December 15, 1900: The Rusie-Mathewson Trade

December 15, 1900: The New York Giants trade Amos Rusie to the Cincinnati Reds for Christy Mathewson.

Known as the Hoosier Thunderbolt, for his Indiana origin and the best fastball in the game at the time, Rusie was 28 years old, and had already won 246 games in the major leagues, striking out 1,944 batters, then the all-time record. He had led the National League in strikeouts 5 times, wins twice, and earned run average once. In 1894, he led in all 3, "the Triple Crown of Pitching."

"It took a lot of pitching to strike a man out in those days," Rusie explained years later. "The foul strike rule hadn't come in. A guy had to miss three of 'em clean before he was out."

Not only had he continued to pitch well following the 1893 move of the distance between the pitcher's mound and home plate from 50 feet to 60 feet 6 inches -- some pitchers did not, and dropped off dramatically -- but it didn't seem to have any effect on him at all. Indeed, some observers thought that his speed was the reason for the move: 50 feet was too close for a batter to get out of the way of a pitch that might hit him. Maybe Rusie realized he didn't have to worry as much, and gained some confidence.

Connie Mack, who played in the major leagues from 1886 to 1896, and then managed in them until 1950, saw every great fastball pitcher in that time. He batted against Cy Young, managed Rube Waddell and Lefty Grove, and managed against Walter Johnson and Bob Feller. "Rusie was the fastest, without a doubt," he said. "They looked like peas as they sailed by me. All I saw of them was what I heard when they went into the catcher’s mitt."

So why would the Giants trade the man who, along with Cy Young and Kid Nichols, was probably the best pitcher in baseball at the time, and at what should have been his physical peak? Because he was a headache for them. After the 1895 season, he got into a contract dispute with Giants owner Andrew Freedman. He ended up holding out for the entire 1896 season.

Freedman settled just before the 1897 started, because Rusie threatened to take the National League to court and get the reserve clause overturned. Keeping the reserve clause was more important than the money, because there's one thing a rich person values more than money, and that's control.

Rusie was once again a great pitcher in 1897 and most of 1898. But on August 12, he injured his shoulder making a pickoff throw against the team that would, in 1903, be renamed the Chicago Cubs. "My arm felt dead," he said. "I finished the game throwing floating curves. The following day saw the start of a parade of doctors. Each examined my arm. Each had a different diagnosis. The X-ray was unknown then, so their job wasn't an easy one."

He took a month off, and was fine after that: "For the rest of the season, everything was fine. But the following spring, when I tried to pitch, my arm felt dead." On top of that, he and his wife May split up, and he tried to patch things up with her. Between his arm and his personal issues, he didn't pitch at all in the 1899 and 1900 regular seasons.

So, in spite of his earlier greatness, Rusie was now a liability, from the neck up and from the neck down. So Freedman, having had enough of him, traded him to the Reds. It's not that the Reds didn't know about his issues. The Giants didn't put one over on him. They were willing to take a risk on him coming back, and trading away a 20-year-old pitcher who'd appeared in all of 6 major league games, winning exactly none of them.

That pitcher's name was Christy Mathewson. The Giants had bought his contract the preceding July, from the Norfolk team in the Virginia-North Carolina League. They loaned him back to Norfolk, and then he was chosen by the Reds in the 1900 Rule 5 Draft. They decided they didn't want him, anyway, and traded him back to the Giants.

Over the next 16 years, Mathewson became the best pitcher that baseball had ever seen to that point, winning 373 games against 188 losses, with a career ERA of 2.13, an ERA+ of 136, and a WHIP of 1.058. In 1916, he was traded back to the Reds, along with Bill McKechnie and Edd Roush, for Buck Herzog and Red Killefer. This trade was a bit more even: Mathewson was done, but Roush became a Hall-of-Famer. So do McKechnie, but as a manager. And Herzog helped the Giants win the Pennant in 1917.

Mathewson died of lung problems in 1925. In 1936, he was one of the 1st 5 players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Having reconciled with May, Rusie tried pitching for the Reds in 1901, but could only manage 3 appearances, 22 innings, and an 0-1 record. He was done at 30. Interviewed late in life, he said, "Even today, I'm often bothered by twinges of pain." He died in 1942. In 1977, he, too, was elected to the Hall of Fame.

Despite their long history, which includes 14 postseason appearances, 10 Pennants and 5 World Series wins, the Reds have only 9 players who are in the Baseball Hall of Fame mainly due to their performance with them. Only 1 is a pitcher, Eppa Rixey, and if the Hall ever had to remove 10 players from its ranks, he might be 1 of them.

*

December 15, 1900 was a Saturday. Baseball was in the off-season. The college football season had ended. Basketball was in its infancy, and while there was hockey, it was all-amateur.

There were scores on this historic day, if you count England's Football League. In one of their games, Leicester Fosse beat Woolwich Arsenal, 1-0 at Filbert Street. Woolwich Arsenal moved from Plumstead, then in Kent but now in Southeast London, to North London, in 1913, and dropped the locality from their name, becoming simply "Arsenal." In 1919, Leicester Fosse changed their named to Leicester City, although they are still nicknamed the Foxes.

December 14, 1935: Ted Drake Scores 7 Goals

December 14, 1935: Arsenal Football Club, of North London, travel to Birmingham, and defeat Aston Villa F.C., 7-1 at Villa Park. Forward Ted Drake scores all 7 of Arsenal's goals.

Drake did this despite a nagging knee injury; despite having Alex James, the little Scottish dynamo who usually served as Arsenal's Captain, out with an injury; and despite Villa, having struggled but invested heavily in recent days, signing 6 players for national teams (England, Scotland, Wales, Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland), earning them the nickname "The Bank of England Club."

Drake scored 3 goals in the 1st half, reached 6 by the hour mark, and then saw the newly-acquired Jack Palethorpe score Villa's only goal. Drake thought he had a 7th when his shot hit the crossbar and bounced down, but the referee ruled that it had not crossed the line. In the game's last minute, he got his 7th. He had one other shot, which was saved.

At the time, this was believed to have tied the record for most goals scored in a Football League game, set back in the League's 1st season, 1888-89, when Jimmy Ross of Preston North End, the Lancashire team that went on to win the title and the FA Cup, English football's first "Double," scored 7 in a game against Staffordshire team Stoke City. Years later, research discovered that Ross had scored "only" 4 goals, and Drake had the record all to himself.

Just 12 days later, on December 26, Robert "Bunny" Bell scored 9 goals -- and missed a penalty that could have made it 10 -- for Merseyside team Tranmere Rovers against Manchester-area team Oldham Athletic. But this was in the Football League's Division Three North. Drake's record of 7 remained untouched for the remainder of the League's Division One. Nor has it been matched in the Division's successor, the Premier League, since its institution in 1992.

