16 May: Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0. FA Cup final.
And so the second double was completed. Without Bergkamp Arsenal played Christopher Wreh as centre forward rather than Ian Wright.
But it could so easily have been otherwise as way back in the third round Arsenal were at home to Port Vale and sent out the team of
Seaman
Grimandi Keown Bould Winterburn
Parlour Vieira Petit Overmars
Anelka Bergkamp
Not much wrong with that team. No taking the FA Cup too lightly eh?
The problem was we drew 0-0 at Highbury. Still the replay would be fine – except that we drew that too, 1-1 in extra time. We won on penalties.
In fact the FA Cup did give us some problems that season. We had another 0-0 at home in the fifth round with Crystal Palace, and against West Ham in the sixth we once again had to go to penalties.
But it all turned out right in the end.
15 May 2016: Tottenham lose and miss St Tots
15 May 2016:
Arsenal sat third and Tottenham second in the league ahead of the final day’s games, with Tottenham needing just one point (at relegated Newcastle) to secure second and end above Arsenal for the first time since 1995.
Despite Newcastle having a man sent off, Tottenham lost 1-5, while Arsenal beat Villa 4-0 to secure second place, and achieve one of the most unlikely St Totteringham’s Day victories ever.
The game was part of a nine match unbeaten run in the League which concluded the season.
14 May 1938: Arsenal players forced to give Nazi salute
On 14 May 1938 England played an international against Germany in Berlin which England won 6-3, Hapgood and Bastin being Arsenal’s players in the game, and Tom Whittaker the trainer. In front of 105,000 people Cliff Bastin volleyed a rebound after Jakob saved a Goulden shot on 16 minutes for the opening goal.
The match is particularly remembered for the fact that Sir Neville Henderson, the British Ambassador in Germany, had advised Stanley Rous, the FA Secretary that the England team should give the Nazi salute for the betterment of Anglo-German relations after it became clear that the German team had been ordered to respect the English national anthem.
The match was attended by Hermann Goering, Rudolf Hess and Joseph Goebbels but not Adolf Hitler, who was expected, but did not attend.
According to reports, in these days the England team, played without any special training sessions. The score was something as a surprise as this was a fairly inexperienced English team with only the Arsenal players in the side having made more than 10 international appearances.
13 May 2018: Arsene Wenger’s last match as manager
Huddersfield Town 0 Arsenal 1. Arsene Wenger’s last match as manager. Arsenal ended the season in sixth, 37 points behind the champions. Particularly concerning was the decline in away form in which only 4 matches were won all season.
Arsene Wenger was Arsenal’s most successful manager of all time in terms of trophies (3 league titles and 7 FA Cups) and in terms of win percentage 57.25%. His nearest rival was Unai Emery who got a win percentage of 55.3% across 78 games – Mr Wenger managed 1235 games.
Wenger’s nearest rival in terms of games overseen was Bertie Mee who managed 539 games but with a win percentage of just 44.71%. Mee won the League, the FA Cup and the Fairs Cup.
Third in the list of most games managed is George Graham who managed 460 games and won the League twice, the FA Cup, the League Cup (twice) and the Cup Winners Cup. His win percentage was 48.91%
12 May 1910: Arsenal discuss merging with Tottenham Hotspur
12 May 1910
On this day Woolwich Arsenal announced that talks with Fulham to rescue the club had come to nothing, and the directors of Woolwich Arsenal FC had opened discussions with Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, to see if their boards wanted to buy all or part of the club.
George Leavey, the major shareholder in Woolwich Arsenal, admitted he did not have enough local people to buy shares, and now had to find others from outside the area to buy, or else put the club into administration.
And so also on this day, the directors of Woolwich Arsenal FC opened discussions with Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea, to see if their boards want to buy all or part of the club.
Tottenham were said to be interested and the deadline for a firm offer was set for May 13th. If there were no sale of the shares by then, the club will resign from the League and be wound up.
It was a real threat. On May 12th we were one day from the end.
11 May 1925: Arsenal advertiser for a new manager
11 May 1925
An advertisement for a new Arsenal manager appeared in Athletics News after the sacking of Leslie Knighton.
The advert ended, Gentlemen whose sole ability to build up a good side depends on the payment of heavy and exhorbitant [sic] transfer fees need not apply.
It appears that Herbert Chapman had already heard that this advertisement was appearing and had had discussions with Henry Norris about the possibility of moving to Arsenal.
Herbert Chapman applied for the job and quickly became the highest spending manager thus far in Arsenal’s history.
Quite why Henry Norris chose to write the advertisement as he did was never revealed, but it was probably because Knighton had been negotiating with Sunderland in secret for the transfer of Charlie Buchan, and had offered Sunderland a far higher fee than Arsenal eventually paid for the player, once Chapman was appointed.
