8 July 1975 David O’Leary became a professional at Arsenal.
David O’Leary was born 2 May 1958. He signed as an apprentice for Arsenal in 1973 and played for the reserves from the age of 16, playing his first game for the first team on 16 August 1975, aged 17. Twenty years later, on 17 May 1993 David O’Leary played his farewell game v Manchester United
From 1975 on his progress in the league was extraordinary playing 27 games in his first season as a first team player, and thereafter only once slipping below 30 games in the next 12 seasons.
His first major honour was the FA Cup – playing in the win over Manchester United although he also played in the defeats in the other two cup finals of the era, and the Cup Winners Cup final of 1980.
By the age of 26 he had played over 400 times for the club, and then overtook the record for the most games for the club – reaching 622 (Armstrong held the record before that).
It was the partnership of Bould and Adams that finally dislodged him, but he did win the league with Arsenal in 1989 and 1991, and played in the double winning side of 1993, often as a sub.Then he was given a free transfer to Leeds after 19 years with Arsenal, and played regularly for them. He retired from football as a player aged 37, after suffering an Achilles injury.
David O’Leary had a more difficult relationship with Ireland, missing games through being dropped by Charlton, and for refusing to give up a family holiday when he was called up at the last moment.
After life as a player O’Leary went into management as assistant to George Graham at Leeds. After Graham went to Tottenham, O’Leary became Leeds manager and in 1999 took them to fourth in the Premier League.
In 2000 Leeds were knocked out of the Uefa cup in the semi-final and finished third in the league, and it seemed that Graham knew what he was doing when he took O’Leary into management. Astoundingly Leeds got to the semi-finals of the Champions League.
But Leeds were in real financial trouble – gambling on the fact that Leeds would play in the Champions League again, and borrowing on that basis.
At this time O’Leary wrote or had ghosted a book “Leeds United on Trial” – about the activities of some players in the town centre, and their subsequent trial – while at the same time as their manager spending an utterly unheard of £100m on players over a four year period.
Not only did O’Leary not win a trophy at Leeds, he never seemed to ask where on earth the £100m had come from. As the inevitable financial collapse came, O’Leary left, and in 2004 Leeds were relegated to division three with £80m debt. Meanwhile O’Leary became manager of Aston Villa and by 2005 was spending considerable sums of money on players, but only finished two places from relegation. He left in 2006.
His next management job was in the UAE from July 2010 to April 2011 when he was sacked having won six of the 15 games his team had played.
But as with others who were brilliant players but unsuccessful managers, he is of course remembered as a true servant of Arsenal, and a truly remarkable player.
7 July 1997: Merson transferred to Middlesbrough
Paul Charles Merson played 289 league matches for Arsenal , plus 29 FA cup matches, and 38 League Cup matches, plus 22 European games.
His football career started with Arsenal in 1986/7 and finished with Tamworth and Welshpool in 2006/7, although he did make three appearances for Whitton Athletic in 2011/12.
His one loan spell in his early days with Arsenal was with Brentford who were managed by the Double winning captain of 1971, Frank McLintock.
Paul Merson’s first Arsenal match was on 22 November 1986 against Manchester City working under George Graham who oversaw his early development season by season.
By the time of the two George Graham league winning seasons he was a regular in the side and in 1989 was voted Young Player of the Year. He made his England début on 11 September 1991 against Germany in a friendly.
He was also part of the unique Cup Double side of 1993, and won the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1994. However at that moment of the height of his career he also took the very brave and dramatic step of openly admitting in a televised press conference to his multiple addictions, and went into rehabilitation. He returned just prior to the end of the George Graham reign but did play in the second consecutive Cup Winners’ Cup Final in 1995 after Graham had left.
Merson continued to play in the one Rioch season. He then had one season under Arsene Wenger before being transferred to Middlesbrough on 7 July 1997.
At the time of the transfer Mr Wenger said that when a good offer comes along for a player (£5m, the largest fee ever paid by a non-top league club), sometimes you have to accept it. However it should be noted that this transfer window was also the summer when Arsenal purchased Marc Overmars and Emmanuel Petit so it was clear that Merson was going to struggle to find a role in the team.
