The 16th of January is a very memorable date for Arsenal fans, it’s the birthday of one of the greatest Arsenal strikers that ever lived… and as today is a very quiet Arsenal news day, you may as well just read on reader(s)… plenty of news yesterday though!
16 January 1926 – Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United – a scoreline which would become a lot more special in 53 years time but no one actually knew this at the time as Alan Sunderland hadn’t been invented yet.
16 January 1946 – the origins of the Golden Goal were born in the FA Cup this year, with extra time being played after a replay, then if the scores were still tied it was ‘next goal wins’, with three games being decided this way – it’s never really caught on…
…and now the good stuff…
16 January 1988 – Lord Nicklas Bendtner was born. Sadly Super-Nic never really hit it off at Arsenal down to a poor attitude and not really being that good if the truth be told.
He did, however score the quickest ever goal by a substitute, coming on against Spurs to score after just 1.8 seconds with his first touch, a bullet header – watch the video below. Sadly though, despite a massive head and no doubt in his own ability, he played 108 games for the club, but never really fulfilled his potential, but did score 24 goals and beat up a taxi driver.
16 January 1999 – Martin Keown scored the only goal of the game as Arsenal ruined Ron Atkinson’s first game in charge of Nottingham Forest. Made even funnier as the big, fat, orange racist sat down in the wrong dugout before the game started.
16 January 2001 – Edu The Invincible eventually signed from Corinthians for £6m. The move for Edu was almost scuppered by the player having a fake passport but this was all brushed under the carpet Henry Norris style and he went on to play 79 games for the club. His playing debut was a less-than-memorable one coming on for Freddie Ljungberg, getting injured, then being replaced after just 15 minutes by Dennis Bergkamp. He is still employed by Arsenal as a Technical Director.
16 January 2010 – Sir Sol Campbell rejoined Arsenal after his initial spell with the club and played 11 more games before moving on to Newcastle, then retiring and becoming a bit mad.
