Arsenal Anniversaries: Chapman was not always a transfer genius
You may have noticed the article Untold Arsenal is here -for the moment, dancing with Arteta appearing on this site, due to a technical problem with Untold Arsenal. That’s now been fixed and the article in question appears on Untold, and will shortly vanish from here (unless it has already done so).
So, now we can return to thoughts of Arsenal anniversaries.
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Arsenal transfers are often criticised – I particularly remember criticism on Untold Arsenal from correspondents on how Arteta wasted the club’s entire budget on the failure that was Havertz. Even Henry was criticised when he first arrived for being a centre forward playing on the wing.
But the fact is that all managers make mistakes in the transfer market, and Herbert Chapman was no different – as the signing of Billy Warnes on this day in 1929 shows.
Here are the anniversaries for today
29 June 1900: Loughborough FC, the team against whom Arsenal had their largest league victory, finally folded. They had been in serious financial difficulty for some time and Arsenal had paid their train fares so they could complete their final visit to Plumstead. The town gained a new team in 1955 – Loughborough Dynamos now in the Northern Premier League.
29 June 1914: The international exhibition opened at the “White City”. It closed on the declaration of war and the site was used as an armaments depot.
29 June 1923: Ernest Williamson was granted a free transfer to Norwich after over 100 games in goal. He played for Norwich for two seasons, before retiring from football in 1925 after which we lose sight of him completely
29 June 1929: Billy Warnes, one of the “Walsall Experiment” players in Herbert Chapman’s last ever FA Cup match, was signed. The FA Cup match against Walsall was his only first team game for the club. See also here
29 June 1971: Don Howe left Arsenal having helped guide the club to the Double as first team coach. He moved on to WBA where he stayed until 1975 before a year at Galatasaray SK after which he returned to Arsenal as manager.
29 June 1982: Kenny Sansom and Graham Rix – two players who had troubled times in later life – played for England against West Germany in a goalless draw in the world cup.
29 June 1998: Dennis Bergkamp scored in the Netherland’s 2-1 world cup win over Yugoslavia in France. Mark Overmars was also in the team.
29 June 2003: Thierry Henry scored in the 97th minute with the golden goal that gave victory over Cameroon in the Confederations Cup Final.
29 June 2015: After much expectation, Arsenal purchased Petr Cech from Chelsea for around £10m. It was reported that the Chelsea manager Mourinho was particularly unhappy about the sale. Cech returned to Chelsea as a coach in 2019.
Now on Untold Arsenal….