Arsene Wenger was criticised at the time for the sale of Merson, and four defeats in six games between 1 November and 13 December 1997 caused further negative reporting in the press, with Arsenal being sixth in the league.
However although Arsenal slipped 12 points behind the leaders, we did recover in the second part of the season to win the league.
Reports at the time suggested that Arsene Wenger had offered a new two-year deal to Merson prior to his leaving, and on 10 November 2014 Merson stated that Wenger “begged me to stay”. Middlesbrough however were reported to have offered double the salary – and obviously more chances of playing than at Arsenal, with Wenger expanding the Arsenal squad considerably.
While Arsenal won the league, Merson’s Middlesbrough came second in the second division league in 1997/8 and won promotion, but in the summer of 1998 Merson was said to have accused Middlesbrough of being a club wrapped up in a drinking and gambling culture, although he denied this.
From 1998 to 2002 Merson played for Aston Villa during which period the club came 6th and 8th, and lost the 2000 FA Cup final, and he played between 21 and 38 league games each season.
Then in 2002 he signed for Portsmouth and played for them just for the 2002/3 season, when the club gained promotion to the Premiership, playing 45 league games in the league.
There was then the move to Walsall in 2003 but here Merson missed a little of the season with a period in February spent in a clinic in the United States. However he did make 34 appearances out of a possible 46 for the club that season, as they finished 22nd and were relegated. During this final spell Merson was made player manager of the club and he continued in the role the following season.
Walsall went on to finish 14th in the following season, but numerous media reports of his private life and his addictions distracted from the achievement and on 6 February 2006 he was sacked, and moved briefly to Tamworth where he played one game. He retired from playing on 9 March 2006, although on 28 March 2012 played for Welshpool Town along with two other Sky Sports pundits. Welshpool lost 4-1 and opted not to repeat the affair.
In 2011 Paul Merson published “How not to be a professional footballer” which received very positive reviews.
Then when in 2020 Phil Thompson, Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier were sacked by Sky Sports from their Saturday afternoon show, Merson was the one regular from the show to be given a new contract,
6 July 1959: David Bowen sold to Northampton Town for £5,000.
David Lloyd Bowen was born in Natyffyllon, near Maesteg on 7 June 1928 and after training as a surveyor in south Wales, Dave and the family then moved to Northampton and he joined the local League club in 1947 – the start of a career that took him onto Arsenal, glory as captain of Wales, unbelievable success as a manager, and finally to become the man who is (I believe) one of only two Arsenal players to have a stand named after him.
Dave signed for Arsenal for £1000 in the summer recess of 1950 as a reserve wing half, and played his first game against Wolverhampton on March 24, 1951.
His first four years were made up of limited appearances (never more than 10) but in 1954/5 he made the breakthrough, with 21 games.
He also gained 19 caps for Wales, and captained Wales in the 1958 World Cup finals – and played in that team with John and Mel Charles, Cliff Jones, Ivor Allchurch and of course Jack Kelsey.
Wales drew all three matches in the group stages and so had a play off against Hungary which they won, before being beaten 1–0 by Brazil in the quarter finals (the Brazilian goal being scored by Pele). As such Dave Bowen and Jack Kelsey were the first two Arsenal players to go a world cup finals.
In July 1959, Dave Bowen returned to Northampton Town as player-manager for a fee of between £5000 and £7000 (depending on which report you read, but either way a nice profit for Arsenal), and after giving up the playing part of his job after the first season, achieved the impossible, having the team promoted from the fourth division to the first in five seasons. And this despite Northampton having what some (including me) would regard as one of the three worst football grounds in post-war league history!
This ground was shared with Northamptonshire County Cricket Club, and as a result it had only three sides from a football point of view. Two of these were ramshackle terraces while the main stand was in such a bad state that in the long overdue review of grounds following the Bradford fire, it was deemed unsafe (which those of us who had been in it new only too well) and was immediately demolished.
Everything about the ground was ludicrous. When new floodlights were installed in the 1980/1 season they failed when switched on for the first time, and the match was abandoned. The ground closed, long after it should have been closed down, after a match on 12 October 1994.
