Morning guys.
Arsenal released the 2026/27 squad photos a couple of days ango and the absence of William Saliba has caused a little bit of a stir. For anyone who has suffered a really bad back problem, sitting down for a photoshoot is one of the last things one would want to do. It’s not just the sitting but the time it takes. Honestly, no Saliba equals no fuss in my opinion. It’s just the media looking for something negative when they nothing else to write about Arsenal.
The Champions League fixtures this served up a hefty defeat for Man City at home against PSG together with big victories for both Liverpool and Aston Villa which are being celebrated in the back pages. Of course it doesn’t matter who they defeated because sometimes that becomes irrelevant. Unless it’s Arsenal beating the minnows of course. Bournemouth had a great result last night in the Europa League. Playing European football for the first time ever this season, they defeated Sturm Graz 3-0 making it two wins in two for them. Forgive me, they are one of my now local clubs and I feel obliged to show interest.
We have a few tasty fixtures left this month. On Sunday we face Nottingham Forest in Robin Hood land, then we’re off to Germany to play Bayern Munich on Wednesday. Bayern will of course be without Michael Olise as he’s suspended having been sent off on Tuesday. Bayern conceding three goals to Viking is encouraging, especially having seen the way Jurrien Timber, Ebe Eze and Bukayo Saka tucked away their goals against Lille.
After Bayern comes Everton at The Emirates on the 24th before playing Fleetwood Town the following Tuesday. Four games in nine days is going to test what is already an injury hit squad. At least the Fleetwood match should allow a few younger players to come into the side. One of the players I’d like to see in that one is James Scanlon who has just enjoyed a positive international break with Gibraltar. He’s 20 years old now, just two days younger than Myles Lewis-Skelly.
Nottingham Forest and their red shirts giveaway to Arsenal many years ago. The alleged quote from the late Brian Clough back in 1980:
That lot play in red because of us. They nabbed a set of shirts off us years back when they were strapped for cash.
Well, it’s a myth, an untruth.
Arsenal.com has an article this morning which explains the real story.
The truth is rather different. Fred Beardsley didn’t write to Forest back in 1886 asking if the club could help out Arsenal in terms of giving them a kit but what he did do is suggest to his teammates that they should wear red shirts (the suggestion was that he already owned one), but the shirts didn’t come from Beardsley’s former stomping ground.
In a Coventry Evening Telegraph interview in June 1936, Danskin said that following the name change from Dial Square to Royal Arsenal:
It was necessary that new shirts should be bought. It was then that I was instructed to get samples and prices, and as a result we changed our colours to the now-famous red shirts which have been worn ever since.
This original kit comprised a dark red shirt with long sleeves, a collar and three buttons down the front. Danskin also revealed that they were bought from a gentleman’s outfitters in Wellington Street in Woolwich, which should have forever dispelled the urban legend surrounding the origin of our famous red shirts. But instead, it has been incorrectly passed down from generation to generation of Arsenal fans.
Just goes to show doesn’t it, if something is repeated enough, regardless of whether it’s truth or fabrication, it can be believed. I once nearly believed that Arsenal were rubbish..
Catch up in the comments.
Plus, Forest were in a plum kit whereas ours is proper red.
Hi Dennis, apparently not. No borrowing, no giving them to us. Just Cloughie being a toad..
Hi Rico.
I’m the same, I believed the myth of Arsenal having to borrow their shirts from Nottingham Forest.
The ‘story’ was obviously passed down through the generations, and it doesn’t help if no-one provides evidence of David Danskin’s interview with the Coventry Telegraph.
We may have borrowed them initially for one game, decided that we liked the colour, and then went to Wellington Street, Woolwich tailors with our own different design.
I doubt if Cloughie knew the full facts since it would have been almost a century earlier, so he was buying into the myth and playing to the gallery, as he always used to love doing.
As a die-hard socialist, he’d never have been a good fit for the Arsenal job.
Good morning Cicero, all.
I too believed the kit story, should have realised Cloughie was fibbing.. lol
Good morning Rico, well that’s one myth busted. I confess I always believed it.
I wonder if the story that Sir Henry Norris sold the team bus in order to pay his chauffeur’s wages is also a myth.
I think it’s true that he bought the Highbury site cheap from the Archbishop of Canterbury.