The team could have added to its long list of glories. They did not.
Arsenal Cup Finals
April 23, 1927, FA Cup Final, at the original Wembley Stadium, West London: Arsenal lose to Cardiff City of Wales, 1-0. In their 1st Cup Final, Arsenal are victimized by a freak play. Hughie Ferguson of Cardiff is stopped by Arsenal goalkeeper Dan Lewis, but the ball squeezes through his elbow and back into the net. This is the only time a team from outside England has won the FA Cup.
April 26, 1930, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal defeat Huddersfield Town of Yorkshire, 2-0. The goals are scored by Alex James and Jack Lambert -- no relation to the later legendary Pittsburgh Steeler linebacker. It is The Arsenal's 1st major trophy. They win their 1st Football League title the next season.
April 23, 1932, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose to Newcastle United of the North-East, 2-1. Bob John of Arsenal opens the scoring. Newcastle's 1st goal comes when Jimmy Richardson stopped an errant pass at the end line, or over it (thus it was out of bounds, and should have been a goal kick to Arsenal) as many people thought, and crosses it back to Jack Allen, who scores it, and later adds the winner.
This may have been the 1st time in a big game that Arsenal had been robbed by the officials. It would not be the last.
April 25, 1936, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal defeat Sheffield United of Yorkshire, 1-0. Ted Drake is the scorer.
May 4, 1941, Football League War Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal and Preston North End of Lancashire play to a 1-1 draw. A replay is necessary.
May 31, 1941, Football League War Cup Final Replay, Ewood Park, Blackburn, Lancashire: Arsenal lose 2-1 to Preston.
May 15, 1943, Football League War Cup Final, Stamford Bridge, West London: Arsenal lose 4-2 to Blackpool of Lancashire.
April 29, 1950, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal defeat Merseyside club Liverpool, 2-0. Reg Lewis scores both goals.
May 3, 1952, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose 1-0 to Newcastle. Right back Walley Barnes twists his knee in the 35th minute, with the score still 0-0. No substitutes were allowed in English soccer until 1968, so The Arsenal were down to 10 men for the last 55 minutes of the game. George Robledo, a Chilean playing in England, scores the goal. Arsenal would win the League the next season, but didn't play for a major trophy again for 15 years.
March 2, 1968, Football League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose 1-0 to Leeds United of Yorkshire. The League Cup began in 1960.
March 15, 1969 League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose 3-1 to Swindon Town of Wiltshire in extra time. The pitch (field) was a mess because of a previous event. Then, half the Arsenal team was stricken by the flu -- similar to the lasagne story at Tottenham in 2006, although not with sinister implications.
Then it rained. On the day before the game, the Arsenal players who felt well enough to get out of bed went to look at the pitch, and told the officials it was unplayable, and the game should be postponed. It wasn't. The officials screwing Arsenal over did not begin with Arsène Wenger becoming their manager, or even with the start of the Premier League in 1992.
Despite Swindon being a 3rd division team, they led Arsenal from the 35th minute until the 86th, when Bobby Gould. But the weakened players couldn't handle extra time on a bad pitch, and allowed 2 goals by Don Rogers, the 1st one on a defensive error by centreback Ian Ure, who would be abused by Arsenal fans for this mistake for the rest of his career.
This may still be the most disastrous loss in Arsenal history, ahead of the famous losses to Walsall in the 1933 FA Cup and the 1983 League Cup, and "The Wrexham Disaster" in the 1992 FA Cup.
April 22, 1970, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final, 1st Leg, Stade Constant Vanden Stock, Anderlecht, Belgium: Arsenal lose 3-1 to Anderlecht. Trailing 3-0 in the 82nd minute, Ray Kennedy scoring a goal giving them a lifeline -- or a "Ray of hope," as the newspapers called it. But Arsenal would have to win by at least 2 goals in the home leg to take this trophy -- 3 if Anderlecht got an away goal.
April 28, 1970, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final, 2nd Leg, Arsenal Stadium, Highbury, North London: Arsenal beat Anderlecht, 3-0. Eddie Kelly scored in the 25th minute, and then came John Radford in the 75th and Jon Sammels just 1 minute later. Thus, Arsenal won 4-3 on aggregate. Given the away goals rule, Sammels' goal was not necessary, but it was welcomed.