Not surprisingly, having made it to the first division, Northampton headed back down the leagues as quickly as they had come up, as Dave had access to no finances to keep the club in the top leagues, and he left in 1967, after a second successive relegation.
He was however still in charge of Wales, whom he managed between 1964 and 1974. He rejoined Northampton between 1969 and 1972 as general manager, and later secretary, while also working in journalism (as a reporter for the People) and bookmaking, before finally retiring. His son Keith played for Northampton, Brentford and Colchester United.
He died in Northampton on 25 September 1995, at the early age of 67 – and the North Stand of Northampton Town’s Sixfields Stadium, the stadium that was built to replace the wreck of their previous home, is now named after him.
5 July 1939: The Football League agreed to allow numbered shirts.
In the mythology of Arsenal, it is often stated that Herbert Chapman “invented” the notion of numbered shirts, in the same way that he got the name of Gillespie Road underground station changed to “Arsenal”, promoted floodlighting, and changed the club’s name from The Arsenal, to Arsenal.
In fact most of these tales are wrong. “The Arsenal” became “Arsenal” in 1919, long before Mr Chapman came to power. However Gillespie Road station became “Arsenal Highbury Hill” on 5 November 1932, so Mr Chapman could have been involved in that one.
As for the floodlighting issue it is said in some places that he proposed it for the first time – but this is certainly not so. As early as 1910 there were experiments going on with gas powered lighting at football matches in lines strung over the pitch. What Mr Chapman may well have done is been a strong advocate for flooodlighting but the first floodlit match at Highbury was not until 19 September 1951, long after Mr Chapman passed away.
But what about numbered shirts – for they certainly were tried during Mr Chapman’s time at Arsenal. Well…
Certainly before the first match of the 1928/9 season no league team in England had turned out in numbered shirts. But…
On the same day as Arsenal put on their numbered shirts so Chelsea played Swansea Town and they had their shirts numbered. The difference between the two games was that at Chelsea the goal keeper did not wear a number – a tradition that continued in English football once numbering of players became common.
So if Mr Chapman was the keen advocate of numbering as the stories say, he rather cleverly managed to persuade Chelsea to undertake the same experiment on the same day.
The Monday newspapers on 27 August picked up on the story and deemed the idea a success, and it is reported in some sources that for both these matches one team would wear numbers 1 to 11, and the other 12 to 22, but I can’t find any pictures to confirm this, and verification is sketchy.
Either way the Football Association, still living in the 15th century, didn’t like the idea and ordered the experiment to be abandoned. I don’t know what justification they gave for this, and it would be good to find the relevant paperwork.
The next appearance of numbered shirts on an Arsenal team was on December 4, 1933 in a friendly against F.C Vienna, which Arsenal won 4-2.
In the 1934 AGM of the Football League Management Committee numbers was however once again rejected but finally on July 5 1939 the Management Committee decided that players should wear numbered shirts, with both sides wearing 1 to 11 in the format described for the first games in 1928.
Arsenal’s first game at Highbury under this system was on August 30, 1939 – a 1-0 win over Blackburn Rovers. This was the second match of the 1939/40 season (the first game had been away to Wolverhampton W). I am unclear if Arsenal also wore numbered shirts on the third match against Sunderland on September 2.
However there were no more league matches that season as war was declared and the League programme abandoned. But the decision had been taken, and when League football returned on August 31 1946 numbered shirts were available for all teams, both in England and Scotland.
But there was a curiosity. Although some teams still played the same tactical formation as existed during the 1928 experiment the standard numbering of shirts followed the classic 2-3-5 formation, with numbers 2 and 3 assigned to the full backs, 4, 5, 6 to the half backs, and 7 to 11 the forwards. But by the 1940s, many more clubs had adopted the notion of the centre half (number 5) playing between the two full backs.
However no one seemed to mind.
4 July 2013: Hector Bellerin signed a new long-term contract.
Having transferred from Barcelona in 2011 as a youth player he had been on loan at Watford during 2013/14 before in September 2014 making his Arsenal debut following a spate of injuries to other defenders. In 2016 and 2017 he was daily reported across all media as moving back to Barcelona. Amazingly it was all lies. How extraordinary!
