Arsenal 125 - Jack Lambert and Niccolo Galli

This piece is dedicated to Peter "Cu" Dorney, lifelong Gooner, died of cancer 29th October 2010, RIP.


In my last piece I looked at Arsenal players who died tragically while at the club.  However, I missed out these two equally tragic stories.

Thanks to all who read my last piece and I hope you enjoy reading about these two unsung heroes.

In January 1925 the Arsenal manager, Leslie Knighton, signed centre forward Jack Lambert from Doncaster Rovers for the substantial fee of £2,000.  Lambert was not exactly prolific at Doncaster, but Knighton saw something in the tall, powerful striker and intended to use him as an impact, squad player.

Jack Lambert did not have the most auspicious of starts to his Arsenal career, and failed to break in to the first team until the start of the 1926 season, eventually scoring just one goal in 16 appearances.

Over the next two seasons he played just 22 games with a return of 4 goals and suffered from a profound lack of confidence, saying at the time that

                “..Even the thought of setting foot on the pitch, fills me with dread”

Regularly booed and harangued by the Highbury faithful, he decided to quit the game altogether, but thankfully Herbert Chapman talked him round, insisting he had a major role to play at the club.  Booing our own players, thank God we’ve moved on from those dark days, eh?

Football is a game of millimetres, with every spectacular goal just a heartbeat away from a spectacular miss.  Buoyed by Chapman’s faith, and a developing understanding with Arsenals play maker Alex James, Lambert got his ‘mojo’ back.

Although Arsenal only finished 14^th in the 1929/30 season, Lambert scored 18 goals in 22 appearances, including 3 hat-tricks.

Arsenal went on to lift the FA Cup with Lambert scoring a goal, in the 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town, in the final.

We went on to win our first ever League title the following season, losing just 4 games and amassing a record 66 points.  Lambert was in unstoppable form scoring 38 goals including seven hat-tricks, two against Middlesbrough.

The ’31-‘32 season saw Arsenal miss out on back to back titles by just 2 points, Lambert scored 22 goals including a hat-trick in a 6-0 victory over Liverpool.

We regained the title the following season, but Lambert had fallen out of favour.  Limited to just 12 appearances he still managed to score 14 goals, hitting 5 in a 9-2 demolition of Sheffield Wednesday.

He was sold, to Fulham, in October of the same year.

He went on to coach Margate, and in 1938 returned to Arsenal as full time coach of Arsenal reserves.

On the 17^th December 1940 he was tragically killed in a car crash in Enfield, North London.

With 109 goals from 161 appearances he is Arsenals 13^th highest ever goal scorer.  RIP.

Niccolo Galli was the son of Italian international goalkeeper Giovanni Galli.  Galli senior was a Fiorentina legend, making 259 appearances for ‘La Viola’ before going on to play for Milan, Napoli, Torino, Parma and Lucchese.

Young Niccolo began his football career at Torino aged 10, but soon his father was on the road again, this time to Parma where Niccolo once again took to the field for his father’s club.

The family eventually returned to Florence in 1995 and, for the first time in his life, Niccolo started to have a bit of stability.  There, began a steady progression in his football, which saw him being capped for Italy in the qualifying rounds for the under 16 European championship.  These performances caught the eye of the Arsenal scouting machine, and Liam Brady persuaded the club to sign him up.

Tall for his age, at 6’ 2”, and described by Brady as “ an intelligent and skill full defender” he established himself as a regular in the Arsenal youth team playing alongside Rohan Ricketts, Steve Sidwell, Jay Boothroyd and Jeremie Aliadiere, part of the team that went on to win the FA Youth cup in 2000 defeating Coventry City in the final.  In this period he was also capped 8 times for Italy at under 17 and under 18 level, scoring 3 goals.

Niccolo had known nothing but football for all his young life, and he longed for the life of an ordinary teenager.  Football had given him everything, but in return had taken everything from him.  Arsenal, reluctantly, allowed him to return to Italy to finish his education, and in August 2000 he was loaned to Bologna.  He was too good for the luxury of a normal life and on the 1^st of October 2000 he made his Serie A debut aged 17.

On the 10^th of February, 3 months from his 18^th birthday, he was killed in a motorbike accident in Bologna.

Niccolo was held in such high regard in Bologna that the club retired his number 27 shirt, they also gave his name to their training ground.

“I have no doubt in my mind that had he lived, he would have been Captain of Arsenal, and of Italy”

Arsene Wenger.

Arsenal 125 - Lest We Forget.