The Fairs Cup began in 1958. It was renamed the UEFA Cup for the 1971-72 season, and the UEFA Europa League for the 2010-11 season.
May 8, 1971, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1. Regulation ended scoreless, and Steve Heighway gave Liverpool the lead in extra time. But Arsenal followed with goals by Eddie Kelly and the iconic blast and lie-on-the-ground celebration by Charlie George. Having already won the League, by beating Tottenham away 5 days earlier, Arsenal thus clinch "The Double."
May 6, 1972, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose to Leeds 1-0. The Centenary Cup Final had a pregame ceremony where many previous Cup Final heroes were introduced. But, having just missed another League title, Arsenal fall short of successfully defending the Cup, losing on a diving header by Allan Clarke.
Starting goalkeeper Bob Wilson was injured, and his replacement, Geoff Barnett, has been blamed for allowing the goal. This is unfair: I've seen the video many times, and it was a great shot. Wilson wouldn't have stopped it, either.
May 6, 1978, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose to Suffolk team Ipswich Town 1-0. Liam Brady is played even though injured, and Roger Osborne scores the only goal, in the 77th minute.
May 12, 1979, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Manchester United 3-2. Brian Talbot and Frank Stapleton score in the 1st half, and Arsenal lead 2-0 late. But United score in the 86th and the 88th to tie it. Then Alan Sunderland scores in the 89th to win it. Brady assisted on all 3 Arsenal goals. It becomes known as "The Five-Minute Final."
May 10, 1980, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose to East London team West Ham United 1-0. Trevor Brooking scores early, and the Gunners can't equalize. The Hammers remain the last team from outside the top division to win the Cup -- and this remains their last major tropy.
May 14, 1980, European Cup Winners' Cup Final, Heysel Stadium, Brussels, Belgium: Arsenal play Spanish team Valencia to a 0-0 draw, then lose 5-4 on penalties. Brady is soon lured away by the money of Juventus. A year later, Stapleton is lured away by Manchester United.
In 1985, Heysel would host the European Cup Final, at which 39 fans were killed due to a wall collapse inside. The game was played anyway, and Juventus (with Brady already having been sold) beat Liverpool. I've talked to some Arsenal fans who were at the 1980 Final, and they said the stadium was already unsuitable for a major event then.
April 5, 1987, League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1. There was a daunting statistic: Liverpool had never lost when Ian Rush scored, and, sure enough, he opened the scoring for the Scousers. It looked like Arsenal's bid for a 1st trophy in 8 years would end with a bit of a hangover from their dramatic Semifinal win over arch-rival Tottenham.
But Charlie Nicholas, one of the highest-profile, and thus most disappointing, acquisitions in Arsenal history, justified the team's 1983 faith in him by scoring twice, netting the winner in the 83rd minute.
April 24, 1988, League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lost 3-2 to Luton Town of Bedfordshire. In one of their few seasons in the top division, Luton won their only major trophy, as a ghastly mistake by backup Arsenal centreback Gus Caesar gifted Danny Wilson an equalizer in the 82nd minute, and Mark Stein got the winner at the death.
As with Ian Ure in the League Cup Final 19 years earlier, Caesar was never forgiven by Arsenal fans. As with Ure, Arsenal would find some glory in the next few years -- in this case, the League title in 1989 and 1991 -- but he wouldn't be a part of it.
April 18, 1993, League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday of Yorkshire, 2-1. This was the 1st match in the history of European soccer in which players wore uniform numbers of their own choosing and their names on the back. Previously, numbers were assigned to positions, not players, and thus putting names on the back would have been cost-prohibitive.
John Harkes of Wednesday, a native of Kearny, Hudson County, New Jersey, becomes the 1st American to score a goal at Wembley, and gives the Owls the lead in the 8th minute. But Paul Merson equalizes in the 20th, and Steve Morrow wins it in the 68th.
Ironically, Morrow did not receive his winner's medal at the postgame ceremony. Arsenal Captain Tony Adams tried to pick him up and carry him off the pitch on his shoulders, but slipped, and Morrow landed on his arm and broke it. He was given his medal at the FA Cup Final the next month.