Drake helped Arsenal win the League in 1934, 1935 and 1938; and the FA Cup in 1936. In 1955, he managed West London team Chelsea to win the League title. This made him the 1st man to win the League as both a non-managing player and a non-playing manager. He died in 1995, at the age of 82.

*

December 14, 1935 was a Saturday. Actress Lee Remick was born on this day. So was actor Lewis Arquette, son of actor Cliff Arquette, and father of actors Patricia, Alexis, Rosanna, David and Richmond; making him the former father-in-law of actors Courteney Cox, Thomas Jane and Nicolas Cage, and composer James Newton Howard.

In America, baseball season was over, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet. There were no NFL games played, but the NFL Championship Game was played the next day: The Detroit Lions beat the New York Giants, 26-7 at Titan Stadium on the campus of the University of Detroit.

Three college football games were played:

* The University of Pittsburgh beat the University of Southern California, 12-7 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This intersectional matchup wasn't officially a bowl game, but it may have felt like one to Pitt, more so than to USC.

* The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) beat St. Mary's, 13-7 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco.

* And Hawaii beat Utah, 21-20 at Honolulu Stadium.

And 2 games were played in the NHL. The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Maroons, 6-2 at the Montreal Forum. And the Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

December 11, 1886: The 1st Arsenal Match

Not quite the 1st Arsenal team, but perhaps the earliest known team photo,

1888, including some of the original players.

December 11, 1886: The Arsenal Football Club played its 1st game. It was on the Isle of Dogs, at a ground recently occupied by Millwall Football Club, against a team named Eastern Wanderers, which went out of business a few years later. The new club won, 6-0.

They were originally a works team -- what we in the U.S. would call a company team, as both the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers began -- at the Royal Arsenal (hence the nickname "The Gunners," which led to their fans later being tagged "The Gooners") in Woolwich (the 2nd W is silent), in what was then the county of Kent, but is now part of Southeast London (SE16).

They called themselves Dial Square Football Club, after the section of the Arsenal where they worked. On Christmas Day, December 25, 1886, they met at the nearby Royal Oak pub, to make things more official, and changed their name to the Royal Arsenal Football Club.

The 1st game under the new name, and the 1st game that could be called a "home game" for them, was on January 8, 1887, at Plumstead Common, 2 miles away, against a nearby club called Erith, and Royal Arsenal won, 6-1.

The Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. Photo dated 1960.

In 1893, they turned professional, and were admitted to England's Football League, but had to change their name, as Queen Victoria had signed a law that prohibited any professional sports team from having "Royal" in its name. (This is not the case in Spain, where there are professional soccer teams named Real Madrid, Real Mallorca, Real Betis, etc.)

And, of course, being professional, they had ceased to be a "club," even though the word remains part of the organization's name, and the fans continue to call their team "my club."

So they took on the name of their locality, and were Woolwich Arsenal from then until 1913, when they moved to a new stadium at Highbury in North London, "The Arsenal" until 1919 and "Arsenal Football Club" since, although "The Arsenal," Capital T, Capital A, is frequently still used, especially by the club's fans.

They could have changed their name to "Highbury Arsenal," or "Islington Arsenal," even though neither the Borough of Islington nor the Highbury neighborhood had any connection to the Royal Arsenal, aside from the club. As a result, Arsenal are 1 of only 2 professional clubs in England without a locality as part of their official name. The other is Port Vale, located in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

Herbert Chapman was signed to manage Arsenal in 1925. He led them to win the Football Association Cup in 1930, and the Football League Division One in 1931 and 1933, before his death midway through the 1933-34 season. Under Joe Shaw, and then George Allison, the team he built went on to win the League again in 1934, 1935 and 1938, and the FA Cup in 1936. A rebuild after World War II, under manager Tom Whittaker, resulted in League titles in 1948 and 1953, and an FA Cup in 1950.

Like Chapman, Whittaker died in office, in 1956, and a down period resulted. The team's fortunes were turned around under Bertie Mee. In 1970, he guided the team to the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the tournament now known as the UEFA Europa League. In 1971, Arsenal took both the League and the FA Cup, "The Double." A mid-1970s rebuild under Terry Neill led to an FA Cup win in 1979.

In 1986, George Graham, one of the players from the '71 Double was named manager. He led the team to the 1987 League Cup, the 1989 and 1991 League titles, the 1st-ever English domestic "cup double" (the League Cup and the FA Cup) in 1993, and the European Cup Winners' Cup (a tournament that no longer exists) in 1994.

In 1996, Arsène Wenger was named the team's 1st manager not a native of the British Isles, and he revamped everything, from tactics to exercise to diet. In 1998, now in the era of the Premier League, he took Arsenal to another Double. He did it again in 2002. He led them to another FA Cup in 2003. And he led them through the entire 2003-04 Premier League season without losing a game: Played 38, won 26, drawn 2, lost exactly none. It had never been done before, and it hasn't been done since. The unbeaten string eventually reached 49 games.

(The 1st season of the Football League was in 1888-89, and Lancashire team Preston North End went through the 22-game season unbeaten, and also won the FA Cup. But 38 is a lot more games than 22.)

After another FA Cup win in 2005, Arsenal advanced to the Final of the UEFA Champions League in 2006, their last season at Highbury. With the opening of the new 60,000-seat Emirates Stadium, the construction debt had to be paid off, and Wenger had less of a budget than before. Still, he managed to keep the team in the Champions League places.

A small but loud and angry section of the fanbase began to demand that Wenger spend more money on "world-class players," because they believed that winning the League title was all that mattered. When Wenger ended a 9-year trophy drought by winning the 2014 FA Cup, this small but loud and angry section decided that it wasn't enough.

Nor was it enough when he did it again in 2015 and 2017. They demanded that he be fired for not giving them another League title -- as if he hadn't already given them 3, as many as any other Arsenal manager had ever done. (Allison had won 3; Chapman, Whittaker and Graham had each won 2, Shaw 1.)

By 2017, Arsenal had been surpassed by bigger-spending teams run by billionaire owners, and fell out of the Champions League places. Late in the 2018 season, Wenger announced he was leaving. It is still debated whether he was fired, or he quit due to even his great patience finally being worn out by the whiners.

New manager Unai Emery turned out to be a poor replacement, and was fired in favor of Mikel Arteta, the Spanish midfielder who had captained the 2014 and '15 Cup wins. His leadership led to victory in the 2020 FA Cup, and a 2nd-place finish and a return to Champions League qualification in 2022.

The Arsenal have a great past, and a promising future. The hope is that the team can, within a short time, return to its former heights.

Good old Arsenal, we're proud to say your name.

While we sing this song, we'll win the game!

There are no other scores on this historic day. England's Football League wouldn't be founded for another 2 years, and, given the distances involved in the pre-automobile era, scheduling was risky. In America, the baseball season was over, the college football season was also over, basketball hadn't been invented yet, and hockey hardly had been.

November 25, 2001: Don't Talk to Jim Mora About Playoffs

November 25, 2001: The Indianapolis Colts lose to the San Francisco 49ers, 40-21 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. It's the team's 3rd straight loss, and they fall 4-6.

The Colts' coach, Jim Mora is rightly upset. He was 66 years old, a football lifer, from the Los Angeles area. He'd been the head coach at Occidental College in L.A., and served on Dick Vermeil's staff at UCLA and Don James' staff at Washington. He coached the Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars to all 3 USFL Championship Games, winning 2 of them. He coached the New Orleans Saints for 11 seasons, including the franchise's 1st 4 Playoff berths. He was now in his 4th season as head man in Indianapolis, having made the Playoffs the preceding 2 years.

He had seen it all. He now acted like he'd seen enough, and launched into one of the press conference tirades he was known for occasionally giving:

Well, I'll start off by saying this: Do not blame that game on the defense, okay? I don't care who you play, whether it's a high school team, a junior college team, a college team, much less an NFL team: When you turn the ball over 5 times, 4 interceptions, 1 for a touchdown, 3 others in field position to set up touchdowns, you ain't gonna beat anybody I just talked about, anybody. All right?

And that was a disgraceful performance in my opinion. We threw that game. We gave it away by doing that. We gave 'em the friggin' game. In my opinion, that sucked.

Uh, you know, you can't turn the ball over 5 times like that. Holy crap, I don't know who the hell we think we are, when we do something like that. Unbelievable. Five turnovers. One of 'em for -- We threw 4 interceptions for touchdowns this year. That might be an NFL record. That's pitiful. I mean, it's absolutely pitiful, to perform like that. Pitiful.

At this point, Tim Bragg of WRTV-Channel 6, the ABC affiliate in Indianapolis, asked Mora if he thought his team could still make the Playoffs. His response might be the most famous coach's press conference rant of all time:

What's that? Ah -- Playoffs? Don't talk about -- Playoffs? You kiddin' me? Playoffs? I just hope we can win a game! Another game!"

Mora was right to worry: The Colts won only 2 of their last 6 games, finishing 6-10, and missing the Playoffs. The Colts averaged 30.4 points per game, more than any team in the NFL. So, maybe he should have blamed the defense.

Mora was fired, and has never coached again. Although his regular-season record was an impressive 125-106, and he won a Division title with New Orleans and another in Indianapolis, he went 0-6 in the... Playoffs!

The Colts replaced him with Tony Dungy. He was able to get more out of Mora's former quarterback, Peyton Manning. But, as a defensive back who played on the Pittsburgh Steelers' Super Bowl teams of the 1970s, Dungy also built a better defense. As a result, he coached them for 7 years, and, every season, made the Playoffs, including the 2006 season, which ended with him leading them to win Super Bowl XLI.

Mora's son, usually listed as Jim L. Mora, served on his father's staff in New Orleans, and as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons and the Seattle Seahawks, and at UCLA, winning an NFC South Division with the Falcons and a Pac-12 South Division with UCLA. As of November 25, 2022, Jim Mora is still alive, age 87; and Jim L. Mora, 61, is the head coach at the University of Connecticut.

On September 17, 2013, while writing my original blog, Uncle Mike's Musings, I discovered that, if you Google just that one word, "playoffs," the first thing that came up was Mora's rant. Not a link to any sport's postseason. I checked again while writing this post, and found that that was no longer the case. Still, it held up for at least 12 years.

*

November 25, 2001 was a Sunday. These other NFL games were played that day:

* The New York Giants lost to the Oakland Raiders, 28-10 at Giants Stadium at the Meadowlands.

* The Washington Redskins beat the Philadelphia Eagles, 13-3 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia.

* The Atlanta Falcons beat the Carolina Panthers, 10-7 at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

* The Baltimore Ravens beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, 24-21 at Alltel Stadium (now EverBank Stadium) in Jacksonville.

* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Tennessee Titans, 34-24 at the Adelphia Coliseum (now Nissan Stadium) in Nashville.

* The New England Patriots beat the New Orleans Saints, 34-17 at Foxboro Stadium in the Boston suburb of Foxborough, Massachusetts.

* The Miami Dolphins beat the Buffalo Bills, 34-27 at Ralph Wilson Stadium (formerly Rich Stadium) in the Buffalo suburb of Orchard Park, New York.

* The Cleveland Browns beat the Cincinnati Bengals, 18-0 at Cleveland Browns Stadium (now named Huntington Bank Field).

* The Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 13-6 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The Arizona Cardinals beat the San Diego Chargers, 20-17 at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego.

* The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Seattle Seahawks, 19-7 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Three days earlier, on Thanksgiving Day, the Green Bay Packers beat the Detroit Lions, 29-27 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.

* Also on Thanksgiving, the Denver Broncos beat the Dallas Cowboys, 26-24 at Texas Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Irving, Texas.

* The next night, on ABC Monday Night Football, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the St. Louis Rams, 24-17 at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis. (That stadium has gone through some name changes, but now has that name again.)

* And, in this last of 3 seasons between the arrival of the reborn Cleveland Browns and that of the Houston Texans, when the NFL had 31 teams, the New York Jets had a bye week.

The Grey Cup, the championship game of the Canadian Football League, was played at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. The Calgary Stampeders beat the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, 27-19.

Baseball was in the off-season. There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Golden State Warriors, 101-85 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena (then named The Arena in Oakland).

* The Toronto Raptors beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 107-88 at the Air Canada Centre (now the Scotiabank Arena) in Toronto.

* There was a doubleheader at the Staples Center (now the Crypto.com Arena) in Los Angeles. In the opener, the Los Angeles Clippers beat the Houston Rockets, 90-83.

* In the nightcap, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Denver Nuggets, 105-98. Nick Van Exel led all scorers on the day with 34 points.

* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Indiana Pacers, 99-88 at the KeyArena in Seattle.

And there were 6 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers lost to the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, 3-2 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Vancouver Canucks lost to the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1 at the First Union Center (now the Xfinity Mobile Arena) in Philadelphia.

* The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Carolina Hurricanes, 4-0 at the Raleigh Entertainment & Sports Arena (now the Lenovo Center).

* The Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Calgary Flames, 4-3 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings, arch-rivals, played to a 4-4 tie at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* And the Dallas Stars beat the Minnesota Wild, 4-3 at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota.

And in English soccer, Arsenal beat Manchester United, 3-1 at Highbury in North London.

November 11, 1930: The Arsenal-Racing Armistice Day Game

Racing in the stripes, Arsenal in the all-red shirts.

The famed red shirts with white sleeves did not debut until 1933.

November 11, 1930: It is Armistice Day, the anniversary of the end of "The Great War," sometimes called "The World War" -- though not yet "World War I." To symbolize the alliance between Great Britain and France, a benefit football match (soccer game) is played between the largest teams in each country's capital.

