Arsenal Women Arsecast Episode 156: If you know your history

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0:42Adam Salter: Hello and welcome to the Arsenal Women Ask Cast on AskBlog.com with me your host Tim Stillman. Slightly different episode for the extended March International break. A subject that's very very close to my heart as someone who's been going to watch Arsenal ladies first game I went to was April 1996 and been going relatively regularly since since then and definitely the last kind of I don't know 15 years or so even more regularly than that is the history of Arsenal ladies something I'm very passionate about on both the men's and the women's side so on the men's side I've contributed to a book which literally deals with how Arsenal Football Club was formed in 1886 with Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews but on the women's side the level of detail is so so difficult because there's particularly in the early years there's so little documentation or reliable documentation and recording fixtures of games of players because of a lack of reporting and something my guest who I will introduce presently has been doing over the last kind of few months, few years really, is really trying to piece together a lot of missing data, correct stuff that's in maybe in the public domain that's not quite right, but really, really try to build this sense of Arsenal ladies history.

2:05Adam Salter: Because I think most of us, you know, we see the years that Arsenal have won the FA Cup. There's the song the fans have about, you know, we've won the FA Cup 14 times and counting and all of that. And I think people have a sense conceptually that Arsenal ladies, you know, have won the FA Cup more than anyone else. They've won the league more than anyone else. They've won the League Cup more than anyone else. And they've won the Champions League infinitely more times than any other British team. But I think the detail, so much of the detail of all of that is missing, particularly from, you know, the late 80s when Arsenal ladies are formed by Vic Akers and Alan Sefton and Arsenal in the community in the early 90s because for the first few years, really, they weren't playing a lot of kind of organised football that wasn't very highly documented.

2:52And something I've been working on with Arsenal this season,

2:56Adam Salter: I say Arsenal, the Arsenal programme staff, Matchday programme staff, so Andy Exley, the editor, and Michael Donleavy, who puts together the Arsenal Women programme. and something we've done this season is we've been interviewing former players from right across the history of Arsenal ladies. So again, just trying to really give a sense and perhaps tell some of these stories from names that people will recognise, like Rachel Yankee, Anita Asante, Jane Ludlow, but also going back a little bit earlier as well, or much earlier to the origins of the club. So we've spoken to Naz Ball, Kirstie Peeling, Michelle Curley, who was, along with Sarah Ryan, the first professional Arsenal ladies player in 1988.

3:40Adam Salter: So really trying to get a sweep across the history and speak to some of these players who, as my guest Adam is going to say in a minute, we're blessed. They're still here. We can still talk to them about the early years of Arsenal's history and get some of those stories. And that's something we've been doing in every home matchday programme so far this season. That will continue certainly for the remainder of this season and might well go into next as well. So, again, that's really about storytelling with players where even if people have heard the names before, might not know the playing history.

4:14Adam Salter: And in a lot of kind of senses, the struggle that some of these players had to be able to play. And most of them weren't really paid at all. In fact, a lot of the early Arsenal ladies players paid to play and had full-time jobs. I'm really getting some of those stories across of these kind of remarkable players who achieve so, so much, you know, winning quadruples and trebles. And I spoke to Kirsty Peeling a couple of weeks ago. She won over 30 trophies for Arsenal and she's probably Arsenal's record appearance maker. But we don't really know because she kind of joined Arsenal right at the start in the late 80s.

4:50Adam Salter: and there's so little kind of documentation and record, it's quite likely Kirstie Peeling is Arsenal's record appearance holder, but we don't know. And that's something we're going to discuss with our guest in a minute, that sense of kind of incompleteness. So if you go to the games or if you don't and you order the match day program online, kind of towards the back, we do big feature interviews. They're 2 ,000 words. So they're over like four or five pages of the program. We really give them a lot of space. and that's really credit to Andy and Michael at the Arsenal Match Day programme for doing that.

5:25Adam Salter: But I'm going to talk now with Adam Salter and something Adam has been doing very diligently, those of you still on Twitter might recognise, a Twitter account he runs called the AW Archive where he regularly posts clips of old Arsenal ladies' goals through history where those clips exist. And something Adam's been doing is really trying to piece together a lot of this information. And he's been on Wikipedia and he's been writing narratives and entering some of that data and those records for every season that Arsenal ladies have been in existence, which never existed before, which is quite a monumental project, quite a monumental undertaking from Adam.

6:06Adam Salter: So we'll take a little break here and I'll return after the break with my guest, Adam Sorter, looking at the history of Arsenal ladies and the difficulty and the challenge of documenting it.

6:20Adam Salter: so now I'm delighted to be joined by Adam Sorter Adam thanks so much for joining us pleasure to uh to join you on this one Tim I'm looking forward to this one yeah well why don't we crack straight into Adam because you've done an extraordinary amount of work around you know trying to fill in a lot of gaps in the history of Arsenal ladies slash women over the years and and this is a challenge I think women's sports faces quite a lot just the lack of documentation but before we go into the work you've done what what made you become interested in this subject of Arsenal women's history and when did what was the process of realising how incomplete it actually is?

7:04Tim: Yeah so anyone who knows me now there are basically three things of love in life which is the railways um arsenal and history and luckily with this one i've i found something that marries the two um and um as a lover of history i love you know i love going on wikipedia and looking up old football stats and results because i am in the unfortunate position of i became an arsehole fan after the the glory of from the men's perspective the glories of the early 2000s the double winners invincibles etc so i've had to sort of experience it by going back in time and reading up on it um but as i found from the women's perspective who had by comparison and even greater legacy in terms of success just i mean we we can now see emirate stadium on on the the brilliant ribbon they've done you know there's more gold trophies that are asked on women than are asking men indeed and there and i'm sorry from a wikipedia perspective because i guess that's why I mostly live on, nothing, no mention, nothing to read about, nothing to know about.

