Footysphere
Against Modern Football
English Football Clubs - Caricatures of club legends
A bit of a quiz for you all. In what order are the football clubs listed? Answers in the comments section below please. Good luck.
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125 Years of Arsenal
To celebrate the club’s 125th anniversary here’s a shot of their old ground Highbury and football cards showing caricatures of the great Arsenal players Thierry Henry, David Seaman & Emmanuel Petite.
Arsenal 125 Years in the Making: The Official Illustrated History 1886-2011
On this day, the 26th October, in 1955, two simultaneous floodlit firsts took place, the first time in British football history that two such games had been played on the same day. So perhaps it’s fitting given my fascination with floodlit football that we recap a few floodlit firsts of British football.
Vintage Stadium Porn
Wonderful shots of old football grounds. From top to bottom left to right ..
Be sure to check out ..
13/02/99. FA Cup 5th round. Arsenal won 2-1. Att: 38020.
One of the most controversial FA Cup ties of all-time. Roared on by 6000 fans the Blades fancied themselves for a bit of an upset in this game. Arsenal went in at half-time with a one goal lead courtesy of Patrick Viera. The Blades equalised through Marcelo after an hour and only a few minutes later the same player nearly snatched the lead when he hit the post. Things were hotting up and the Blades had the Gunners rattled. Then it all kicked off.
There’s a some beautiful old football footage on the Imperial War Museum website. Three clips are available. The first is silent footage of an Arsenal v Chelsea game in 1917 whilst the second is a newsreel item on women’s football in 1918.
The third clip is of a wartime international played between England and Scotland at Wembley Stadium in 1944. Eighty thousand including the King, Queen and Princess Elizabeth turned out to watch the game. The commentator announced in his clipped tones ..
”.. most of the Londoners here at Wembley Stadium had spent a stormy night with the Luftwaffe; but it would take more than a few hundred nazi bombers to keep a Londoner from the big match ..”
then went on to say ..
” .. the noise made by London’s anti-aircraft guns the night before was nothing compared to the hullabaloo that went up when England scored ..”
as England ran out 6-2 winners. The England scorers were Jimmy Hagan (2), Horatio Carter, Tommy Lawton, Joe Mercer and an own goal by Macaulay. Jock Dodds scored the two Scotland goals.
Hagan, Carter & Lawton were the three outstanding English goalscorers in the wartime period. Sheffield United’s Hagan netted thirteen times in sixteen appearances, Carter of Sunderland hit eighteen in seventeen games and Chelsea legend Tommy Lawton managed a magnificent twenty-four goals in twenty-three wartime appearances for England.
Blades v Gunners FA Cup 1978 - My first visit to BDTBL
I’d been pestering my dad to take to me to the Lane for ages and finally he relented. The game we picked was the home FA Cup tie against Arsenal in January of 1978. The Blades were in the old second division whilst Arsenal were of course in the top flight. The game was the last of what had been a very hectic christmas and new year programme of football.
Utd had beaten Leyton Orient 2-0 at home on Boxing Day. The day after they visited Luton Town and got tonked 4-0. They were back in action on New Years Eve away at Hull City and won 3-2. Two days later on the 2nd January Spurs came to Bramall Lane and played out a 2-2 draw. The cup tie against Arsenal was played the day after on the 3rd.
Arsenal had the same packed festive programme. On Boxing Day they beat Chelsea 3-0 at home and the following day won 3-1 at West Brom. New Years Eve saw them travel to Everton where they lost 2-0 but they got back to winning ways on the 2nd January with a 1-0 home win over Ipswich Town. So that was five games in nine days. This was normal back then. Can you imagine today’s pampered professionals putting up with such a gruelling schedule of games? Not likely!
Anyhow back to the cup tie. I was very excited as you’d imagine. My memories of the day are a bit hazy but a few things stand out really clearly. We stood on the Kop and after going through one of the turnstiles on John Street made our way up the steps towards the back of the Kop. I kept getting a tantalising glimpse of a football pitch to my left as we made our way up the steps. At the top I could see it in all it’s glory and soon found a spot against the wire fence to watch the game.
Only trouble was I was looking down on the old practice pitches which were behind the Kop on Shoreham Street which in my boyish enthusiasm I’d mistaken for the real mccoy. My dad and his mate soon put me right and off we went to take our place on the Kop.
I wasn’t at all prepared for the sights and sounds that greeted me as we went through the gangway entrance onto the top of the Kop. The thing I remember most clearly is the pitch, I’d never seen owt like it. The greenest lushest most beautiful grass in the World. It looked like a carpet and was green like no other green I’d ever seen before. Then there was all the people. I thought there’d been a lot stood on the steps and gangways to the rear of the Kop but my god here were thousands upon thousands of folk all crammed together. I’d never seen so many people in one place, all making the loudest din I’d ever heard too. I could barely hear myself speak.
