Pld
W
D
L
F
A
G.D.
Pts
1
Arsenal
24
15
6
3
41
13
+28
51
2
Everton
24
14
5
5
47
20
+27
47
3
Liverpool
24
12
6
6
42
24
+18
42
4
Nottingham Forest
24
11
6
7
46
32
+14
39
5
Luton Town
24
11
6
7
26
23
+3
39
6
Norwich City
24
10
9
5
33
33
0
39
7
Tottenham Hotspur
24
11
5
8
38
29
+9
38
8
Coventry City
23
10
6
7
26
24
+2
36
9
Wimbledon
24
11
2
11
33
32
+1
35
10
West Ham United
24
9
7
8
37
41
-4
34
But it couldn’t last, for the Coventry 0-0 draw was the start of 10 games within a win. There was however a recovery of sorts at the end of the season as Arsenal won five and lost three of the last eight to finish the league in fourth place and perhaps most tragically of all, one place behind Tottenham.
P
W
D
L
F
A
GD.
Pts
1
Everton
42
26
8
8
76
31
+45
86
2
Liverpool
42
23
8
11
72
42
+30
77
3
Tottenham Hotspur
42
21
8
13
68
43
+25
71
4
Arsenal
42
20
10
12
58
35
+23
70
5
Norwich City
42
17
17
8
53
51
+2
68
6
Wimbledon
42
19
9
14
57
50
+7
66
7
Luton Town
42
18
12
12
47
45
+2
66
8
Nottingham Forest
42
18
11
13
64
51
+13
65
9
Watford
42
18
9
15
67
54
+13
63
10
Coventry City
42
17
12
13
50
45
+5
63
At least we did not have the humiliation of ending up lower than Wimbledon and Luton. Forest, the early leaders slumped to 8th, and Leicester, Man City and Villa were relegated.
Meanwhile in the FA Cup we went out to Watford with a 1-3 home defeat in the sixth round on 14 March 1987.
Which left just one competition: the League Cup.
Round
Date
Opponent
Res
Crowd
2 1st leg
Sept 23
Huddersfield (h)
2-0
15194
2 2nd leg
Oct 7
Huddersfield (a)
1-1
8713
3
Oct 28
Manchester C (h)
3-1
21604
4
Nov 18
Charlton A (h)
2-0
28301
5
Jan 21
Nottingham F (h)
2-0
38617
SF 1st leg
Feb 8
Tottenham H (h)
0-1
41306
SF 2nd leg
Mar 1
Tottenham H (a)
2-1
37099
SF replay
Mar 4
Tottenham H (a)
2-1
41055
F
Apr 5
Liverpool
2-1
96000
This was the era of 1-0 down, 2-1 up, which led to the creation of a long-running fanzine of that name.
Arsenal were drawn against Tottenham in the semis as shown above. For the first game at home on February 8, Arsenal were without David Rocastle and Viv Anderson and Tottenham won with a goal from Clive Allen goal. When the same player scored after 16 minutes in the return leg it made Tottenham 2-0 up, and the story is that at half time the announcer on the PA relayed details of how Tottenham fans could order cup final tickets. I can’t vouch for that, as I didn’t make it to the away game, and it could be just a story, but the fact is that then, amazingly, Viv Anderson and Niall Quinn both scored. There was extra time, and then a replay, convened on the toss of the coin, at Tottenham (there being no “away goals” rule in the league cup at the time.)
It was a replay in every sense of the word. Allen scored, and there was just eight minutes to go when Ian Allinson equalised. David Rocastle got the winner thereafter. George Graham said, “I hope it’s just the start of a new era for this club.” And he was right.
The Arsenal team was, John Lukic, Viv Anderson, Kenny Sansom, Michael Thomas (Ian Allinson), David O’Leary, Tony Adams, David Rocastle, Paul Davis, Niall Quinn, Charlie Nicholas, Martin Hayes.
The final couldn’t really live up to that excitement, and it looked like Arsenal would be out when Ian Rush scored, because “Liverpool never lose when Rush scores”. I don’t know if that was actually true – or whether it was one of those things that everyone believed just because it was said over and over again by the press, but it certainly wasn’t true on this occasion.
Charlie Nicholas scored both our goals in reply. Neither were magnificent but the sight of Bob Wilson going bonkers as the goals went in remains a memory and a half.
Because of the behaviour of Liverpool fans two years before, English clubs were banned from Europe, and so Arsenal did not get to test themselves against the continent’s top sides. Had we done so I don’t think we would have got too far, for this was just the beginning. But there was so much more to come.
6 February: Rare footage from the 1st double season
Arsenal v Sunderland 4 February 1956: the video!!!
3 February: Beating Leeds in 1993 (the video)
2 February 1927: Chapman shows who’s boss
Arsenal historian Sally Davis reported that “At the end of season 1909/10, just before William Hall and Henry Norris were asked to help Woolwich Arsenal FC, the club’s first-team coach resigned. George Hardy was taken on as his replacement: the first employee appointed by Hall and Norris’ regime at the club.”
