The 27th of January (feels more like the 174th of January) has generally been an FA Cup game day, and today is no exception as we prepare to face Bournemouth tonight at The Vitality Stadium formerly known as Dean Court. Some good, some bad, so read on reader(s)…

27th January 1894 – Arsenal 1 – 2 Sheffield Wednesday: Hopefully not an omen for tonight, but The Woolwich Arsenal endured their first ever cup defeat.

27th January 1919 – the FA Cup was cancelled this season due to strikes over wages. They only decided to cancel it in January, meaning there wouldn’t be time to play it now anyway. Seems like the FA were actually useless even 100 years go.

27th January 1934 – FA Cup – Arsenal 7-0 Crystal Palace: The legendary Cliff Bastin grabbed a couple and 5 other games were jam packed full of goals, featuring 6 goals or more.

27th January 1951 – FA Cup – Arsenal 3 Northampton Town 2: the highest ever cup attendance at Highbury with a crowd of 72,408, tho the official attendance was 38,038 (if you know, you know).

27th January 1989 – Friendly match – Bermuda 2 Arsenal 4, Kevin Richardson scored twice, Alan Smith and Nutty scored one a piece during this winter break.

27th January 1997 – Andy Linighan was sold to Crystal Palace. You might remember him as the scorer of the winner in the FA Cup replay in 1993 in extra time. The replay was delayed by half an hour due to an accident on the motorway and Linighan played most of the game with a broken nose. The original game with Wednesday was on a Saturday, but the replay was on a Thursday, and that season we’d already beaten Wednesday on a Saturday to win the League Cup.

The final would also prove to be David O’Leary’s last game for Arsenal.

27th January 2001 – FA Cup – QPR 0 Arsenal 6. Wiltord scored twice, Pires and Bergkamp one a piece and weirdly there were two OGs. We would eventually go on to lose the final, cheated out of victory by the ref who failed to give us a penalty at 1-0 up v Liverpool despite a blatant handball on the line. Who needs VAR?

27th January 2002 – FA Cup – Arsenal 1 Liverpool 0. We would get our revenge the 27th of January after beating Liverpool 1-0 thanks to a Dennis Bergkamp strike. Three players were sent off in a great game at Highbury, including a red card for Jamie Carragher who threw something back into the crowd, Keown and Dennis were the other two – full retro match report here.

27th January 2015 – A sad day for many, with Joel Campbell being loaned out to Villareal for the rest of the season.