Today of all days
Arsenal’s history one day at a time
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 History – 20 to 26 December
20 December 1913: The Hill-Woods come to town
20 December 1998: that pinpoint accuracy of Bergkamp
21 December 1956: Jack Crayston became permanent manager
21 December 2015: Arsenal beat Manchester City – the video
22 December 1973: the amazing speed of Arsenal’s collapse
22 December 2017: Arsenal v Liverpool, the game of the season!
23 December 1978: Arsenal beat Tottenham 5-0 away, and a personal story
23 December 1978: What a goal by Brady. The video
24 December 1932: the most extraordinary Christmas Eve in the history of Arsenal
24/25 December: playing football at Christmas
26 December 1909: Buchan signed by Arsenal (for the first time)
26 December 2000: Arsenal v Leicester- the video (and a bonus)
Arsenal History 13-19 December
13 December 2012: The curious case of Stewart Robson
13 December 2015: Arsenal beat Villa. The video
14 December 1889: When Arsenal were ordered to play two games at once
15 December 1934: 62 goals in 19 games but not top of the league!
16 December 1991: Thomas signs for Liverpool. Is this a joke?
16 December 2017: Arsenal v Newcastle – watch the sensational goal by Ozil
17 December 1969: Arsenal and Rouen in front 12,093. Hardly anyone noticed. But they should.
17 December 2012: Watch Santi Cazorla Hattrick on this day
18 December 1931: The day we should commemorate – the passing of Arsenal’s founding father.
18 December 1976: Arsenal beat Man U – the video
19 December 1970: Second in the league but no one seems to notice.
19 December 2009: Arsenal beat Hull (the video) and then…
10 December: Stoke fake a foul get a penalty and lose – the video
12 December 2016: Arsenal 3 Stoke City 1
Tottenham Hotspur 1-2 Arsenal; 9th Dec. 1972. The video
8 December 2012: how one win can change everything
Arsenal 2 WBA 0; 8 December 2012
The score in relation to this match looks bland. So why bother with it?
Yet to me this game is the symbol of all the turmoil of the 2012/13 season and the start of our way out of it.
On 17 November 2012 Arsenal beat Tottenham 5-2, after only one win in the previous four games (a 1-0 defeat of QPR). Suddenly there was some light at the end of the tunnel.
But then we had a 0-0 draw with Aston Villa on 24 November, and a 1-1 away draw with Everton on 28 November. And “false dawn” was exactly what the Tottenham result seemed to be when we then lost at home to Swansea.
This was getting awful – and it was the moment when the Anti-Wengerians must have felt their time had come.
The league table looked like this after the Swansea game…
| Pd | W | D | L | F | A | G.D | Pts | |||
| 1 | Manchester United | 15 | 12 | 0 | 3 | 37 | 21 | +16 | 36 | |
| 2 | Manchester City | 15 | 9 | 6 | 0 | 28 | 11 | +17 | 33 | |
| 3 | Chelsea | 15 | 7 | 5 | 3 | 25 | 16 | +9 | 26 | |
| 4 | Tottenham Hotspur | 15 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 28 | 23 | +5 | 26 | |
| 5 | West Bromwich Albion | 15 | 8 | 2 | 5 | 24 | 19 | +5 | 26 | |
| 6 | Everton | 15 | 5 | 8 | 2 | 25 | 19 | +6 | 23 | |
| 7 | Swansea City | 15 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 23 | 17 | +6 | 23 | |
| 8 | West Ham United | 15 | 6 | 4 | 5 | 19 | 17 | +2 | 22 | |
| 9 | Stoke City | 15 | 5 | 7 | 3 | 14 | 12 | +2 | 22 | |
| 10 | Arsenal | 15 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 24 | 16 | +8 | 21 |
Passable for quite a bit of the Graham reign, and a lot better than Mee’s latter years, but still not what the Emirates crowd had got used to. Beating Tottenham 5-2 seemed centuries away and irrelevant when the team was behind Stoke City and West Ham. Tottenham must have thought they stood a real chance of fourth.
The gap was five points – which in one sense doesn’t seem much – except that although one might expect Stoke to lose a couple and Arsenal to win a couple – we needed to do better than all six teams above us. It seemed unlikely.
But then something happened and it started by beating West Brom on this day. After that we beat Reading 2-5, Wigan 0-1 and Newcastle 7-3. The defeats were not over – we still had a defeat to Chelsea and Tottenham to come, but the amazing momentum that took Arsenal through the rest of that season, ending up with Arsenal in fourth, started with the West Brom game.
After 15 games, and just before the WBA game, we were 10th and this looked to be the season when we would finally drop out of the Champions League. After that we played 23 more league games, won 16, drew 3 and lost 4 – ending up in fourth position, claimed on the last day of the season.
Arsenal score 5 in Europe: 7 December 2004
7 December 1886: The most likely
Arsenal history 6-12 December
6 December 1997: the awful times just before… winning the double
6 December 2016: Arsenal beat Basel – the video
7 December 1940: Jack Lambert, record-breaking goal scorer and club coach, died in car crash
7 December 2004: Arsenal score five in Europe – the video
8 December 2012: Two penalties two goals. Arsenal v West Brom
8 December 2012: How one win can totally change a season
9 December 1973: The first-ever mention of the Arsenal back four moving in unison
9 December 1972: Beating Tottenham away – the video
10 December 1908: From The Courier, Plumstead, Thursday, December 10, 1908
10 December 2016: How Stoke fake a penalty, and still lose!
11 December 1881 and 11 December 1886: the birth of Thomas Tindal Fitchie and the first Arsenal game.
11 December 2012: Arsenal v Bradford and it goes to penalties
12 December 1946: Ronnie Rooke signs for Arsenal
12 December 2007: Watch Arsenal beat Steaua Bucharest