Arsenal Football Club History

RvP was an absolute god in this game. Also has John Terry slipping :joy:

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While looking at some Footballing record stuff, I came across a competition we’d won, that I’d not heard of previously, that also no one else can ever claim, the Mercantile Credit Centenary Trophy! :wenger:

Apparently, it was a competition held in 1988, as part of the celebrations, regards to 100 years since the creation of the Football League. The top 8 teams from the previous season were invited to take part in this one off competition.

It seems it didn’t exactly pull a big crowd, but we made it through to the final, and beat Man Utd 2-1, on October 9th 1988!

Maybe some of our older Gooners can shed some light on this competition, their memories of it :smiley:

An interesting article about it was written by the Guardian last year. Apparently we don’t even acknowledge this competition in our honours list :joy:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cti4U-jW8AAW6Q7.jpg

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Remember that. We also won something against Rangers at Ibrox one time. Like an anglo scottish charity shield.
Sign of the times though that we pretty much fielded our first team and then compare the sides we put out now in most cup ties.

Correct me if I’m wrong but competitions like this were a pretty handy source of funds for clubs back in the day before the TV deals made them obselete.

I still remember Everton getting hammered in the Zenith Data Systems cup final by Palace one year. The game was on sky one, it might have been among the first games sky actually showed.

Interesting that you bring that up, Stroller. Somewhere in the cobwebs of my mind I thought we used to play Rangers in an annual friendly, and the Spuds had a similar arrangement with Celtic. This would’ve been back in the 60’s-ish. I could be wildly wrong here, though.

For winning that competition in 1988, earned us £50,000 in prize money. There’s also some highlight footage of that final match floating around on YouTube which is quite fun to watch. The final took place at Villa Park.

@giner You’re probably right about Rangers. Didn’t we used to have some sort of partnership with them, all to do with shares or them loaning us money? Swear there was a story not long ago that some of these had to be sold or were lost when Rangers ran into Administration.

It’s quite fun when you check up on some other completely obscure competitons we’ve won. For example, we won the City of Edinburgh Cup in 1941. The Northampton Hospital Charity Shield in 1930, 1931, 1932. Which I assume was organised by Herbert Chapman considering his links to both clubs. There’s even one called “Mayor of Colchester’s Cup” we won in 1939 @Phoebica :smiley:

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Great goal by the lesbian

Fuck I was in my early 20s when this happened, where the fuck does time go ?

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One of the saddest moments in my time following Arsenal. Not only might his injury have cost us a title, but it also forced Niklas Bendtner on us the following season.

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So wrong but so right :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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On this day in 2012,

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On this day in 2017,

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Giroud already playing for us :giroud:

I was so angry after this result haha. How we lost this I’ll still never know.

The last NLD I was at. Hoping for the same result when I attend next week.

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Oh how I would love a 3-0 win next Sunday :heart_eyes: