Arsenal's First Asian Tour

Arsenal recently confirmed they would visit Indonesia later this year for the first time in 30 odd years. The last two years they have been to Malaysia and China twice as well as Hong Kong.

Their first trip to Asia came in 1968 when they played games in Japan and Malaysia and in the programme for the opening game of the 1968/69 season Bob Wall wrote a few paragraphs about the trip.

As was the club's habit in the years following the Munich air disaster the team took separate flights east, one group flying via Hamburg and Anchorage, the other through Paris and Anchorage.

Arsenal were less impressed with their Japanese opponents, Wall describing them as a good Third Division, but recognised the hard work being put into football even then and talked about their desire to appear at the World Cup one year. They didn't just appear of course. 34 years after Arsenal's visit they co hosted it!

Indeed Wall, recognising the potential, said that 'they will become a force in the world football scene before very many years have passed'.

The first game was against an All Japan XI in Tokyo in front of 50,000 fans, what was a record attendance for football back then. We won 3-1 which was not bad against a Third Division team I guess though Wall commented the pitch was not that good!

The second game was in Fukuoka where the pitch was worse and it rained most of the time. Arsenal won again, this time 1-0, and so they returned to Tokyo for the final game, a sightseeing trip to Kyoto being wiped out by the inclement weather.

Some confusion surrounds the attendance in the second game. Wall says it was around 20,000 while Fred Ollier in the fantastic Arsenal A Complete Record goes for 10,000.

Back in Tokyo and again another record attendance for Japanese football with 70,000 filling the National Stadium and we won 4-0.

Then it was off to Kuala Lumpur for a final game which we won 6-2 against a President's XI which Wall describes as players from 'various different Asian countries'. Substitute David Jenkins scored a 16  minute hat trick in that game.

23/05 All Japan XI 3-1 (Gould, Radford, Neill)
Wilson, Rice, Storey, McLintock, Neill, Simpson, Radford, Court, Graham, Gould, Armstrong
26/05 All Japan XI 1-0 (Simmons)
Wilson (Furnell), Rice, Storey, McLintock (Woodward), Simpson, Court, Radford, Jenkins, Graham (Simmons), Gould, Armstrong
29/05 All Japan XI 4-0 (McLintock, Jenkins, Radford)
Wilson (Furnell), McNab, Storey (Rice (Nelson)), McLintock (Woodward), Neill, Simpson, Radford, Court, Jenkins,Gould (Simmons), Armstrong
02/06 President's XI 6-2 (Jenkins 3, Gould, Court, Simmons)
Furnell, McNab, Storey (Rice), McLintock, Neill, Simpson, Radford, Court, Graham (Simmons), Gould (Jenkins), Armstrong

Check out the line up in the first game. Of those 11 players no less than seven returned to Arsenal at various times in their careers for various jobs!

Today's tours are very different of course with national media following the club and regular updates on line and on Arsenal TV meaning not much gets missed back home. These days fans can be expected to be waiting at the airport to greet their jet lagged heroes, camp outside the hotel (I know one guy who checked into a hotel in KL but spent the night at the same hotel as the players hoping to get Andrei Arsharvin to sign his shirt!) and catch a training session.