May 15, 1993, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal and Wednesday play to a 1-1 draw. By a weird turn of events, the only time this has ever happened, the opponents for the FA Cup Final are the same opponents as were in the League Cup Final. Arsenal take a 1-0 lead on an Iran Wright goal, but Wednesday find an equalizer. The game goes to a replay. It will be the last time: From the 1993-94 season onward, if the Final is still tied at the end of extra time, it will go to a penalty shootout.
May 20, 1993, FA Cup Final Replay, Wembley: Arsenal beat Wednesday 2-1. As he had in the 1st game, Ian Wright opens the scoring. Former Tottenham star Chris Waddle equalizes for Wednesday. Extra time is played, and just when it looks like there will be penalties, in the 119th minute, Arsenal take a corner, and rarely-used centreback Andy Linighan heads the ball into the net.
His partner in central defense was David O'Leary, making his 722nd and last appearance for The Arsenal, still a team record.
May 4, 1994, European Cup Winners' Cup Final, Parken Stadium, Copenhagen, Denmark: Arsenal beat Parma of Italy, 1-0. Given the presence in the Parma lineup of Gianfranco Zola, Faustino Aspirlla and Thomas Brolin, and the absence from the Arsenal lineup of Wright, suspended due to yellow card accumulation, Parma were solidly favored.
But a mistake in the 20th minute led to an Alan Smith goal, and "the famous back four" of right back Lee Dixon, centrebacks Tony Adams and Steve Bould, and left back Nigel Winterburn held on for the quintessential "One-nil to The Arsenal" victory. Along with the League title win over Liverpool in 1989, this is considered manager George Graham's masterstroke.
May 10, 1995, European Cup Winners' Cup Final, Parc des Princes, Paris: Arsenal lose 2-1 to Real Zaragoza of Spain. The worst Arsenal season in 19 years included a 12th-place finish, and Graham being fired, not for poor performance but for managerial improprieties. Arsenal were still in the CWC, due to being defending Champions. The game went to extra time, but Zaragoza's Turkish midfielder Mohamed Ali Amar, who went by the nom de soccer Nayim, lobbed the ball over Arsenal goalkeeper David Seaman in the last minute.
Nayim played 5 seasons for Tottenham. To this day, Tottenham fans sing Nayim's name, because his goal defeated and embarrassed Arsenal, even though it had nothing to do with Tottenham.
May 16, 1998, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Newcastle 2-0. Having already won the League, this clinches The Double. There would be no repeat of the upset wins of 1932 and 1952 for "The Toon," as Paul Merson in the 1st half and Nicolas Anelka in the 2nd dusted them.
This was Arsenal's 1st cup final under manager Arsène Wenger. Under him, Arsenal would play in 13 cup finals. Under all other managers combined: 24, not counting replays and 2-legged finals.
It would also be their last game at the old Wembley. The old stadium, which opened in April 1923, the same month as the original Yankee Stadium, was closed in 2000, demolished, replaced with a new one, and opened in time for the 2007 FA Cup Final.
May 17, 2000, UEFA Cup Final, Parken Stadium: Arsenal lose to Galatasaray of Istanbul, Turkey, 4-1 on penalties following a scoreless game. The Copenhagen stadium would not be the site of a 2nd great Arsenal win on this occasion.
May 12, 2001, FA Cup Final, Principality Stadium, Cardiff, Wales (then named the Millennium Stadium): Arsenal lose to Liverpool, 2-1. With Wembley having been closed, this was now the biggest stadium in the United Kingdom, and thus, for the 1st time, the Final was held outside England, and wouldn't return until the new Wembley opened in 2007.
As with Arsenal against Newcastle, Liverpool found the 3rd time against Arsenal to be the charm. Liverpool committed some blatant handballs, but they weren't called. Still Freddie Ljungberg gave Arsenal the lead in the 72nd minute. But Michael Owen scored in the 83rd and the 88th, giving Liverpool the win.
May 4, 2002, FA Cup Final, Principality Stadium: Arsenal beat Chelsea of West London, 2-0. As with the year before, the game was scoreless well into the 2nd half. As with the year before, Arsenal broke the deadlock, this time with a screamer by Ray Parlour in the 70th minute. But unlike the year before, Arsenal managed to get a 2nd, by Ljungberg in the 80th, and that that iced it. Four days later, Arsenal beat Manchester United at Old Trafford, and won their 3rd Double.