We made our way down the gangway to the front. As a young lad there was no way I would’ve been able to see the game from somewhere in the middle of that heaving swaying mass of bodies. A spot was found for me at the very front of the Kop against the small white fence that ran a round the pitch. I crammed up against it, with my silk scarf tied around my wrist and I looked around in wonder and awe at the sight that greeted my eyes. At this magnificent football ground packed to the rafters with 32000 people. I looked across at the away end and can still see it now. Someone had made a big cardboard replica of the FA Cup. It was either painted silver or covered in tin foil for as it was held aloft, dancing above the heads of the Arsenal dans it glittered and gleamed in the cold January sunshine.
As for the game itself I can’t remember bugger all. It was a blur. I think I spent most of the time gawping at the crowd and really didn’t have a clue what was going off on the pitch. Except that the Arsenal fans kept cheering very loudly. Five times they cheered as their team trounced the Blades 5-0. I didn’t care though this was amazing being here in this place. I was hooked, a blade for life had been made.
Arsenal went on to reach the Cup final of 1978 where they lost 1-0 to Ipswich Town. Roger Osborne lashing in the winner from inside the penalty area. He prompty fainted, overcome with emotion and had to be brought round with smelling salts before being substituted.
As for the Blades they had a strange old season. This 5-0 home loss to Arsenal was the first of a three game run in which they conceded five goals each time. There was a 5-1 home defeat by Bolton and a 5-0 thrashing away at Sunderland. Yet the Blades home record was as good as anyone in the division but away from home it was a different story. Conceding 51 goals away from Bramall Lane this was amongst the worst in the entire football league that season. Only four clubs in all four divisions conceded more.The Blades only won three away from home all season yet this included a 6-1 win at Cardiff. I only hope it’s a similar scoreline this Sunday for our opening championship fixture of this season.
May 2002 - Arsene Wenger reacts to Sir Alex Ferguson’s comments that Manchester United were the “better team” despite Arsenal winning the double.
Robin Hackett: Quotes of the decade - Review of the Decade - ESPN Soccernet
The fifties were something of a golden era for Rotherham United. They were a second level club and in 1954/55 came so very very close to winning promotion to the top flight. They finished in 3rd place level on points with Birmingham and Luton in 1st and 2nd but missed out on goal average 0.1916 behind the runners up.
Their cup run of 59/60 was something of a marathon. Drawn against Arsenal in the 3rd round they held the 1st division club to a 2-2 draw at Millmoor after being 2-0 down with 20 mins to go. The replay at Highbury finished 1-1 AET and Rotherham won the toss in the Highbury boardroom after the game to bring the 2nd replay to Hillsborough. If Arsenal had won the toss the game would’ve been played at White Hart Lane. The Millers won the 2nd replay 2-0 to advance to the 4th round & a meeting with Brighton & HA. Again they played 3 games with BHA winning the 2nd replay 6-0.
Herbert Chapman, Arsenal manager & visionary, 1933
The Southern Professional Floodlit Cup is a defunct English football competition played for in the late fifties from 55/56 to 59/60 and was a knock-out trophy that served as a pre-cursor to the Football League Cup. It was mainly played for by clubs from London and the South. The most northerly club to enter the competition was Leicester City in the 59/60 season whilst their near neighbours Coventry City had been the first Midlands club to take part the season before.
In the five seasons it ran a total of nineteen clubs featured: Aldershot, Arsenal, Brentford, Charlton Athletic, Chelsea, Coventry City, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Leicester City, Luton Town, Millwall, Orient, Portsmouth, QPR, Reading, Southampton, Southend Utd, Watford, West Ham Utd.
Six of these clubs, Palace, Millwall, Orient, QPR, Watford & West Ham took part every season. Each season saw a different winner with the inaugural winners being West Ham followed by Luton, Portsmouth, Arsenal, with Coventry winning the last tournament in 59/60.
West Ham & Reading are the only clubs to appear in two finals with West Ham winning one & losing one. Reading were runners-up both times they were in the final. Previous winners Luton & Arsenal also have two losing semi-final appearances each and along with the Hammers & Reading share most semi-final appearances with three each. Brentford played in the semis twice and both times failed to reach the final.
This is a programme cover from a 57/58 1st round game between Brentford & Arsenal which the home side won 4-1.
Arsenal v Hapoel Tel Aviv 1951: Floodlit Friendly
Programme cover from Arsenal v Hapoel Tel Aviv Sept 1951. Arsenal were the first English top flight club to install floodlights and this was the first major fixture to be held at Highbury under floodlights. Arsenal won 6-1.
Arsenal finished the 51/52 season as FA Cup runners-up and had to settle for 3rd place in the First Division. Pipped to 2nd by North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur on goal average. Hapoel Tel Aviv competed in the the inaugural edition of the Liga Alef and finished in 5th place.
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