10 May 1941: Arsenal draw in the wartime cup final at Wembley
Preston and Arsenal drew 1-1 in the Football League War Cup Final, at Wembley with 60,000 in the crowd. The match was replayed three weeks later at Ewood Park, Blackburn, when Arsenal lost 2-1.
The competition was held each year from 1939 to 1945, with clubs able to use guest players as well as members of their own squad. All players played as amateurs.
In the nine months leading up to the final in 1941, 127 large-scale night-raids had taken place, with London, the home of the final, being a regular target. This threat did not stop 60,000 people turning up to watch the game.
Preston North End had beatn Bury, Bolton, Tranmere Rovers (12–1), Manchester City and Newcastle (2–0) to reach the final.
After 1942 the competition was played as two regional affairs, with Arsenal beating Charlton in the 1943 Southern Final.
9 May 1891: Arsenal vote to become the first professional team in the south
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.
8 May: the double, the cup, the unbeaten season, and a wartime trophy
8 May 1971, 2002, 2005… and 1922
It turns out that 8 May is quite a jolly day in Arsenal’s history as on 8 May 1971 Arsenal won the Double for the first time, beating Liverpool 2-1 in the FA Cup, in extra time, having secured the League at White Hart Lane five days earlier.
Kelly and George got the goals. It was only the second time Arsenal had played in front of 100,000. You’ll remember Charlie’s goal – it is the one where he lay on the ground waiting for everyone to pick him up.
Then on 8 May 2002 Arsenal not only won the League in Manchester by beating Manchester United but also then became the first team in over 100 years to go unbeaten all season away from home.
This was in fact league match 37 of the 3rd Double season as Arsenal also set a new record for 8 consecutive away wins in Premier League – a record equalled on 28 September 2013… by Arsenal
8 May 2005: Arsenal beat Liverpool 3-1 as part of a 14 match unbeaten run in all competitions up to the end of the season which concluded with another FA Cup triumph. The run also included a 12 match unbeaten run in the league.
But let’s not forget an earlier, if smaller triumph
On 8 May 1922 Arsenal beat Crystal Palace 1-0 in the London Challenge Cup final having beaten Barking, QPR and Tottenham in earlier rounds.
Now you will be forgiven for not knowing about this competition. For this was a competition that Woolwich Arsenal FC entered from 1908/9 season (when the competition was first formed) on to 1974 when it was wound up following competition from the League Cup.
In its early years the competition ran through four rounds with the semi-final and final being played on neutral grounds. This changed in 1933 when all rounds were played on the ground of one of the participating teams (the home team being the first drawn from the hat, as in the conventional style).
From the start, the competition attracted both Football League and Southern League teams plus leading amateur teams – Arsenal for example playing Bromley in 1909 and Tufnell Park in 1914.
There was an unofficial change in the early 1930s when the first division clubs moved over to playing their reserve teams. This change was similar to that which Arsène Wenger introduced with the League Cup many years later – the selection of the players was entirely a matter for the clubs and not a formal matter of policy by the London FA who organised the competition.
However change was afoot, and by 1966/7 it was compulsory for all league clubs to enter the Football League Cup (until that date some clubs, including Arsenal, refusing to take part). The London Challenge Cup was thus of even less significance than before, and it finally ceased with the 1973/4 competition.
It was revived in 1990 for non-league teams, before being discontinued once again ten years later.
Arsenal’s first ever match in the competition was on September 28 1908 –a 1-0 away victory over Fulham. The club’s final match was on November 12 1973 in the semi-final, played away to Tottenham in which Arsenal lost 0-3. The team on that final occasion is worth recording as it includes a few famous names:
Barnett, Rixon, Nelson, Powling, Tones, Matthews, Chambers, Hornsby, Ritchie, Price, Brady.
Arsenal reached the final on 16 occasions, winning the competition eleven times.
7 May 2006: the last match at Highbury and the battle for fourth
The anniversary of the last match at Highbury might just be remembered as saying farewell to the old ground. But it was much more than that, as Arsenal and Tottenham went into the match with either of the clubs able to claim the fourth qualifying spot for next season’s Champions League.
It didn’t go according to plan at first as Tottenham were reported to be winning, while Arsenal went 1-2 down to Wigan.
But in the end it all came good as Arsenal beat Wigan 4-2 with a Henry hattrick, and an appearance for the final time in a league game, of Dennis Bergkamp, who retired after this match.
The result meant that the last team to beat Arsenal at Highbury was West Ham of all clubs, on 1 February 2006.
And that is curious because on this final day it was West Ham who beat Tottenham to destroy their dream of making it into the Champions League. Tottenham only won one of their last four, and ended up two points behind Arsenal and with a massively inferior goal difference. https://youtu.be/nPU2ouZFcVM