He has now played 183 first team games for Arsenal, and has a most unusual, and I think admirable lifestyle.
He became a vegan in 2017, and has said in interviews that he feels footballers have a responsibility to create awareness around environmental issues. In the run up to the 2019 general election he was very active in encouraging young people to vote, and in June 2020 he pledged to plant 3,000 trees for every Arsenal victory in the remainder of the season. There were eight such victories resulting in 24,000 trees being planted.
Hector is also the second largest shareholder in Forest Green Rovers, a club based on environmentalism.
3 July 2000: Edu joins Arsenal
3 July 2000: Edu joins Arsenal
Eduardo César Daude Gaspar (Edu) joined Arsenal from Corinthians. Unfortunately his Portuguese passport was a fake, but he qualified for an Italian passport because of his father was Italian. He signed again for Arsenal on 16 January 2001.
He finally played for Arsenal in 2001 in a goalless draw coming on as a sub but then going off again after he got injured. But he did come on as a sub in the 2002 FA Cup final – and also that season was the first Brazilian ever to win the Premier League.
Finally in 2003/4 he shook off his injuries and became part of the Invincibles, playing 30 games, including in the title winner at WHL.
He left Arsenal in May 2005 signing a five year deal with Valencia but he suffered a pre-season injury that meant he missed almost all the season. After the cancellation of his contract Edu signed with his former club the Corinthians, in 2009 and in 2010 he retired from playing.
During his playing days he also played for Brazil, including in the Copa América win of 2004.
After playing he took over as director of football at Corinthians, and then from 2016 to 2019 he was the general coordinator of the Brazilian national team before, on 9 July 2019, it was announced that Edu had become Arsenal’s first ever technical director.
2 July 1975: Charlie George sold to Derby
Perhaps to be more complete one might say of this day, “Charlie George ludicrously sold to Derby by Bertie Mee who put his own authority above the good of the team.”
Charlie was born in Islington, went to Holloway Road school and played for Islington schoolboys.
He made his first-team debut on 9 August 1969 and made 39 appearances that season, being a key player in the Inter Cities Fairs Cup triumph, playing in both legs of the final.
Although injured for the first part of the first double season he did play in the latter stages and of course scored the winner in the Cup Final.
The tragedy however was that he was managed by Bertie Mee who felt that football clubs should be run in the same way as the army. Despite the collapse in Arsenal’s form in 1974-5 Mee felt it right to drop Charlie and he was transfer listed, going to Derby in 1975 having played 179 times for Arsenal.
For Derby he went on to score a hat trick against Real Madrid – he is remembered with as much affection by Derby fans as he is by Arsenal fans.
By the end of the 70s he was playing with Nottingham Forest and scored the only goal of the game against Barcelona to win the Super Cup.
Ludicrously he won only one England cap – and for that was insanely played on the left wing. The manager at the time was… Don Revie.
1 July 2020: Arsenal 4 Norwich 0
For the first time in their history Arsenal played a League match in July, as clubs sought to finish the season delayed by the coronavirus outbreak. The win made it three successive wins in a row.
The result also meant that Arsenal had suffered just three defeats in the 19 games since the start of the new year – a dramatic improvement from the period up to the end of the previous year in which Arsenal had won just one of their previous 16 games – one of the worst runs of all time.
I must admit I’ve not checked every single year but as far as I know the last run of that magnitude was in the relegation season of 1912/13 when Arsenal went 23 games without a win.
This is certainly also up there in terms of the worst of runs for the club, and to be considered alongside the notorious run of eight consecutive defeats between 12 February 1977 to 12 March 1977.
Curiously little appeared in the media concerning the turnaround in Arsenal’s form throughout the last two thirds of the 2019/20 season, possibly because there was that long pause from 8 March to 16 June in which no matches at all were played.
In effect in the first third of that strange season Arsenal played as if relegation candidates and reached Christmas 15th in the league. If the final two thirds of the season are measured on their own Arsenal were second in the league, making this probably the most dramatic turn around within a season ever seen at Arsenal.
