Sir Henry Norris. Depending on which team you support, Sir Henry was either Arsenal’s saviour or the scourge of Tottenham. Even to some Arsenal fans he is thought of as a villain. Many of the negative stories about Sir Henry have been shown to have been exaggerated or even fabricated. However, one fact that cannot be ignored is that he was banned from the game for life by the Football Association for a number of financial indiscretions.
As we at The Arsenal History have discovered over the last few years, there is a major discrepancy in the facts of this story. Read More →
In the 1930’s Arsenal won the league three times in a row: 1932-33, 1933-34 and 1934-35.
The first two of these triumphs were gained at the home of Chelsea, Stamford Bridge. The third and final triumph was also won away, at the home of Middlesbrough.
Alex James leads out the team in 1934-35
In the 1930s Arsenal won the Football League five times.
Three of these wins were consecutive: 1932-33, 1933-34 and 1934-35.
This was in addition to the 1930-31 and 1937-38 triumphs.
Two of these triple triumphs were gained at the home of Chelsea, Stamford Bridge in 1933 and 1934!
In the 1930’s Arsenal won the League five times: 1930-31, 1932-33, 1933-34, 1934-35 and 1937-38.
Two of these triumphs were gained at home. This one, the first, was against Liverpool
Team photo taken just prior to the next season with League Championship Trophy – Arsenal Museum Archive
Leslie Knighton (Arsenal manager 1919-1925), in what turned out to be his final season at Arsenal, tried to give his charges an extra pep in the shape of doped pills for the FA Cup tie against West Ham United in January 1925.
He admitted to this action 23 years later in his entertaining autobiography “Behind the Scenes in Big Football”, and of interest to us is the chapter “I Dope Arsenal For A Cup Tie” as it refers to these series of matches against the East Londoners.
Frank Boulton puts paid to Herbie Roberts’ season and Arsenal’s slim title challenge in just three punches during a League game against West Brom.
Frank Boulton: The Arsenal goalkeeper 1936-1938
In an unprecedented series of events he managed to not only hospitalise Roberts, but knock out Hapgood and hit Crayston.
After Andy was asked by the Official Arsenal Magazine to argue for the greatest manager – Herbert Chapman – I was requested to give my thoughts on the Greatest Arsenal Goalkeeper in the April 2016 issue.
Now, a definition of “greatest” doesn’t necessarily refer to the best player, it can also mean someone who has done great things. Which was why I chose our first goalkeeper after World War 1 owing to his work with servicemen blinded during the war.
The predictable path would have been to pick a modern goalkeeper like Seaman, Wilson, Rimmer, Lukic or Jennings but that has been covered many times over in official and unofficial publications and websites.
Ernie Williamson saves from a blind player’s spot kick. Photo courtesy of the Blind Veterans UK – Rob Baker.
EC Williamson showed the human side of the Arsenal in a period where the country was in recovery from a great upheaval and one of effective torpor for the club.
Part two of this look at Arsenal ownership examines the time since Stan Kroenke came on the scene.
For part one see here.
Again this is jointly written with Phil Wall whose excellent blog can be viewed here.
2007
It’s well-known that Stan Kroenke was introduced to Arsenal by David Dein, whose thinking was that Kroenke’s money could help Arsenal compete with the newly rich Chelsea, who were benefitting from Roman Abramovich’s billions. It is understood that Dein brokered the deal between Granada and Kroenke, with the view that Kroenke could take over the club and make cash available to cover Arsenal through the potentially tricky period between building the new stadium and finishing the redevelopment of Highbury and other sites linked to the property deals. Bear in mind that this was still before the financial crisis, and the club expected to easily make eight-figure profits from the property development. Kroenke bought Granada Media’s 6,216 shares (9.99%) and by the end of May 2007 he held 7,584 (12.2%). He’d bought 659 of these from Danny Fiszman, who’d decided to round his holding down to exactly 15,000 shares. It’s believed that Fiszman didn’t realise at the time he was selling to Kroenke and was not pleased about it.
At this stage Kroenke was still not welcomed by the rest of the Arsenal Board, who considered Dein had gone behind their backs. This was one reason for a falling-out between old friends Dein and Fiszman. As a result Dein was dismissed from the Board of directors in April 2007. Read More →
Ownership of Arsenal football club is an ongoing story, as disquiet has grown among fans about the direction of the club under Stan Kroenke. Is Kroenke a good or bad owner? Would Alisher Usmanov be better? How did the two of them come to own 97% of Arsenal between them? How did they get involved and where did they get their shares from? We’ll try and explain.
To produce the definitive story we asked Phil Wall if he would collaborate with us. We can highly recommend Phil’s blog which has a number of articles about Kroenke, Usmanov and Arsenal ownership.