Arsenal F.C., of North London, had just won the FA Cup for the 1st time, and were about to begin a stretch of winning the Football League 5 times in 8 seasons. Racing Club de France, of Paris, so named because they were formed by members of a bicycle-racing club, had won some minor trophies, but had only won the title in France's national league in 1907. Nevertheless, they were the most popular team in Paris.

So the managers of the teams, Herbert Chapman of Arsenal and Jean Bernard Levy of Racing, set up the "friendly" as a benefit for war veterans, on the anniversary, at Racing's home, Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, which had been the main stadium for the 1924 Olympic Games.

In the game, Jack Lambert -- no relation to the later American football linebacker of the same name -- scored 4 goals, as Arsenal won, 7-2. Seeking revenge, Racing invited Arsenal back one year later, and this time, Arsenal again won, but only 3-2.

The matches brought Arsenal international fame, and its first very close link with France. There are stories of the French press giving Arsenal players nicknames such as Le Feu d’Artifice (The Firework) for Cliff Bastin, and La Miracle for Alex James.

The games continued, alternating between the Yves-du-Manoir and the Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its neighborhood, until 1962. In 1935, Racing avoided defeat for the 1st time, drawing with Arsenal, 2-2. It took until 1952 for Racing to emerge victorious, 2-0. In the meantime, Racing won Ligue 1 in 1936, and the Coupe de France in 1936, 1939, 1940, 1945 and 1949.

In the 1960s, French football went through a major financial crisis. At Racing, the creation of a "team of stars" -- what Spanish team Real Madrid would later call "Galactico" -- fell apart in a way that such grand rescue schemes have a habit of doing whenever they turn up in football. Racing tumbled down the divisions of the French league, and by 1970, a new team became the biggest one in the national capital, named Paris Saint-Germain.

Today, having gone through several name changes, the old club is named Racing Club de France Football. They still play at the Stade Olympique Yves-du-Manoir, and are in the Championnat National 2, France's 4th division.

On November 11, 2011, in commemoration of Armistice Day/Veterans Day here, the U.S. and France national teams played a friendly at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, outside Paris. Unfortunately, and with some irony, it was ruined by a German. Jürgen Klinsmann, once one of the great strikers, was then the manager of the U.S. team, but could not pick a lineup. France won, 1-0. 

*

November 11, 1930 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet.

There were 3 games in the NHL that night. The New York Rangers beat the Philadelphia Quakers, 3-0 at the Philadelphia Arena. This was the 1st NHL game played in Philadelphia, and it was a harbinger of things to come, as the Quakers had the worst season in NHL history, and then folded due to the Great Depression. I have a separate entry for this event.

The New York Americans lost to the Boston Bruins, 1-0 at the Boston Garden. And the Ottawa Senators beat the Montreal Maroons, 2-0 at the Ottawa Auditorium. 

November 1, 1939: "The Arsenal Stadium Mystery" Premieres

George Allison delivering his pregame team talk

November 1, 1939: The Arsenal Stadium Mystery premieres. It is the 1st feature film set around a major professional sports team in the British Isles. Thorold Dickinson directed. He had become known for directing musicals, and would go on to direct John Gielgud as Benjamin Disraeli in The Prime Minister.

From 1930 to 1938, 9 seasons, Arsenal Football Club, based at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury for its neighborhood in North London, had won 5 Football League Division One titles (1931, '33, '34, '35 and '38, and just missing in '32 and '37) and 2 FA Cups (1930 and '36, losing the Final in '32). Herbert Chapman was the manager who built this team. Upon his death in 1934, George Allison was appointed manager, and kept it going.

The story involves Arsenal FC playing an exhibition game, or a "friendly" as it's known in soccer, against the Trojans, a fictional amateur team that appears to have a decent-sized following. Arsenal's last League game of the 1938-39 season, a 2-0 win over West London team Brentford, was filmed for this movie.

Before the game, Allison is shown addressing the players in the dressing room, but none of the players has a speaking part in the film. While right back George Male, as usual during that season, served as Captain, he also served as the head coach, as Allison usually watched the game from the press box. In this film, he is shown sitting next to a radio announcer, played by E.V.H. (Edward Victor Henry) Emmett, in real life a commentator for a film newsreel, Gaumont British News.

Alf Kirchen scored in the 1st half, and Ted Drake added a goal in the 2nd half. Both goals were shown in the finished film. At halftime, Allison tells Emmett, "One-nil to The Arsenal. That's just the way we like it." The phrase "One-nil to The Arsenal" stuck in fans' minds, and, in the 1993-94 season, when it seemed like, if Arsenal won at all, it was by a 1-0 score, including in the European Cup Winners' Cup Final, they starting singing "One-nil, to The Arsenal!" to the tune of "Go West," a Village People song that had recently been covered by British pop duo Pet Shop Boys.

But, within the story of the film, halftime saw one of the Trojans players drop dead. The Arsenal team doctor determines that he has been poisoned, and suspicion falls on various people, including his teammates, and his former mistress -- who, before the film ends, also ends up poisoned. Detective Inspector Slade, played by Leslie Banks, must solve the crime. The culprit does turn out to be one of the other Trojans players.

Allison remained Arsenal manager until 1947, and lived until 1957. Emmett lived until 1971. Banks only made it until 1952.

Arsenal would again be the subject of a feature film in 1997, Fever Pitch, based on the memoir of teacher turned author Nick Hornby. That film goes back and forth between his childhood (first 1968, then 1972) and the 1988-89 season, when Arsenal struggled to stay on top of the League, finally winning it in a dramatic finale against Liverpool FC.

In 2006, Arsenal moved into the Emirates Stadium, about half a mile west of Highbury. The stadium's historic North Bank and southern Clock End were demolished, and its East and West stands were converted into apartments.

*

November 1, 1939 was a Wednesday. Actress Barbara Bosson was born.

England had already suspended Football League play for the duration of World War II, and wouldn't have been playing on a Wednesday, anyway, barring a backup of postponements. In North America, baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't been founded yet. And the NHL season didn't start until the next day. So there were no scores on this historic day.

October 20, 1990: The Battle of Old Trafford

October 20, 1990: North London soccer team Arsenal travel to Old Trafford to play Manchester United. Both teams are chasing defending Champions Liverpool in the hope of winning the Football League Division One. (It became the Premier League in 1992.)

Old Trafford, located in the Borough of Salford, about 4 miles west of Central Manchester, was filled to capacity with 47,232 fans. Already known as the Theatre of Dreams since United's 1960s success, it has since been expanded to 74,310 seats, making it the largest stadium in the Premier League. The 26,000-seat Old Trafford Cricket Ground is a short walk away.