May 17, 2003, FA Cup Final, Principality Stadium: Arsenal beat Southampton of Hampshire, 1-0. Robert Pires, who seemed to specialize in scoring against Southampton, did so again, in the 38th minute, and Arsenal held on.
May 21, 2005, FA Cup Final, Principality Stadium: Arsenal beat Manchester United, 5-4 on penalty kicks after a 0-0 draw. The season before, Man U had beaten Arsenal in the Semifinal before winning the Final and taking the Cup away. Earlier this season, they had cheated their way to ending Arsenal's 49-game League unbeaten streak.
This was a very rough game, as were most AFC-MUFC games, but Arsenal held on, and extended the game to penalties. Ruud van Nistelrooy and Lauren traded successful conversions, but Jens Lehmann stopped Paul Scholes, and that made the difference. Ljungberg scored for Arsenal. Both 3rd round shooters made theirs, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robin van Persie. So did both 4th round shooters, Wayne Rooney and Ashley Cole. Roy Keane made his in the 5th round, but Patrick Vieira, in his last act as an Arsenal player, made his, and Arsenal got the Cup back.
May 17, 2006, UEFA Champions League Final, Stade de France, Saint-Denis, outside Paris: Arsenal lose 2-1 to FC Barcelona. Arsenal's 1st game for the European Cup was ruined in the 18th minute, when goalkeeper Jens Lehmann was wrongly sent off for how he stopped Samuel Eto'o, making him the 1st player ever sent off in a European Cup/Champions League Final.
Then Wenger made a key mistake: He had to take an attacking player off, so that he could sent in backup keeper Manuel Almunia, but he chose Pires, instead of a younger, less-proven player like Cesc Fàbregas or Aleksandr Hleb.
Incredibly, Arsenal took the lead in the 37th minute, by a defender, no less, Sol Campbell. The 10 Gunners held the lead against the 12 Blaugrana until the 76th minute, when Eto'o scored a goal that was clearly offside. In the 80th, Juliano Belletti scored the winner.
This was probably the most crushing defeat in Arsenal's history, and it was the end of the era: Not only was it the final season for Highbury, but it was the final game in Arsenal's colors for Campbell (though he would briefly return in 2010), Pires, Cole and Dennis Bergkamp. Henry remained for 1 more year.
February 25, 2007, League Cup Final, Principality Stadium: Arsenal lose 2-1 to Chelsea. As was his habit, Wenger started mostly kids in a League Cup match: The only players in his starting XI who were in his usual XI were Fàbregas and Kolo Touré. In contrast, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho had all of his usual starters at the start.
It almost worked: Theo Walcott scored in the 12th minute. But Didier Drogba, the diving master from the Ivory Coast, equalized in the 20th. In the 63rd, Abou Diaby went for the ball, and accidentally kicked Chelsea captain John Terry in the jaw. As Terry is one of the most execrable people in the sport in the last 20 years, this earned Diaby goodwill that his performance never did. Drogba scored the winner in the 84th.
February 27, 2011, League Cup Final, new Wembley Stadium, London: Arsenal lose 2-1 to Birmingham City. It wasn't Arsenal's 1st visit to the new Wembley: That was the 2009 FA Cup Semifinal, a 2-1 loss to Chelsea.
For once, Wenger went against his kids-in-the-League-Cup policy, and went for it. Like everyone else, he had heard the whine of "Arsenal haven't won a trophy in X years" reach 6, and he wanted it.
But Fàbregas was unavailable due to injury, and Arsenal really could have used him. Birmingham City, known for being a dirty team -- their Martin Taylor had infamously broken Diaby's leg in 2006 -- were terrible, and would be relegated at the end of the season. Even a half-strength Arsenal team should have handled them.
But Nikola Zigic scored for the Brummies in the 28th. van Persie scored in the 39th, and it remained 1-1 until the 89th, when Zigic shot, and, in attempt to block it, goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny
collided with centreback Laurent Koscielny, allowing a loose ball that Obafemi Martins fired into the net.
It was probably the most humiliating Arsenal loss since the 1969 edition of the event, against Swindon Town. And it was the beginning of the idiotic #WengerOut movement.
