Football History

It would be wrong to think that large crowds in football are a modern phenomena.

Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge was opened in 1905, and although the terraces started crumbling within a matter of weeks, it was proudly proclaimed as holding 80,000.  Mind you it was built by Archie Leitch, who was always prone to such exaggeration.

Manchester United’s [...]

Arsenal’s darkest hour indeed.  For in tracing the history of Arsenal FC 100 years ago we are now at the lowest point.

Of course from this moment in history we know that Arsenal very much did survive, although not without a relegation first.  But 100 years ago to the day, there was no certainty in that.

In [...]

Arsenal had no game this weekend because they had been knocked out of the cup.  The match they should have played was moved to the monday (no hanging about for re-arranged fixture organisation or permission from the police 100 years back).

Meanwhile Henry Norris had gone cool on the issue of Woolwich Arsenal, and predicted in [...]

Quite how mid-week games were organised 100 years ago has always been beyond me.

March 2nd 1910 was a Wednesday and Woolwich Arsenal were away at Forest.  This being long before the era of floodlighting the match kicked off in the afternoon – probably 2.30pm although I can find no formal record of that.

Forest were 13th [...]

Towards the end of February 100 years ago the word began to go around that despite all their problems Woolwich Arsenal did indeed have at least one terrific young player.

He was 17 years old and playing in the reserves.  There is a report of a match between the Reserves and Croydon Common in the London [...]

There is a widespread view that the reason that Arsenal in modern times suffers so many terrible injuries to its players is because the word has got around that the best way to beat Arsenal is to kick them.

Of course many of the people who advocate this approach in the media don’t actually say it [...]

The disaster that was February 1910 concluded with three games and three defeats, one goal scored, eight let in.  Two league defeats and Woolwich Arsenal were out of the FA Cup as well.

The result was Woolwich Arsenal 1 Sunderland 2, the crowd a mere 8000.  Once again the forward line were awful, and our only [...]

The opening of Manchester United’s new ground was one of the big footballing stories of not just February 1910, but the whole of 1910.

In the novel “Making the Arsenal” Jacko Jones is sent to Manchester with his photographer Edward Buckingham, to cover the first game there.  Jacko has already started to ask questions about the [...]

One of the themes in the book Making the Arsenal is that 100 years ago journalists could write and entertain, even with the most mundane subjects.   In fact the first page of the story is football match report from 1910 in which the author thinks the game is so terrible, he wanders off into other [...]

Alf Common was mentioned in the last piece – the prelude to the Sunderland game.  Here’s the full story on one of the men who helped stave off relegation for Woolwich Arsenal.

Alf Common played for South Hylton and Jarrow before joining Sunderland in 1900.   He got a runners up medal in 1901 and then [...]

February 19th 1910 was third round of the Cup day, and with Arsenal having been knocked out by Everton in the Second Round, they had no match. But in the fixture list of the time there were games scheduled, and where both clubs were already out of the cup those games went ahead. [...]

While this web site does focus primarily on Arsenal and the football world 100 years ago, we do meander a bit to take in other eras – and in this case I am rushing forward 17 years from our regular 1910 haunt.

Eddie Hapgood was a milkman who was signed by Herbert Chapman from the second [...]

Woolwich Arsenal had no match on February 19th 1910, this being designated Third Round day for the FA Cup.

Arsenal had beaten Watford in round one, and lost to Everton in round 2, and that was that.

By the third round there were 16 clubs left, and all were played on the same day.  No TV interruption [...]

Thanks to Andy Kelly we now have information about Arsenal Reserves in the early years.

A new article has appeared on Wikipedia, and this has allowed me to cross reference with other sources, and we seem to have a more clear idea of what happened to the reserves in the early years.

Wiki says that Arsenal Reserves [...]

First, Jacko Jones’ review of Arsenal against Blackburn 100 years ago where the writer states that he watched from a hot air balloon….

Woolwich Arsenal met with Blackburn Rovers in the Football League Division I on Saturday,    It was too cold for standing on the terraces, with a fierce wind blowing across the pitch so the [...]

Read any of the basic football history books and you will find that Arsenal moved to Highbury because the crowds at Plumstead were too small.

As far as it goes, that’s true, but in reality that simple statement doesn’t go very far.

There are two separate issues…

a) Why did we move at all?
b) Why did we move [...]

February 12th 1910. Woolwich Arsenal 0, Blackburn Rovers 1.  Attendance 7,500

It wasn’t just the defeat, it was the awfully low crowd.   With the club heading for administration, and no one other than Henry Norris flitting around the scene, survival as a club looked even more unlikely than survival in the First Division.

After this game, the [...]

And thus and so, 100 years ago, we prepare for Blackburn Rovers at home: 12th February 1910.

Leading up to this match Blackburn were 5th on 30 points (two for a win of course) while Woolwich Arsenal were 16th on 18 points.   Blackburn had been top for a while, and despite the slip of late were [...]

The future is just the past with a different sombrero

“What do you know about the history of football?” I asked Billy the Dog McGraw with some nervousness when he announced that he intended to contribute to the “Making the Arsenal” blog rather than the contemporary “Untold Arsenal” where he usually resides.

“The club was formed in [...]

Apart from focusing on football one hundred years ago, this site looks back on the major events in history surrounding clubs we are about to play in the present day.

So this obviously is the moment to take a peek at the history of the infamous Reds and one of their misadventures.

On 2nd April, 1915, (Good [...]