This post is dedicated to my brother-in-law Tim Spillane, a life long Gooner he died from cancer on the 14th of June 2003 aged 38.  RIP.

      "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly                  falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living.....and the dead."

                                                                                                                             James Joyce 1905.

On this the 125^th anniversary of the founding of our club, there will invariably be tales told of glory, against the odds victories and painful defeats.  We will sing the praises of Brady, Wright, Bergkamp and Henry.  We will remember Anfield ’89, winning the title at Old Trafford and the Lane, the crushing Champions League defeat of 2006, but I urge you to take a minute to remember some unsung heroes.  Giants of the red and white who wore the cannon with pride, lost to the whims of memory, forgotten by history, but forever woven in to the fabric of the club.  Forever Arsenal.

In 1892 Woolwich Arsenal were pariahs.  A professional team in an era of amateurs blocked from league football and limited to the FA Cup and the odd friendly match.  In one of these friendlies, Arsenal played the Army team of the South Stafford regiment.  One player stood out, a young right back called Joseph Powell.  The Arsenal management bought him out of his Army contract and signed him to professional terms.  We were allowed into the league the following season and Powell became our first ever Captain in a game against Newcastle Utd in September 1893.  Described as a “strong and purposeful right back” he was a stalwart in the Arsenal team scoring his only goal in a 5-0 victory against Loughborough Town in 1896.

On the 23^rd of November 1896, in a game against Kettering Town, Powell tried to acrobatically clear a ball at head height when he became entangled with another player, falling heavily and breaking his arm.  The injury was reportedly so horrific that the first player to go to his assistance promptly fainted at the sight of the protruding bone.  Powell subsequently developed septicaemia and, despite having the arm amputated, died a week later.  He was 26.

The First World War machine treated Arsenal no less kindly than any of the youth of England, methodically chewing them up and spitting them out.  Arsenal men like James Maxwell, outside right, killed in action in 1915, and right half Spencer Bassett killed on the Western Front in 1917.

The Arsenal goalkeeper in the 1910/1911 season, Welshman Leigh Roose, received the Military Medal fighting at the Somme where “he threw bombs until his arms gave out, and then, joining the covering party, used his rifle to great effect”.  On October 7^th 1916 at Guadecort, Arsenal forward Gordon Hoove witnessed Roose “charge at the enemy lines firing his gun rapidly”.  Roose’s body was never found.

Equally tragic is the story of Arsenal left back Robert Benson.  Signed from Sheffield United in 1913 this dour ex-coalminer went on to become a regular in the first team.  Weighing 14 stone and possessing a ferocious shot he had a reputation as the “terror of opposing forwards”.  He had a unique style of penalty taking where he would run nearly the full length of the pitch before unleashing an unstoppable shot towards goal.  Benson quit football at the outbreak of war and took up a job as a munitions worker.  On a visit to Highbury for a friendly game against Reading he was asked to fill in at right back.  Patently unfit he had to leave the game complaining of feeling unwell.  He collapsed in the dressing room and died in the arms of the Arsenal trainer, George Hardy.  He was buried in his Arsenal shirt.

Tragedy was not reserved for just the Arsenal players.  The legendary Arsenal manager and great innovator Herbert Chapman, was a meticulous student of the game, and regularly watched other teams play.  On New Year’s Day 1934 he was on a scouting mission at Notts County when he developed a cold.  Next day he watched Sheffield Wednesday against Birmingham, and then against his doctors orders went to watch Arsenal’s 3^rd team play.  He grudgingly took to his bed and died of pneumonia 3 days later.  He was buried in Hendon on January 10^th 1934.

Arsenals first casualty of the 2^nd World War was Highbury itself.  Requisitioned by the War Office, it was used first as a first aid training station and later as ARP head quarters for London.  The North Bank suffered severe bomb damage during the blitz.  26 people were killed on the 27^th of June 1944 when a V1 ‘Flying Bomb’ destroyed Highbury Corner.

Bill Dean was an Arsenal supporter and fulfilled his lifelong ambition when signed as a goalkeeper in 1940.  He joined the Royal Navy and served on board the light cruiser HMS Naiad predominantly in the Mediterranean.  In March 1942 they received information that an Italian cruiser was badly damaged off the coast of Crete.  The Naiad rushed to that location to finish her off, but it turned out to be a trap.  HMS Naiad was sunk by the German U-Boat, U-565, and Dean was killed along with 76 other members of the crew.

