First Competitive European Game

A generation of Arsenal fans have grown up accepting European football as a birthright. Did you know Arsene Wenger has taken us into the Champions League on 16 successive occasions? That's unbelievable and you would think the club would have done more to shout that particular achievement from the rooftops.

Since the Second World War more European teams would come to England to play friendlies and open up a new generation to the way they played the game across the water. The impact of those early games, culminating in Hungary winning 6-3 at Wembley is best explored in Jonathon Wilson's excellent 'Inverting the Pyramid' but suffice to say by the late 1950s continental football was becoming widely accepted and even the stuffy English started to dabble their big toe in that particular pool.

In 1963 Arsenal qualified for the Inter Cities Fairs Cup for the first time and their first opponent was Staevent of Copenhagen ( a select team drawn from teams in the Danish capital). Arsenal won the first leg there 7-1 extending an impressive record in Lego land of 20 games without defeat (W18 D2 L0 F65 A16); a record we couldn't keep going in 2000 unfortunately.

There is an interesting story in the programme for the Staevent game which shows just how things and times have changed. In 1923 3rd Division Swansea Town also went to Copenhagen but the hosts felt their lowly guests would not be good enough. A Danish committee member promised the Swansea players 10 cigarettes each for each goal they could score...Swansea won 8-2 and celebrated no doubt in a sea of nicotene!