The day Lee Dixon and Tony Adams retired from playing

Arsenal anniversaries for 1 July

1 July 1916: Arsenal’s annual report was published showing Henry Norris as being owed £7196 by the club, while the builders of the main stand were owed £18087 (about £2.5m today) – this sum guaranteed by Henry Norris personally.  It also showed that the club had bought some further properties around the ground, which would later be used to improve the entrances to the ground and as accommodation for staff.

1 July 1918: There was an explosion at the National Shell Filling Factory in Chilwell (Notts) in which 134 died as 8 tons of TNT exploded.   Only 10% of the bodies could be identified. 

1 July 1918 Sir Henry Norris, having demonstrated his concern for the position of women in society through the vote in favour of equal pay for women teachers, followed this up on a personal level by setting up a trust fund for his wife assigning her many of the houses he owned as a result of his building work.  Within the context of the era and standards of the age in which women were third class citizens (after men and boys) it was a very unusual and considered at the time an incredibly generous settlement and possibly dangerous – women did not get equal voting rights with men for another ten years.

1 July 1933: London Transport was formed by an amalgamation of the various companies that had been running public transport in the capital until that point.

1 July 1937: Reg Trim moved from Arsenal to Nottingham Forest where he played 70 games. After serving in the RAF in the war he played for Swindon and then worked in flight refuelling at Hurn (now Bournemouth) airport. 

1 July 1939:  The Women’s Land Army was re-formed to work in agriculture.

1 July 1953: Alan Sunderland born in Mexborough.  He signed initially for
Wolverhampton, and played around 200 games for them, winning the Second Division with them, and the 1974 League Cup.

1 July 1961: John MacLeod joined Arsenal from Hibs.   He started with Edinburgh Thistle as a schoolboy then went with Joe Baker to Armadale Thistle and finally Hibs, before choosing Arsenal over Man City as his next destination.

1 July 1966: Billy “Flint” McCullough left Arsenal for Millwall.  He had played 253 league games, and went on to play 19 for Millwall, before moving on to Bedford, Cork Celtic and Derry City.  

1 July 1968: William Naismith “Billy” Blyth died.  After leaving Arsenal he had a role in the movie “The Great Game” filmed in 1930, the first movie (as opposed to a film of a game) which involved an Arsenal player, and which pre-dated the Arsenal Stadium Mystery by nine years.

1 July 1973: Richie Powling signed as a professional.  He made occasional
appearances until 1975/6 when he played 29 games.  But the arrival of Willie Young in the centre, combined with awful luck regarding injuries curtailed his career.  He was last heard of in football as the director of football at Clacton Town in 2003.

1 July 1976:  Terry Neill, a man oft confused by detail, claimed in newspaper interviews that he got the job as Arsenal manager on this day, although most accounts tend to put the date of his appointment on 9 July

1 July 1977: Kevin Stead signed on a free transfer from Tottenham, one year after Terry Neill made the same move as manager.  Having made no impact at Tottenham he also made no impact at Arsenal and took part in just two games.    He was released in September 1979, and joined Isthmian League club Oxford City.   After retiring from football, he worked as a taxi-driver.  He died in 2016 at the age of 57. 

1 July 1987: Viv Anderson sold to Man U.  He had played 120 league games for Arsenal and scored nine goals and was Ferguson’s first signing after taking over at Old Trafford.  After leaving Middlesbrough as assistant manager in 2001 he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2004.  In 2005 he started to run a sports travel agency and work as a goodwill ambassador for the Football Association.

1 July 1990: Kevin Richardson transferred to Real Sociedad.  He had played 96 league games for Arsenal and was a part of the 1989 league winning team that played the final game at Anfield to win the league.  He was most recently heard of coaching the under 17s at Newcastle.

1 July 1997: Marc Overmars (£7m from Ajax) and Manu Petit (£3.5m for AS Monaco) both registered with Arsenal.

1 July 1998: Richard Hughes sold to Bournemouth.   Although he spent five years at Arsenal he never played for the club,  being only registered as a youth player, He had two spells with Bournemouth and a period with Portsmouth before retiring in 2014.

1 July 2002: Lee Dixon and Tony Adams, two members of the most famous of all defences, both formally retired.  Dixon had played 458 league games with Arsenal and Tony Adams 504.

1 July 2006: The player loan agreement between Arsenal and Beveren ended – it is the closest Arsenal had to a nursery club since Margate in the 1930s.

1 July 2008: Mathieu Flamini left Arsenal at the end of his contract for Milan – only to return in 2013 again at the end of his contract there.  After his second Arsenal spell ended he went to Crystal Palace.  On 18 December 2018, Flamini joined Getafe for a second time.  He never once left a club during the course of his contract.

1 July 2012: Gavin Hoyte released by Stevenage and signed for Dagenham.  After 68 games there he moved on to Gillingham.  He also elected to play for Trinidad and Tobago, and started to play for them in 2014/15.  In 2019 he signed for Maidstone.

1 July 2013: The transfer of Yaya Sanogo to Arsenal announced. He cost £390,000 and went on to play in the FA Cup final of 2014.  In 2015 he went on loan to Crystal Palace and played 10 times for them.  After a series of injuries he was brought back to Arsenal for 2016/17 but failed to make the first team and left on 30 June 2017.He then joined Ligue 1 side Toulouse on a three-year deal.

1 July 2014: The start of Arsenal’s £170m partnership with Puma, which at the time was the most lucrative kit deal in English football history.  In its opening video promoting its interest in and respect of Arsenal’s history, the company focussed on the cover of the novel “Making the Arsenal”.

1 July 2014: Arsenal announced a 3% price rise in ticket prices.  It was the third rise in prices in nine years.

1 July 2018: Stefan Lichsteiner and Bernd Leno were signed from Juventus and Bayer Leverkusen respectively

1 July 2018.  Arsenal had a major clear out of players including Santi Cazorla, Per Mertesacker (retired), Jack Wilshere, Marc Bola, Alex Crean, Josh Dasilva, Vlad Dragomir, Yassin Fortune, Ryan Huddart, Hugo Keto, Tafari Moore and Josh Benson.

1 July 2019: Arsenal released Cohen Bramall, Petr Cech, Charlie Gilmour, Stephan Lichsteiner, Julio Pleguezuelo, Aaron Ramsey and Danny Welbeck.

1 July 2020: For the first time in their history Arsenal played a League match in July, as clubs sought to finish the season delayed by the coronavirus outbreak.  Arsenal beat Norwich 4-0 to make it three wins in a row.

1 July 2021: David Luiz released by Arsenal.

1 July 2022: The departure of French midfielder Matteo Guendouzi to Ligue 1 side Marseille was announced as well as the departure of Alex Lacazette who was released and went to Lyon.  The arrivals of Fábio Vieira , Marquinhos, and Matt Turner were announced.