Arsenal were managed by George Graham, a midfielder on the Arsenal team that had won The Double -- the League and the FA Cup in the same season -- in 1971. A year later, he was sold to United, and became their Captain -- and still held that role when the team was relegated at the end of the 1974 season. (It was hardly his fault: He was not the only player on that team that was past his prime.) They came right back up the next season, and have been in the top flight ever since. Arsenal have been in it continuously since 1919.

United were managed by Alex Ferguson, a forward for several Scottish teams from the late 1950s to the early 1970s, and was not an especially remarkable player. They grew up 10 miles apart: Ferguson was from West Glasgow, Graham from Bargeddie to the east of downtown Glasgow.

Arsenal had won the League in 1989, needing to win away to Liverpool by at least 2 goals on the last day of the season, and doing it, on a goal by Michael Thomas in the last possible minute. Manchester United were the current holders of the FA (Football Association) Cup, the 1st trophy they would win under Ferguson. For both sides, there were more trophies to come.

There wasn't always bad blood between the teams. In the 1979 FA Cup Final, Arsenal led 2-0 in the 86th minute. Within 2 minutes, United had equalized. But Arsenal came right back, and Alan Sunderland scored in the 89th to win it. That game was clean: Neither side felt the need to play rough.

That would not be the case in 1983. Arsenal had advanced to the Semifinals of both domestic cup tournaments, but lost both to United. Losing the League Cup Semi was one thing. Losing the FA Cup Semi when Norman Whiteside should have been sent off for a dive, and then he scored the winning goal, was a bit much. This may have been the first time Arsenal had been robbed by a United-friendly referee, and there would be plenty more where that came from.

In 1987, Arsenal went into a match with United at Old Trafford with a 22-game unbeaten streak in all competitions. Graham was in his 1st season with Arsenal after managing South London team Millwall, and this was his 1st match against United. Ferguson was in his 1st season with United after managing Aberdeen F.C. in Scotland, and this was his 1st match against Arsenal. Whiteside was his usual dirty self, and he was fouled by Arsenal star David Rocastle, and Rocastle was sent off. United won it, 2-0.

In 1988, they played each other in the 5th Round of the FA Cup, at Arsenal Stadium, known as Highbury for its North London neighborhood. Arsenal led 2-1 late, but United were awarded a penalty that Arsenal considered dubious. Scottish forward Brian McClair took the penalty, and missed, sending the ball over the cross bar of the goal, and was taunted for this by Arsenal left back Nigel Winterburn.

Arsenal went into the October 20, 1990 match in 2nd place behind Liverpool, and United were in 6th. United were without their usual Captain, Bryan Robson, due to injury, so fellow midfielder Neil Webb wore the armband. Before the 1988-89 season, centreback Tony Adams, just 22, was named the youngest Captain in Arsenal history to that point, and rewarded Graham's faith by leading them to the League title.

Midfielder Thomas returned from injury. But the biggest change for Arsenal was the return from injury of Anders Limpar, the Swedish midfielder who had been Graham's big off-season signing. Limpar was one of the earliest big names in the English League not to be from the British Isles. Graham had a thing for Scandinavian players, which would eventually prove to be his undoing.

The game was scoreless until just before halftime, when Paul Davis took a corner for Arsenal, and passed it to Limpar. From a seemingly impossible angle, the Swede swatted the ball with his left foot, and sent it past United goalkeeper Les Sealey. It bounced off Sealey's hands and back out, but had clearly crossed the line, and referee Keith Hackett gave the goal.

Anders Limpar after scoring.

Michael Thomas and David Rocastle in the background.

That lead -- as a later song would put it, "One-Nil to The Arsenal" -- still held at the hour mark. Denis Irwin, United's Irish right back and a notoriously dirty player, challenged Limpar for the ball. Winterburn tackled him to stop him, a clean play. Irwin didn't think so, and he and McClair shoved Winterburn. Midfielder Paul Ince pushed Limpar into the advertising hoardings around the pitch.

Denis Irwin

Both sets of players rushed to the scene -- to both teams' credit, mostly to try to stop it from getting further out of control. It was mostly pushing and shoving, and lasted only about 20 seconds. Thomas would later say, "It wasn't a brawl, because no one threw a punch." Only 1 player did not get involved: Arsenal's new goalkeeper, David Seaman.

Hackett had correctly given Arsenal's goal, but when things settled down, his rulings defied logic. He gave yellow cards, warnings, to Limpar and Winterburn, and gave no punishment to any players from United.

Arsenal held on to win 1-0, but the game left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Both teams took action against their own people, hoping to inoculate themselves against additional charges by the FA. While United's fines were never made public, the rumor was that Irwin, McClair and Ince had all been fined. Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood announced that he had fined Limpar, Winterburn, Thomas, Davis and Rocastle undisclosed amounts, and also that he had fined Graham £9,000 for losing control of his players.

The Football Association, the governing body of English soccer -- not the League itself -- was told by UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, to take action. They fined both teams £50,000, and deducted points from both teams. This had never happened because of a fight before, and has not happened since. United were docked one point, and Arsenal were docked two points.

This was unfair. If anything, it should have been the other way around, as United had started the fight. Ferguson's career as the dirtiest manager the English football system has ever known was underway. (He may have since been surpassed by Jose Mourinho.) As Arsenal's seniormost player, Irish centreback David O'Leary, put it, "The champagne will be out at Liverpool tonight, because this makes our task very much harder."

This did not faze George Graham's Arsenal. Instead, it bred a siege mentality in them. On December 2, they demolished Liverpool 3-0 at Highbury. On February 2, 1991, they went across London to Chelsea, and sustained a 2-1 loss that turned out to be the only defeat of their season in League play. On March 3, they went to Anfield, and a Paul Merson goal gave them a 1-0 win that struck what turned out to be a fatal blow to Liverpool's hopes.

Their cup campaigns were not as successful. On November 28, just 39 days after the "brawl," they played United in the 4th Round of the League Cup at Highbury, and lost 6-2. At least that game was played without incident.

And on April 14, they lost to North London arch-rivals Tottenham Hotspur in the Semifinal of the FA Cup, at Villa Park in Birmingham, home of Aston Villa. This followed 0-0 draws with "Spurs" in League play, at Highbury on September 1, and at White Hart Lane on January 12. But Spurs tailed off, as is their custom: Just 2 points behind Arsenal following the point-docking, they finished 10th. They did, however, win the FA Cup, defeating East Midlands team Nottingham Forest in the Final.

It's been 31 years since. They have never even won another FA Cup Semifinal, going 0-8 since 1991, including defeats to Arsenal in 1993 and 2001. In that time, their only trophies have been League Cups, in 1999 and 2008.

On May 6, 1991, a Bank Holiday Monday in Britain, Forest beat Liverpool 2-1. This clinched the title for Arsenal, for the 2nd time in 3 seasons. As fate would have it, Arsenal then had to take the pitch at Highbury to play United, and received a "guard of honour" from the United players.

Alex Ferguson and George Graham.