May 17, 2014, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Hull City of Yorkshire, 3-2 in extra time. The trophy drought had reached 9 years. And when Hull scored 2 goals in the 1st 8 minutes, it looked as if it would be extended to a 10th season, and perhaps be the end of the line for Wenger.
But Santi Cazorla scored in the 17th. A long lull followed, including halftime. Koscielny scored in the 71st to tie it. It went to extra time, and, in the 109th minute, off a cheeky backheel by Olivier Giroud, Aaron Ramsey scored. He copied Charlie George's 1971 celebration, sliding on the (new) Wembley turf and lying on his back.
The last 12 minutes of the game were agony for Arsenal fans, especially those of us in America who had joined, thanks to the growth of satellite TV, since the last trophy, and had never won one with the team. When it was over, there was so much joy and relief. And yet, Wenger looked happier than any of us.
May 30, 2015, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Aston Villa of Birmingham, 4-0. I watched this game at Mulligan's in Hoboken, New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. There, the TV screens are on the ground floor and the bathroom is in the basement. I was trying to hold it until halftime, but I couldn't make it. I was finishing up, washing my hands, in the 40th minute, when a huge roar went up. Since there were about 100 Arsenal fans in the place, and only 6 people wearing Villa colors, I knew it was an Arsenal goal.
As I got up the stairs, I yelled, "Who scored it?" The answer came back: "Walcott!" Perfect: The previous season, in the 3rd Round game against Tottenham, Theo Walcott had scored, but had also gotten injured, and missed the rest of the season. That injury cost Arsenal dearly in the League, but not in the Cup. Still, he missed it. Watching the halftime highlights, I saw the goal, and the look of elation on his face. It was easy to see just how much this meant to him.
The 2nd half started a little nervy. It looked like "a movie I'd seen before": An Arsenal player (sometimes Walcott) would score in the 1st half, and they'd hang on for dear life before allowing an equalizer. Not this time: Alex Sanchez scored a beauty in the 50th, Captain and centreback Per Mertesacker scored in the 62nd, and Giroud finished it off in the 90th.
The pressure was off -- but then, having won it the season before, there wasn't as much pressure anyway. This win was nice, and I'm glad Arsenal got it. But it would never mean as much to me as the one before did. It sure meant a lot to Theo, though.
May 27, 2017, FA Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal beat Chelsea, 2-1. Chelsea had been a "bogey team" for Arsenal since the 2004 Champions League Quarterfinal: It seemed, the bigger the game, the better Chelsea was, and the less effectiveness Arsenal had. Not this time: Alexis scored in the 4th minute to settle our nerves early.
But, again, it seemed like one of those hang-on-for-dear-life games. Sure enough, in the 76th minute, Diego Costa, who had succeeded Drogba as Chelsea's Master of Cheating, equalized. It looked like a game of "Name Your Poison": Would you rather lose in regulation, in extra time, or on penalties?
What do we say to the God of Defeat? Aaron Ramsey, once again, said, "Not today." As in 2014, he took a Giroud pass and put it into the net, this time a header in the 79th. Chelsea were completely deflated, and it was 3 FA Cups in 4 years.
February 25, 2018, League Cup Final, Wembley: Arsenal lose 3-0 to Manchester City. Every other Arsenal cup final defeat had been by 1 goal. Sergio Aguero scored in the 18th, but it was still only 1-0 as the hour mark approached, so there was hope. But Vincent Kompany scored in the 58th, and that was it. David Silva's goal in the 65th was just a cherry on their sundae.
May 29, 2019, UEFA Europa League Final, Bakı Olimpiya Stadionu, Baku, Azerbaijan: Arsenal lose 4-1 to Chelsea. In spite of having an obvious penalty denied early on, Arsenal were the better team in the 1st 35 minutes, but began to break down.
New manager Unai Emery needed to straighten them out at halftime. He didn't: Former Arsenal forward Olivier Giroud scored in the 49th, and it was all downhill from there. Alex Iwobi scored in the 69th to make it 3-1 and give some hope to those Gooners who somehow made it to Baku against long odds, but it wasn't going to happen.
Overall: Won 17, lost 21, drawn 1. 2-6 in European Finals, 15-15-1 in domestic ones.