Today’s headline comes from 1964
6 November 1899: Woolwich Arsenal 2 New Brompton 2. FA Cup 3rd qualifying round, 2nd replay. The clubs eventually played each other five times before New Brompton won 1-0 in a match at Gravesend.
6 November 1907 Last game for Charlie Satterthwaite the man who scored Arsenal’s first ever league goal. He made 141 appearances for the club of which 129 were in the league, and scored 48 goals (45 in the league).
6 November 1909: After playing 11, winning 2 drawing 1 and losing 8 Arsenal found themselves bottom of the league. The result on this day in the 12th match of the season was Arsenal 0 Bradford City 1. See also here
6 November 1912: With Arsenal chairman Henry Norris having been elected mayor of Fulham for the fourth time the day before, Arsenal reserves tried out various possible first teamers in a game against Peterborough. The result was a 2-2 draw.
6 November 1920: A 2-2 draw with Blackburn (Buckley and McKinnon getting the goals) meant four out of the last five league games had been drawn. 20,000 were in the crowd. Arsenal remained 16th.
6 November 1937: Grimsby 2 Arsenal 1. It was the début for Leslie Jones who scored the Arsenal goal and was the fifth consecutive league game without a win.
6 November 1954: Bolton 2 Arsenal 2. The fourth game in a run of eight without a win, and the début for Jim Fotheringham. Goring and Lishman scored.
6 November 1964: Stewart Robson born. Arsenal was his first club, and he started playing for the first team in 1981 and was player of the year in 1985. He was player of the season in 1988 but later became notorious for his severe criticism of Arsene Wenger on Arsenal TV, from which post he was ultimately removed. As manager of Southend in 2003 he lasted just three games. He was last seen as a co-commentator of Fifa23 video game.
6 November 1965: Arsenal 6 Sheffield U 2. It was the first win in four and came just three weeks after losing 3-5 to Blackpool. Baker, Skirton and Armstrong got two goals each.
6 November 1968: Bob McNab played the first of four games for England. He went on to be part of the double side of 1971 and the Fairs Cup winning team of the previous season.
6 November 1972: Liverpool 3 Arsenal 2 in front of 46,929. After Lawler was booked for the 2nd time in 3 weeks Shankley said “You can tell he’s a bad one… he swore once.. about six years ago”. The assembled media thought it funny.
6 November 1974: John Hollins Testimonial v Chelsea (1-1 draw). As well as his 127 league games for Arsenal he had two stints at Chelsea playing 465 league games for them.
6 November 1976: 4-0 home victory over Birmingham City, Gary Jones being sent off on 37 minutes when he fouled Stapleton in the box. With Ball, the regular penalty taker, not on the pitch Brady and Ross had a row over who was going to take it, and Macdonald nicked the ball from both of them and took the kick. He scored.
6 November 1980: Lionel Smith died (this is also quoted as 8 November in some sources). After leaving Arsenal he moved to Watford,and then became player-manager at Gravesend & Northfleet where he won the 1957-58 Southern League title. He retired from football in 1960.
6 November 1991: Arsenal lost to Benfica in extra time. It proved to be the club’s last appearance in the European Cup until 1998.
6 November 1997. Ray Daniel died. In 1952-3 he played 41 league matches as Arsenal won the league under Tom Whittaker. However he then left for Sunderland after they offered him payments far in excess of the maximum wage that was allowed. Sadly Ray was tempted and succumbed. He never won a trophy again.
6 November 2002: Only 19,059 turned up for Arsenal v Sunderland in the league cup. The figure is a reminder of just how quickly Arsenal moved from being a club which could still play to a half empty ground into a club in which every seat would be sold for every game in a 60,000 capacity stadium. However maybe the crowd did know something in advance: Arsenal lost 2-3.
6 November 2013: Having lost 1-2 at home to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League Arsenal won the return fixture away 1-0.
6 November 2016: Arsenal drew 1-1 with Tottenham. That made it 16 unbeaten, since losing the first match of the season as we lost 3-4 at home to Liverpool. Arsenal finished the season in a disappointing 5th, but did the FA Cup for a record number of times.
6 November 2019: No matter what Arsenal tried it was not working, as a 1-1 draw with unfancied Vitória Guimarães in the Europa League showed. It was the fifth of ten games without a win just over a year after Arsene Wenger had been persuaded to leave before the end of his contract.