Hardy stayed at the club through the early days of financial crisis and it is reported that in 1927/28 he had a benefit match – a game against Corinthians. But also there are reports that in 1927 the relationship between Hardy and Chapman exploded.
On 2nd February 1927, Arsenal played in an FA Cup 4th round replay against Port Vale having drawn 2-2 four days earlier. According to Tom Whittaker’s account (remembering Whittaker was hardly an unbiased observer in all that followed), “Arsenal were pressing hard, but things were not going just right and old George Hardy’s eyes spotted something he felt could be corrected to help the attack. During the next lull in the game he hopped to the touchline, and cupping his hands, yelled out that one of the forwards was to play a little farther upfield.” Chapman was furious and sent Hardy to the dressing-room.(Arsenal won 1-0 and went on to the Cup Final for the first time that season).
Immediately after the game (it is said in some sources – but not all, as we’ll see below) Hardy was sacked and Whittaker promoted to the trainer in his place. It is also reported in Whittaker’s autobiography (but could be a myth) that this is when Chapman said to Whittaker, “I’m going to make this the greatest club in the world and I`m going to make you the greatest Trainer in the game.”
But this raises the question: why was Hardy so strongly disciplined for one misdemeanour? Sally Davis suggests that the event brought into the open something that had been simmering for some time: who ran Arsenal. Davis says that “William Hall was called on to exercise his authority as a director to bring the row to an end; he chose to allow Chapman to deal with Hardy as he saw fit.
This is important because in 1925 when Chapman was first appointed, Davis says that Chapman wanted to demote or remove Hardy, whose methods he considered dated. Sir Henry would not allow it. So allowing Chapman to decide the issue was a direct challenge to Sir Henry.
Chapman demoted Hardy as he had wanted to do all along and appointed Whittaker to succeed him. Thus in refusing to fight this battle the vice-chairman acknowledged that Chapman now “had authority over football matters.”
According to Davis, Sir Henry “Norris, however, told Chapman that he had exceeded his authority in making this change of personnel. He was angry that it had happened to Hardy, obviously [as Hardy was seen as a Norris man – and symbolically was the first Norris appointment], and his view was that only the club’s directors had the authority to hire, raise up and cast down,” which of course was true.
There had not been this sort of argument before – but on the other hand no one had told Chapman how to behave before, save at the very start of his appointment when the argument broke out over the same issue: Hardy. Sir Henry had told Hall to go to Chapman but Hall had felt he was being turned into a messenger boy and resigned from the board of directors. Sir Henry was now in an exposed position.
In this version of events, Hardy was not sacked at all, but subsequently left of his own volition and thus the episode ended without Norris directly coming in to reinstate him and do what he had not done before: override Chapman.
So Whittaker continued to be the first-team trainer as Chapman wanted, and Chapman’s authority was never again questioned.
But Sir Henry Norris did not forget this moment because in his own letter of resignation to Arsenal’s board in July 1927 he said that “his position as club chairman was now untenable because of the challenges to his authority made by Hall and Chapman.” (Davis)
But whichever way it happened Hardy left in 1927 to work at Tottenham, before moving on to coach Tottenham’s nursery side Northfleet United. This version says he died preparing for a Tottenham match v West Bromwich Albion in January 1947.
1 Feb 2004: An astounding goal from Henry
Arsenal anniversaries 31 January – 6 February
31 January: the day not to do anything in relation to Arsenal
6 February 1971: A rare Arsenal match video from the first double season
28 January: Arsenal’s biggest ever win at Highbury
Arsenal 9 Grimsby Town 1
Arsenal goals: Jack 4, Lambert 3, Bastin 1, Holme 1
Attendance 15, 751
The match was originally intended to be played on December 6, but was abandoned after 63 minutes due to fog. This game was thus played mid-week – hence the low crowd for a 2.15pm kick off.
Having lost their previous home league game 1-3 to Sunderland, and having been knocked out of the FA Cup 2-1 away by Chelsea on the previous saturday January 24th, there must have been some gnashing of teeth.
Arsenal had never won the league, and the previous season had come 14th (although they had won their first ever major trophy, by beating Huddersfield in the FA Cup final).
Despite the Sunderland defeat Arsenal were top of the league, and some of the gloom must have been further removed by the way in which Arsenal achieved this position, including three games in November when they scored five, and a 7-1 defeat of Blackpool on December 27.
So the 9-1 was a return to the good life, and in fact the start of a nine-game unbeaten run. Indeed Arsenal only suffered one more defeat that season (away to Villa) and were champions with a record 66 points, seven above second-placed Villa, and 14 above third-place Sheffield Wednesday.
This was Arsenal’s first championship, as I have said, and this game against Grimsby was not only their best ever league win as Arsenal, but also the start of the run into that famous championship.
