Change Your Colours

In recent years Arsenal have taken to playing about with their change shirts. For those of us who grew up and cut our teeth on yellow shirts and blue shirts that is all we knew and we have found it difficult to see colours like blue and white being worn in various seasons.


Thanks to the internet our protests have been long, loud, liked and retweeted and all to no avail.

But spare a thought for Leeds United fans back in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Before Don Revie came along and made them play in all white they wore some kind of yellow and blue kit as this team picture shows from the Arsenal programme in 1957/58.

I wonder how many fans tore up their season tickets in disgust or wrote angry letters to the local paper? Or were there other things to worry about like children listening to Elvis Presley, rationing and national service?!

By the way, that tall, lanky thing standing on the left at the end of the row? Recognise him?

When Israeli Teams Were Frequent Opponents

Back in the 1950s, playing foreign teams was still a novelty and of course Arsenal were at the forefront.

Hapoel Tel Aviv first visited Highbury in the 1951/52 season for example and later came games against South Africa, Anderlecht, Portuguesa De Desportos and Racing Club de Paris in the 1953/54 season.

1954/55 v Grasshoppers, Maccabi Tel Aviv, Spartak, Rangers
1955/56 v Clyde
1956/57 v Red Star CCA Bucharest
1957/58 v Hapoel Tel Aviv, Eintracht Frankfurt (?)
1958/59 v Rangers (postponed), Juventus, Rangers
 1959/60 v Grasshoppers

Oh happy days!

School's Game With Adams, Rocastle, Thomas

The final home game of what was a pretty depressing season all round. We had seen the likes of Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton leave with little in the way of replacements; John Hawley and Ray Hankin puh-leeese.

On 31 October we played Coventry at home. It was our 12th game of the season, we were 17th and had scored just seven goals!

Anyway, fast forward May and we hosted Southampton. Before the game there was a school's match with some interesting names on the team sheet!

John Dickinson

Football was a very different beast back in the early 1980s as this message from the local plod shows.

The message appeared in the programme, on page 16, at the following home game against Liverpool.

Page three had a full page tribute to chairman Denis Hill-Wood who had also died.

Of the 24 pages in the programme, one and a half were given over to death...

Johnny Hoy

To show you how out of the loop I was at the Arsenal I have only just realised the significance of this letter!

It comes from Arsenal v West Ham United in 1982/83 season, a game better known for the smoke bomb and the stabbing of an Arsenal fan after the game.

Indonesia Dream Team v Arsenal 2013

Lion City Cup 2013

 Arsenal sent a young team to compete in the annual Lion City Cup in Singapore.

The programme was a colour A4 affair which soon ran out of stock meaning a second run was needed.

The Arsenal team picture actually comes from a team in the 2111/2012 season!

Arsenal featured in their line up a lad named Faiq Jefri Bolkiah, a Brunei lad related in some way to the Sultan of the country!

Some pictures of Arsenal's game against Eintracht Frankfurt can be seen on Asian Football Pictures