Another Arsenal player, Hugh Glass, joined the Merchant Navy and worked in the engine room of the SS Ocean Crusader.  On her maiden voyage she sailed from New York to Liverpool, in atrocious weather as part of the convoy HX-216.  Even though she was brand new and a relatively fast ship, she slowed down to help stragglers in the convoy and became detached from her escort.  Fatally she strayed into territory patrolled by the U boat group known as the ‘Dragon Wolfpack’, and was torpedoed by U-262.  All hands were lost.

Henry Cook joined the Royal Navy as a pilot.  While training to land on the deck of a ship his plane was caught in a freak cross wind and he was killed instantly.

Sidney Pugh joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve and was killed in action on the 15^th April 1944.  William Parr, also a volunteer, was shot down while searching for U-Boats on the 8^th of March 1942.

Leslie Lack served in the 118 Spitfire Squadron of the RAF.  Returning from a routine mission on the 18^th of March 1943 he was shot down by his own anti aircraft crew.  He was 22.

Robert ‘Bobby’ Daniels was capped by Wales in 1938 aged just 16, and joined Arsenal the same year.  5 years later he was a Gunner on a Lancaster bomber involved in the Christmas Eve bombing of Berlin.  His plane flew into heavy flak and was shot down.  His body was never recovered.

Cyril Tooze joined the 9^th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers and saw action in North Africa before being part of the campaign to liberate Italy.  Early in 1944 the 9^th were involved in heavy fighting during the Anzio campaign, where the front line was continually blurred and the battle moved back and forth often from street to street.  He was shot in the head and killed by a German sniper on the 22^nd of January 1944.

Herbie Roberts was signed from Oswestry Town in 1926 for just £200.  A highly versatile defender he became a crucial part of Chapman’s innovative ‘WM’ formation.  Nicknamed ‘the policeman’ Tom Whittaker said of him, “His genius came from the fact that he was highly intelligent, and more importantly, did what he was told”.  He was part of the team that won three league titles in 1931, 1933 and 1934.  Roberts also joined the Royal Fusiliers where he became a Lieutenant.  He died from complications to a skin disease in June 1944.

First team coach Tom Whittaker took over as Arsenal manager upon George Allison’s resignation in 1947.  Under his leadership Arsenal won the League in 1948 and 1953 and the FA Cup in 1950.  This Arsenal stalwart appointed by Chapman in 1927 died of a heart attack on the 24^th October 1956 at the age of 58.

                                                And because, under equality’s sun,

                                                All things wear now to a common soiling,

                                                                In the fire of images

                                                                Gladly I put my hand

                                                                To save this day for them.

 George Mackay Brown.

The Gold Cannon - Secret Leaked Tapes.

The following transcript, from a tape of last week’s crucial meeting of the “Gold Cannon Group”, was given to me by a prominent member of that organisation, who I will call Mr X.

The Gold Cannon Group, are a protest bloc whose motto is “Stop what you’re doing, and do something else instead”.  They have been quietly garnering support amongst disillusioned Arsenal fans, however their aims and opinions in no way reflect the opinions of ClockEnd 5, or any of its affiliates or sponsors.  The tapes have been edited for clarity and brevity.

The Chair > Greetings brothers, and welcome to this emergency meeting to discuss next Saturdays protest march, which we are not involved in, in any way, but which we have decided to cancel...

Ø      Angry murmurs.

Chair > Order Brothers, this decision was not taken lightly, and as we have a lot to get through this evening, let’s press on shall we?

First of all we plan not to assemble in front of the Blackstock pub in Finsbury Park, and then proceed not to march up St Thomas Rd to the stadium where we won’t...Yes what is it brother?

Ø      Pardon me Mr Chairman, but St Thomas Rd gets very busy on match day, may I propose that we not march up Blackstock Rd instead, and not turn off at Ambler Rd?

Chair > Good point brother, we will not march up that route instead.  Can I also stress that this will be a peaceful protest so can you all confine yourselves to simply not chanting when you’re not marching and not to not damage public property, remember at all times who you are not representing.

Ø      Will we be not carrying placards?

Chair > Yes brother, we will not be carrying placards, but I don’t not want to see any of those cheap, hand written, homemade jobs, I bloody hate them.  The committee will not be printing out official placards which I urge you all not to carry, and of course we will not be marching under our official banner, Stop what you’re doing, and do something else instead!

Ø      Applause

Chair > I must also inform you that for this protest, while we are not marching we will be joined by members of the group Gooners Against Gravity...

Ø      Angry cries.

Chair > Order! Order! I know we haven’t seen eye to eye with GAG in the past but as Wenger...

Ø      Booing and stamping of feet, cries of Out,Out,Out!