This photo may be from Graham's later tenure at Leeds United.

Forward Alan Smith scored a hat trick to clinch the Golden Boot as the League's leading scorer, and the Gunners beat the Red Devils 3-1. And, all game long, the Arsenal fans chanted, more to the FA than to United, or Liverpool, or anyone else in particular, "You can shove yer fookin' two points up yer arse!"

In 1992-93, its 1st season of play, United won the Premier League, while Arsenal won the FA Cup. United won both in 1994, for their 1st Double. Graham was fired for financial improprieties in 1995, and after playing the 1995-96 season, another Double season for United, under Bruce Rioch, Arsenal hired French manager Arsène Wenger.

United won the League again in 1997. Wenger led Arsenal to the Double in 1998. In 1999, Ferguson led United to win the League (by just 1 point over Arsenal), the FA Cup, and the UEFA Champions League, English football's 1st "European Treble." It was the 1st of 3 straight League titles for United, and Arsenal finished 2nd every time.

Arsenal won another Double in 2002, clinching the League title at Old Trafford. In 2003, Arsenal successfully defended the Cup, but United edged them to win the League. At this point, the rivalry between the teams got really nasty, as Ferguson assembled a team of divers and thugs, playing the kind of football that made Don Revie's 1960s and '70s "Dirty Leeds" look like paragons of sportsmanship in comparison.

The 2003-04 season featured an early-season match loaded with controversy, ending in a 0-0 draw that also became known as "The Battle of Old Trafford." Arsenal won the League, going unbeaten, but could only manage a pair of draws with United, who also knocked Arsenal out of the FA Cup in the Semifinal, and won it.

Arsenal began the 2004-05 season by extending their League unbeaten run to 49 games, a new record. But the 50th game, at Old Trafford, may have been the ugliest game in Premier League history. Referee Mike Riley, who officiated in Arsenal's victorious 2002 FA Cu Final win over Chelsea, should have sent off Rio Ferdinand, Ruud van Nistelrooy, and both Neville brothers, Gary and Phil, but didn't, before Wayne Rooney executed a straight-red-card-worthy dive in the 73rd minute, and Riley awarded a penalty. van Nistelrooy scored it.

Rooney finished the game off in the 90th minute, and United won 2-0, with both goals coming from players who shouldn't even have been on the pitch. United should have ended the game with only 6 players.

After the game there was shouting between the layers and staffs. Someone -- later suggested to be Cesc Fàbregas, the 18-year-old Catalan midfielder touted as Arsenal's future (and didn't turn out that way -- went into the visiting team dressing room, pulled a slice of pizza from the postgame spread, and threw it at Ferguson, splattering his jacket. The game became known as "The Battle of the Buffet."

By this point, Keith Hackett, the referee for the 1990 Battle of Old Trafford, was in his 1st full season as the general manager of the Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL). This means he assigned the referees to the various matches, and disciplined them for errors. He did not discipline Riley, although he did award van Nistelrooy a retroactive 3-match ban, which he would have gotten had Riley correctly given him a straight red card.

Arsenal went on to beat United in the 2005 FA Cup Final. But United won the League again in 2007, '08, '09 (clinching the title with a next-to-the-last-weekend 0-0 draw with Arsenal at Old Trafford), '11 and '13, and won another Champions League in 2008.

In 2009, Hackett retired as head of the PGMOL. His replacement? Riley, who still holds the post. Arsenal have still not won the League since 2004, although they have won the FA Cup in 2014, '15, '17 and '20.

Sir Alex Ferguson (knighted following the 1999 Treble) retired in 2013, and United's only trophies since have been the 2016 FA Cup and the 2017 UEFA Europa League. Arsène Wenger retired in 2018. George Graham has been out of management since 2001. All 3 are still alive: Ferguson is 80, Graham is about to turn 78, and Wenger turns 73 in 2 days.

Wenger has published an autobiography, My Life in Red and White, in honor of the fact that all 4 teams he has managed as a professional wore those colors. Graham wrote one in 1996, The Glory and the Grief. Ferguson has written 2: Managing My Life in 2000, and My Autobiography following his 2013 retirement.

Although Football -- Bloody Hell! is a bio of "Fergie," and the title a quote attributed to him, it was written by Patrick Barclay. He has also written bios of Herbert Chapman, the 1st great Arsenal manager, in the 1930s; Matt Busby, the great United manager of the 1950s and '60s; and Jose Mourinho, who joined Ferguson and Wenger as the 3rd high-achieving Premier League manager of the 21st Century, winning League titles at Chelsea, and later failing as manager of United, and now manages Tottenham.

*

October 20, 1990 was a Saturday. The Cincinnati Reds beat the Oakland Athletics, 2-1 at the Oakland Coliseum, completing a 4-game sweep of the World Series, a tremendous upset. Neither team has reached the World Series since.

The NBA season wouldn't begin for another 13 days. There were 8 games played in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-3 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh.

* The New York Islanders lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Washington Capitals, 4-0 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Detroit Red Wings, 5-3 at the Colisée de Québec.

* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 5-3 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 6-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

* The Minnesota North Stars and the St. Louis Blues played to a tie, 2-2 at the St. Louis Arena.

* The Calgary Flames beat the Boston Bruins, 8-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.

And there were college football games, including the following:

* Number 1 Virginia beat Wake Forest, 49-14 at Groves Stadium in Wake Forest, North Carolina. The next week, Virginia began an awful collapse, losing 4 of their last 5 games, and blowing the Atlantic Coast Conference title. They were still invited to the Sugar Bowl.

* Number 2 Miami were upset by Number 6 Notre Dame, 29-20 at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana. The Fighting Irish later lost to Penn State, but were still Number 5 when they played Colorado in the Orange Bowl. Had they won that game, they wouldn't have been awarded the National Championship -- then again, it's Notre Dame, so you never know -- but Colorado certainly wouldn't have, being 8-2-1.

* Number 3 Tennessee lost to Alabama, 9-6 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee. Tennessee still won the Southeastern Conference title, and beat Virginia in the Sugar Bowl. Alabama went to the Fiesta Bowl, losing to the University of Louisville.

* Number 4 Nebraska beat Oklahoma State, 31-3 at Memorial Stadium in Lincoln, Nebraska. Two weeks later, Nebraska lost to Colorado, to knock them out of the Big 8, and national, title picture.

* Number 5 Auburn beat Number 7 Florida State, 20-17 at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Auburn, Alabama. But the Tigers blew their chance by losing 3 games the rest of the way.

* Number 10 Michigan were upset by Number 22 Iowa, 24-23 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor. Iowa went on to win the Big Ten Conference title.

* Number 11 Georgia Tech were tied by North Carolina, 13-13 at Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. This would turn out to be the only blemish on Tech's record, as they won the Atlantic Coast Conference title, and beat Nebraska in the Citrus Bowl, finishing 11-0-1.

