21st of November – On This Day, first in a series (of one probably)…
Alan ‘Smudger’ Smith was born in 1962. He is most famous for scoring the first goal in our iconic league title winning victory in 1989 and would go on to score another 114 less important goals for Arsenal.
He also played for Leicester and is now a pundit for Sky Sports and the voice of FIFA15. Not many people know this, but he got his nickname from his schooldays where he used to be left-handed and used an inkpen, while wearing a big long-sleeved jumper.
21st of November 1970 marked a vital win on the road, Ipswich Town 0 Arsenal 1, with Geordie Armstrong getting the only goal of the game in front of nearly 23,000 fans. This was league match 18 of our first Double season, and we were now just four points behind Leeds with a game in hand.
In 1992, we lost 3-0 to Leeds as Alan Miller became the first ever Arsenal goalkeeping sub, and in 2001, more Arsenal trademark goalkeeping mishaps as multi-millionaire keeper Richard Wright punched the ball into his own net (and ours) as we lost 2-1 to Deportivo in the Champions League (whatever that is?).
In 2008, William Gallas was dropped by Arsene Wenger for criticising his team mates, despite being a bit rubbish himself.
We went on to lose 3-0 away to Man City before they were even any good, Manuel Almunia was our Captain that day, which concludes our very first ‘On This Day – Goalkeepers Edition’.