That it wasn’t noticed was probably due to the fact that the pandemic is of course a lot more important as the disease continued affecting around 5 million people by the start of July 2021.
But in the world of football, the dramatic turnaround in form between the first third and last two thirds of Arsenal’s 2019/20 season was certainly the most extraordinary reversal in fortune within one season that Arsenal has ever known.
1 July 2020: Arsenal 4 Norwich 0
For the first time in their history Arsenal played a League match in July, as clubs sought to finish the season delayed by the coronavirus outbreak. The win made it three successive wins in a row.
The result also meant that Arsenal had suffered just three defeats in the 19 games since the start of the new year – a dramatic improvement from the period up to the end of the previous year in which Arsenal had won just one of their previous 16 games – one of the worst runs of all time.
I must admit I’ve not checked every single year but as far as I know the last run of that magnitude was in the relegation season of 1912/13 when Arsenal went 23 games without a win.
This is certainly also up there in terms of the worst of runs for the club, and to be considered alongside the notorious run of eight consecutive defeats between 12 February 1977 to 12 March 1977.
Curiously little appeared in the media concerning the turnaround in Arsenal’s form throughout the last two thirds of the 2019/20 season, possibly because there was that long pause from 8 March to 16 June in which no matches at all were played.
In effect in the first third of that strange season Arsenal played as if relegation candidates and reached Christmas 15th in the league. If the final two thirds of the season are measured on their own Arsenal were second in the league, making this probably the most dramatic turn around within a season ever seen at Arsenal.
That it wasn’t noticed was probably due to the fact that the pandemic is of course a lot more important as the disease continued affecting around 5 million people by the start of July 2021.
But in the world of football, the dramatic turnaround in form between the first third and last two thirds of Arsenal’s 2019/20 season was certainly the most extraordinary reversal in fortune within one season that Arsenal has ever known.
28 June 1913: Woolwich Arsenal gain possession of the Gillespie Road site just 10 weeks before the first match of the season!
Tottenham Hotspur had called for an EGM of the Football League in 1913 to try to stop Arsenal’s move to Islington. That was defeated at the League’s AGM on May 26, although Tottenham used the meeting to lay into Henry Norris the Arsenal chairman with a vigour. This was the event that led to perpetuation of anti-Norris propaganda that is continued in the media to this day. Both Norris and Hall resigned as directors of Fulham, but Fulham turned down their resignations.
Thus Norris triumphed twice: once by getting Arsenal to move to north of London, and once in making Tottenham’s directors look foolish in putting forward extravagant demands that not only the League, but the majority of League clubs, rejected.
Woolwich Arsenal opened at the Gillespie Road ground on September 6th 1913, with the programme noting the continuance of the traditions of the Woolwich club, despite the change of venue.
Significantly after the move to Highbury, Henry Norris gave George Allison a job as editor of the club programme and author of the “Gunners’ Mate” column.
The club, although now in the 2nd division, saw its playing record improve, and the average crowd increased by a huge 14,000 from the last season at the Manor Ground. Tottenham’s fears that the arrival of Woolwich Arsenal in the district would affect their crowds were allayed when they saw their average home attendance increase by a healthy 5,000.
But Norris did not get everything his own way with the move. He most certainly wanted to buy the ground at Gillespie Road, but instead he was forced to lease it on a full repairing lease basis for 21 years, with the caveat that he could be asked to return the ground to the owners in its original condition at the end of the lease.
He was also refused permission to allow gambling or to sell alcohol on the ground, which denied the club a useful income. Obviously the spectators had the option to buy their drink at pubs before the game, and bring their own drink into the game (there was little chance of anyone stopping such activity even if it was technically prohibited by the lease) so the level of drinking was hardly reduced, but the income went to the local publicans not to Arsenal.
Thirdly, the club was refused the right to play at the ground on Sundays, Christmas Day, Good Friday and Easter Monday. Although the Sunday issue was an irrelevance (matches were never played on a Sunday) this religious holiday ban was something of a blow. However since the club would, as a result of the ban, play away on Christmas Day (and get a proportion of the income for that match) they would automatically get matches at home on Boxing Day and Easter Saturday, it was not too much of a rebuff.