* Number 13 Washington beat Stanford, 52-16 at the old Stanford Stadium in the San Francisco suburb of Palo Alto, California. Washington won the Pacific-Ten Conference title, and beat Iowa in the Rose Bowl.

* Number 14 Colorado beat Kansas, 41-10 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas. Colorado had already had their "Fifth Down" win over Missouri, and went on to win the Big Eight title, and beat Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl, to win one of the more dubious National Championships in college football history.

Why weren't Georgia Tech, at 11-0-1, the only undefeated team in the country, and a school with a considerably better historical legacy than Colorado, given the National Championship over Colorado, who were 11-1-1 and should've been 10-2-1?

The only thing I can think of is, the ACC, while probably the most-respected league when it comes to college basketball, were not as respected in college football as the Big 8 (Colorado's league), the Big 10, the Pac-10, the SEC and the SWC. Then again, in 1984, Brigham Young (BYU) won the Western Athletic Conference title and were the only undefeated team, and were selected over Washington (11-1 and the only team with 1 blemish, but not Pac-10 Champions).

* Number 16 Oklahoma lost to Iowa State, 33-31 at Owen Field in Norman, Oklahoma.

* Number 17 Florida beat Akron, 59-0 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

* Number 19 Texas beat Arkansas, 49-17 at Memorial Stadium in Austin, Texas. They got up to Number 3 before losing to then-Number 4 Miami in the Cotton Bowl. And they'd already lost to Colorado on September 22. So even if they'd won the Cotton Bowl, they probably wouldn't have been ranked any higher than 3rd in the last poll.

September 16, 1937: The 1st Soccer Game on TV

September 16, 1937: For the 1st time, a soccer game is shown on TV. It is the Arsenal first team against the Arsenal Reserves, at the Arsenal Stadium, a.k.a. Highbury, in North London.

Arsenal had won the Football League title in 1931, 1933, 1934 and 1935, won the FA Cup Final in 1930 and 1936, and lost it in 1932. But by 1937, they were in something of a transition. Manager George Allison saw his Captain, Alex James, retire. And Ray Bowden had been sold.

Allison still had legends like George Male, Eddie Hapgood, Jack Crayston, Herbie Roberts, Wilf Copping, Joe Hulme, Ted Drake and Cliff Bastin. And new players were brought up from the youth ranks, including the brothers Leslie and Denis Compton. Both had represented England at the senior level in cricket as well as in football (soccer), Les being better at football, Denis being better at cricket. Other new additions included Jack Crayston, Bernard Joy, and Alf Kirchen, who notably scored the goal in the 1938-39 League finale that was filmed for the movie The Arsenal Stadium Mystery.

But after winning their 1st 3 games of the 1937-38 season easily, Arsenal went on a tailspin, winning only 2 of their next 12. And that season was hit hard by a rough Winter. In the 3rd Round of the FA Cup alone, snow caused 261 postponements, and that Round took 66 days to complete.

Arsenal got their act together: From January 29 to April 9, they won 7 games, drew 4, and lost only 2. But 1 of those losses was in the 5th Round of the Cup, to Lancashire team Preston North End, featuring Bill Shankly, who would manage Liverpool FC to glory in the 1960s and '70s.

Preston went on to defeat Huddersfield Town in the Final, the 1st Cup Final ever televised. The 93,000-strong Wembley crowd outnumbered British TV owners 10 to 1, but that didn't stop the Daily Herald from running the headline: "The day is not far off when you may be able to watch your favourite football team from your fireside."

Just 7 days later, the League had its final slate of games for the season. Birmingham-area team Wolverhampton Wanderers led Arsenal by 1 point, but lost away to defending Champions Sunderland, 1-0. Arsenal beat Manchester-area team Bolton Wanderers, 5-0, and had finished 1 point ahead of Wolves. Arsenal were Champions for the 5th time in 8 seasons, their 6th major trophy in 9. "Lucky Arsenal," the newspapers called them. Even then, the English media seemed to be aligned against the Gunners.

Arsenal finished 5th in 1938-39, and World War II began early in the 1939-40 season, causing the Football Association to suspend League and Cup play for the duration. By the time League play began for 1946-47, the older players from before were too old to contribute; and even the younger players brought up in 1937-38 seemed to have lost their touch during The War. That 1938 title seemed less like a fresh start than a missed opportunity.

But a new manager, former Arsenal player and team physiotherapist Tom Whittaker, rebuilt quickly, and a new group won the League in 1948, won the Cup in 1950, finished 2nd in both in 1952, and won the League in 1953. (In the 1937-38 team photo above, Whittaker is in the suit in the upper right, while Allison is seated in the middle.)

However, football on English TV would not become common until the Premier League was started in 1992. Big games, like the FA Cup Final, would be shown live, but, due to fears that showing games live would hurt attendance, regular-season games would only be shown on tape delay, either hours later on the BBC's Match of the Day or the next day on ITV's The Big Match.

*

September 16, 1937 was a Thursday. Vince Naimoli, the 1st owner of baseball's Tampa Bay Rays (Devil Rays) was born. And these baseball games were played:

* The New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 8-0 at Yankee Stadium. Lefty Gomez pitched a 3-hit shutout. Lou Gehrig went 0-for-3 with a walk, and had an RBI on a sacrifice fly. Joe DiMaggio went 1-for-4 with a walk and an RBI.

* The New York Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 3-0 at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Cliff Melton pitched a 6-hit shutout. Mel Ott went 0-for-3 with a walk. For the Pirates, Paul Waner went 0-for-4, and Lloyd Waner went 1-for-4.

* A doubleheader was split at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Brooklyn Dodgers won the opener, 8-5. The Cincinnati Reds won the nightcap, 5-1.

* The Philadelphia Athletics beat the St. Louis Browns, 4-3 at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

* The Washington Senators beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-6 at Griffith Stadium in Washington. Hank Greenberg went 1-for-4 with a walk.

* The Boston Bees (as the Braves were known from 1936 to 1940) beat the Chicago Cubs, 7-0 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Rookie Jim Turner pitched a 7-hit shutout. Known as "The Milkman," because he delivered (like later basketball star Karl "The Mailman" Malone), Turner went on to win 20 games and lead the National League in ERA. Had there been a Rookie of the Year award at the time, he would have won it easily. In 1941, the Reds converted him to a reliever, and he helped the Yankees win Pennants in 1942 and 1943. He later became a renowned pitching coach.

* The St. Louis Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2 and 8-1 at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis.

* And the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox were rained out at Fenway Park in Boston. Given the lateness of the season, travel issues, and the fact that the Yankees were running away with the American League Pennant, the game was never made up.

September 12, 1992: "Fever Pitch" Is Published

September 12, 1992: Fever Pitch: A Fan's Life is published, a memoir by Nick Hornby, less of his life in general to that point than a story of the evolution of his fandom for a sports team. It might be the best book ever written about being a fan of a particular team.