Chair > As Wenger refuses to buy English players who are not constrained by gravity, we will support GAG to stamp gravity out of football.  It’s obvious to everyone in the game that Einstein is a Tottenham supporter and it’s this insidious force that keeps our players rooted to the spot during set pieces.  We demand a UEFA investigation into Ferguson, Redknapp and their ilk who continually get away with gravity week after week.  Now questions..

Ø      When we’re finished not marching and inside the Stadium, do we not boo the players or do we not not boo them?

Chair > Good question brother, I think we’ll leave that up to the individual, it’s up to you to not boo or to not not boo, depending on how you do or don’t feel at the time.  Yes you at the back...

Ø      What have the silent majority said about us not protesting?

Chair > They have not said that they don’t support us unequivocally.

Ø      All of them?

Chair > Well the majority, the majority of the silent majority have not said they don’t fully not support our decision.

No more questions, good.  On to the next item, we have decided not to not support the Barnet FC group “Hands off our club you greedy bastards” on their 24 hour fast next week, so I urge you all not to be at Underhill at 8 pm sharp next Saturday...Yes brother?

Ø      Will be allowed to not bring soup?

Chair > Oh ....just...Fuck Off!!!

Clash of the Titans.

This Sunday at Croke Park Dublin, 30 men, all amateurs, will take up battle to be crowned All Ireland hurling champions of 2011.  Tipperary, my home county and current champions, take on the hurling behemoth that is Kilkenny in a repeat of the last two finals that have seen the honours shared at one title apiece.  Kilkenny are the most successful county in hurling’s history and we jealously covet our neighbours’ honours, their seemingly endless conveyor belt that produces fantastic hurlers year after year.  When a great player retires another, equally great, steps in to the breach.  It is only recently with our successes at minor and under 21 level that Tipp have started to acquire the same kind of continuity, culminating in our narrow defeat in 2009 and the catharsis of last years victory.  The Premier County were back.

Hurling, the fastest field game on the planet, is ostensibly a man marking game, with every player marked in every position by an opposition player.  It is these individual battles all over the pitch, that are so intriguing and on which results invariably hang.  Coaches will regularly switch players to different positions during a game to strengthen or exploit weaknesses.  A good team applies these basic tenets, probing for an advantage, grinding out little victories all over the pitch, sneaking and sniping their way to the greater victory.  A great team, throws this rule book out the window.

Kilkenny hunt in packs, swarming over the opposition, loping like wolves hungry for ball, harrying their opposition into mistakes, and when winning possession, magically thin out on the field, for the inevitable score.  At times it seems Kilkenny have 20 men on the pitch, denying space while simultaneously creating it, flooding inexorably towards goal.  Kilkenny defend as a unit and attack as a unit.

Tipperary, on the other hand, play in a more orthodox manner, until the ball gets to the forwards.  Like Barcelona with Messi, Villa and Pedro, Tipp use Corbett, O Brien and Kelly as diversions, never in their normal positions they roam all over the pitch presenting defenders with a dilemma, do they follow, leaving gaps behind them, or stay put leaving themselves open to be attacked at pace?

In the Munster Final, Waterford’s defenders stayed put, and conceded 7 goals, Dublin adopted a different tactic in the All Ireland semi final, dropping back an extra defender to nullify this threat, but left themselves short in attack allowing Tipp to pick off scores at will.  We won but it wasn’t the massacre most pundits had predicted.

Still, I can’t see Kilkenny changing their tactics on Sunday.  They are far too good for that and that’s what makes the final so compelling, both teams know that a change of approach will be seen as weakness, a weakness to be pounced upon.  Kilkenny will launch themselves at us with every fibre of their being, propelled by history and their perceived right, fear of failure and judgement by their peers, hoping to get their nose in front and stay there.  Tipp will wait and absorb, relying on their backs and their midfield, waiting for any chink that will allow their forward goal machine to pounce.

That is why I urge you, no matter where you live, head to an Irish bar this Sunday to witness a sporting occasion unlike any other.  Think of a Champions League final between AC Milan of the early 90’s versus the current Barcelona team.  Think of 70’s Brazil against 50’s Brazil.  Think of Ali against Frazier.  Think of 70’s Holland against 70’s Ajax.  Now multiply it by 10 and you’re halfway there.

This will be a clash of titans, with skill, power, hunger, glorious victory and unthinkable defeat.  For the losing county there will be no hiding place.

I leave you with these words after Tipperary’s victory over Kilkenny in the 1916 All Ireland..

Kilkenny Captain > We were the better hurlers!!

Tipp Captain > Aye, but we were the better men

!