The lease arrangement was a gamble, but Norris knew the college that owned the site was in severe financial straits and would never be in a position to take the land back. The worst that could happen was that a very rich benefactor might take over the college in 21 years time, but it seemed highly unlikely, and if the club was a success, would cause a lot of ill feeling between supporters and the college. Besides the rest of the college’s buildings were in a poor state and any such benefactor would surely have been more likely to move out totally and build a new site, rather than try and repair the Gillespie Road site.
With these thoughts in mind there is no doubt that Norris emerges as a consummate negotiator, and indeed if we bear in mind his position on the moral high ground over the allegations about Liverpool being involved in a match fixing scandal in 1912/13 we can see how he laid the groundwork for future debates by picking issues as he went along that could later be used to his benefit.
In fact Norris, for all his reputation as a man of bravado and outspokenness knew exactly when to speak and when to stay quiet – as when he attended the meeting of Islington Council in April 1913. After hearing from the Defence Committee, the Council voted to do what it could to stop the move of the club to Highbury. Norris was at this meeting but said not a word. He knew that the Council had not a hope of stopping him, so he left it at that.
Woolwich Arsenal lost £2,000 in its final season at the Manor Ground (about £250,000 in today’s money) but that was nothing compared to the cost of preparing the Gillespie Road ground through the summer. This was estimated at £20,000 (£2.5m today) and Norris paid for this out of his own pocket.
The lease for the land was signed at the end of April 1913, and the first game at Gillespie Road took place on September 6th against Leicester Fosse.
True, the ground certainly wasn’t ready and the grandstand was far from finished. But nevertheless 20,000 people turned up to see the newly installed team and the mood in North London was electric. Tottenham like Arsenal started the new campaign well, winning the first three fixtures, and in the local press the response to Arsenal changed, with letters now commenting that within quarter of an hour of the game ending, the streets were once again quiet.
As for the name of the stadium, that was simple: it was called Gillespie Road.
27 June 2005: Stuart Taylor sold to Aston Villa, one week before Vito Mannone arrived.
In all made 26 starts for Arsenal in league and cup, and came on four times as a substitute between 1997 and 2005. Which when you come to think of it means an awful lot of bench sitting over an eight year period. But such is the lot of the second keeper.
Unfortunately for him, even upon leaving Arsenal to try and get regular football he didn’t. In fact in 2013 he completed a stint of five years and 40 days without playing a Premier League game. He played for Aston Villa at Liverpool on January 21, 2008. And then in March 2013 for Reading at Everton.
In between those two events he was registered with Manchester City without playing once. In an interview in 2013 Taylor said, “When I’ve left clubs in the past and my agents have been speaking to clubs and said ‘Stuart Taylor is looking for a club…’ and the first thing they say is ‘oh yeah we know who he is but we have not seen him play for a long time.’
“I expect people do think ‘backup keeper’ when they think of me. That hurts because I feel I’ve got the ability and enough to do a job. “But as much as you can say ‘look at past games I’ve played’, they can say ‘that was ten years ago’ and things have changed, the game has changed.”
But let us not forget that Stuart Taylor won the league with Arsenal in 2002. Of his time at Arsenal he said, “Things can change really, really quickly…. When I was at Arsenal I was third choice goalkeeper and before you know it the two in front get injured, you get given a game, I ended up playing 10 games and winning a league medal.
His Premier League championship medal was achieved by giving him the chance to play as a sub in the final match of the season against Everton in 2002 with the title already won. Richard Wright started in goal, and Taylor came on, after 85 minutes as sub, which allowed him to qualify. It was an event that was widely publicised in advance, and something that Arsene Wenger did with other players – most notably Martin Keown.
He also got FA Cup winner’s medal in 2002 and two Charity Shield winner’s medals in 1999 and 2002, so he might not have got the games, but he got the baubles. He also played in the England Under 20 side in the 1999 World Youth Cup, and got four under 21 caps.
He won the league, and played for England, yet never got a top club where he could play football week after week.