Hornby, then an English teacher in London, is a fan of Arsenal Football Club, a soccer team in North London. He told of following the team from the start of the 1968-69 season until just before publication, including the 1971 "Double" season (meaning that they won the Football League Division One and the Football Association Cup in the same season) and the next League title, which wasn't until 1989 -- 18 years.

The book made Hornby a best-selling author, and raised Arsenal's profile to the point where, already one of the most popular teams in England, they became one of the most popular teams in the world. But it also sparked a backlash against them, and they became one of the country's most hated teams as well.

Nick Hornby, posing outside Highbury

before the last match, May 9, 2006

Fever Pitch was made into a film in the United Kingdom, premiering on April 4, 1997, starring Colin Firth and Ruth Gemmell. The tagline was, "Life gets complicated when you love one woman and worship eleven men." This version, with Hornby writing the screenplay, followed a fictionalized version of Hornby during the epic 1988-89 season, with flashbacks to his youth in 1968 and 1972.

In the film, returning from Arsenal's 1-0 win over Newcastle United on April 15, 1989, Firth's Paul Ashworth and Gemmell's Sarah Hughes are watching the news reports of the Hillsborough Disaster, when a crowd crush in Sheffield led to the deaths of Liverpool fans -- 74 at the time of the report, rising to 95 at the time of the book's publication. A 96th victim was still in a coma at that time, and died the next year. In 2021, fan who had been injured in the crush died, and his death was ruled to have been caused by his 1989 injuries, thus making him the 97th victim.

Sarah says that football matches aren't safe, and she has a point. Paul says people will go back -- which they did, and stadiums were made significantly safer in response to the disaster. But she says he and the other fans she met had an unhealthy obsession with the sport, and she leaves him. She returns to him afterward, seeing the joy and the others he felt at winning the title, seeing that sport can heal.

But, for the moment, Paul was left to ruminate on what the sport was doing to his life. Hornby wrote, and Firth spoke:

Football has meant too much to me, and has come to represent too many things. See, after a while, it all gets mixed up in your head. You can't remember whether life's shit because Arsenal's shit, or if it's the other way around.

I've been to watch far too many games, and spent far too much money, fretted about Arsenal when I should have been fretting about something else. I've asked too much of the people I love.

Okay, I accept all that. Perhaps it's something you can't understand, unless you belong...

The great thing is, it comes again and again. There's always another season. You lose the Cup Final in May? Well, there's the 3rd Round to look forward to in January. And what's wrong with that? It's actually pretty comforting, if you think about it.

The United States version was adapted by Providence, Rhode Island-based filmmakers Peter & Bobby Farrelly, fans of New England's sports teams, including baseball's Boston Red Sox. They cast Jimmy Fallon, then a former star of NBC's Saturday Night Live, and not yet the host of a late-night talk show, now hosting The Tonight Show. Ironically, in real life, Fallon is a fan of the New York Yankees, the Red Sox' arch-rivals -- so this film proves that he really can act.

This version of the film follows the Red Sox in their own epic season, of 2004. To avoid confusion, this film was renamed The Perfect Catch for the British Isles market. The French-language version of the British film is titled Carton Juane -- "Yellow Card," which is what a referee shows a player as a warning. A red card is for a foul so bad, it requires the player to be immediately sent off, and getting a second yellow card in a single game is followed by a red card.

*

September 12, 1992 was a Saturday. Although Hornby's memoir celebrated Arsenal, the club did not hold up their end of the bargain, losing to Lancashire team Blackburn Rovers, 1-0 at Highbury in North London.

In American football, the day's slate of college games included these did not include a game by the team then ranked Number 1, the University of Miami, in Florida. They had the week off. But the slate included these games:

* Number 2 Washington beat Wisconsin, 27-10 at Husky Stadium in Seattle.

* Number 3 Notre Dame and Number 6 Michigan played to a 17-17 tie at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

* Number 4 Florida beat Kentucky, 35-19 at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium in Gainesville, Florida.

* Number 5 Florida State beat Number 15 Clemson, 24-20 at Memorial Stadium in Clemson, South Carolina.

* Number 7 Texas A&M beat the University of Tulsa, 19-9 at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas.

* Number 8 Alabama beat Southern Mississippi, 17-10 at Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama.

* Number 9 Syracuse beat Texas, 31-21 at the Carrier Dome (now the JMA Wireless Dome) in Syracuse, New York.

* Number 10 Penn State beat Temple University, 49-8 at Beaver Stadium in State College, Pennsylvania.

* Number 14 Georgia were beaten by Number 20 Tennessee, 34-31 at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia.

* Number 17 University of California were beaten by Purdue, 41-14 at Ross-Ade Stadium in West Lafayette, Indiana.

* Number 18 Mississippi State were beaten by Louisiana State (LSU), 24-3 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

* Among the service academies, Army beat Holy Cross, 17-7 at Michie Stadium in West Point, New York; Navy lost to Number 23 Virginia, 53-0 at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis, Maryland; and Air Force lost to Hawaii, 6-3 at Aloha Stadium in Honolulu.

* And in New Jersey, Rutgers beat Colgate, 41-0 at Rutgers Stadium in Piscataway.

And these Major League Baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals, 11-9 at Yankee Stadium. Randy Velarde hit a home run. Don Mattingly went 4-for-4 with 3 RBIs. Bernie Williams went 4-for-5 with 2 RBIs.

* The New York Mets lost to the Montreal Expos, 4-1 at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Boston Red Sox, 9-5 at Fenway Park in Boston. Wade Boggs went 4-for-5 with an RBI.

* The Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-7 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. Barry Bonds went 1-for-4.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Baltimore Orioles, 5-0 at Camden Yards in Baltimore. Jaime Navarro pitched a 5-hit shutout. Robin Yount went 1-for-4. Paul Molitor went 2-for-5. Cal Ripken went 0-for-4.

* The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago White Sox, 5-3 at the new Comiskey Park (now Rate Field) in Chicago.

* The Minnesota Twins beat the California Angels, 7-2 at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

* The St. Louis Cardinals beat their arch-rivals, the Chicago Cubs, 11-3 at Busch Memlorial Stadium in St. Louis.

* The Toronto Blue Jays beat the Texas Rangers, 4-2 at Arlington Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Arlington, Texas.

* The Atlanta Braves beat the Houston Astros, 9-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the San Diego Padres, 7-4 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. Tony Gwynn did not play.

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat their arch-rivals, the San Francisco Giants, 7-0 at Dodger Stadium. Pedro Astacio pitched a 6-hit shutout.

* And the Oakland Athletics beat the Seattle Mariners, 5-4 at the Oakland Coliseum. Neither Rickey Henderson nor Mark McGwire played for the A's in this game. Ken Griffey Jr. went 3-for-5 with an RBI.