8:06And that's how I sort of learned about

8:09Tim: its sort of incomplete nature, which was part of the inspiration for doing this. But yeah, I love of history, I love of learning about history. I've said to other people learning, not just about how great we were, but also why we weren't, why we didn't achieve certain things, you know, not to bring up trauma, but from our perspective, why have we never won the Champions League? It's really interesting to go back past seasons and see where the slip-ups have happened. And likewise with the women's team, why are there certain seasons where we weren't successful? What happened in a date that I've heard about a lot?

8:42Tim: What happened in 2014? A very interesting part of our history that is just as important as some of the other seasons that we celebrate and cherish. So I love reading up about that. And there was a great frustration that you couldn't. that there was no public information unless you knew where to search or you're willing to trawl back through the arse website and i mean troll um there was nothing just ease of access that you could just if any casual person wanting to go in and could find out about especially now that the interest in women's game has skyrocketed um since the euros and there is a genuine interest and if there is a genuine intrigue to find out what makes the arse women why are they so great why are they seen as the biggest Milan um and that was again another motivation for this yeah definitely I

9:28Adam Salter: think that's the thing right people know people see the trophies on the side of the stadium and they see them listed out and I think everyone knows about the you know the legacy in that respect but very little of the detail of the legacy and particularly kind of from those early years but But, I mean, can you explain why the history, particularly from, I mean, not even the first 10 years, I think that's understating it, why it's so incomplete?

9:59Tim: I mean, there is the sadly obvious reason, and that is that from a media perspective and a coverage perspective, people didn't care about women's football. and that's that is the base the brutal honesty of it unless it's the fa cup final um which got either was either shown on bbc or sky depending on the contract very little was spoken about it it was a very niche sort of area um occasionally you'd have reports on websites um hats off to the guardian that's been a source i've managed to have in terms of an online reporting source but usually the reporting is usually towards the tail end of a season when there was a title decider but sadly it is the lack of interest um from the from the global media perspective um other issues are um the overrunning of the women's game um what i've always said is that from an arsenal perspective and i can only talk about arsenal because a team i follow and they are the resources i have to work with the men's programs um from just starting the late 80s and through the 90s reported on every home game will offer a report into what's happening on the women's game so there was that level of coverage but there were seasons and one of the big ones is in 93-94 the season badly overruns a mixture of um pitches being waterlogged pitch games being postponed international commitments shifting the calendar further and it shifts so badly that the men's season finishes the women's team carries on and we lose about five games worth coverage because there is no longer the outlet to report on it um and another reason is is actually poor record keeping itself um amount of time i've gone through programs and there are typos there are mistakes goal scorers incorrectly attributed um incorrect names i find inconsistencies and i find one source that says the goal was scored in the 60th minute i'll open up a newspaper report and it says it was scored in the 75th minute but which one's correct so there are issues there as well so it is a mixture of the all three but the primary one is simply that the modern day the media at that time failed the women's game failed to give it the level of coverage that it gave the men's game you know there's a reason why you could go for wikipedia and see throughout the 90s the george graham era the bruce reyock the finger and they got sources and so forth and there's nothing for the women's game and it is simply coverage unless it's the local papers but again that's physical but mainstream no and that is the real shame

12:25Adam Salter: yeah and some of these inconsistencies i mean one of the program the the most recent program interview i did was kirstie peeling who is probably arsenal's leading appearance maker but we we don't really know there's a good chance but she just played in some years where it's very little documentation you look at kim little i think was it her 300th appearance

12:45Tim: there was a thing I've heard with the club they really recalculated and found some extra games or something and there was a yeah there was that happens and um certainly there's some players like marianne spacey one of the greatest players to play for arsenal we don't know for certain how

12:58Adam Salter: many goals she scored for the club that's criminal yeah absolutely and there's stuff i've spoken to people at arsenal about this as well like they don't know how to attribute certain appearances because again in the early days of the women's game random competitions would just pop up yes

13:14Tim: Yeah, there's a few gems. There's the Middlesex County Cup. This is a little historical gem because in 1995, Arsenal were banned from playing in the League Cup. This was so that the FA initiative, because of the 1995 World Cup that was happening and the Euros happening the same year, they felt it best to reduce the amount of games that the bigger teams were having because Arsenal had a lot of England internationals at the time. They did that to sort of protect them for the tournament. So the League Cup still went ahead, just Arsenal weren't in it. So Arsenal said, well, we'll just go and compete in another cup.

13:45Tim: So there was the Middlesex County Cup. Again, spiraling with another novelty, the final was actually played at Highbury against Wembley Ladies, where a certain Kelly Smith was playing at the time, very young Kelly Smith, and Arsenal lost 3-0. It was the only game in the entire domestic sort of fixtures, because European competition to the CSN, it was the only game they lost. So they were unbeaten in the FA Cup in the league. But this random competition, this Middlesex Cup, they sadly lost in the final 3-0. But there's been like Reebok tournaments and other bits and bobs. And we don't know how many of them are just like little friendly tournaments like the Emirates Cup or are genuine like competitive ones.

14:21Tim: Again, information we just don't know at this moment.

14:24Adam Salter: Yeah, it's so. And I think as well, one of the things that I always try and get across to people is particularly in the early years of Arsenal ladies. It was an arm of Arsenal in the community. That is who Vic Akers worked for. He worked for Arsenal in the community. and the ladies team was kind of on an equal footing with the there used to be a celebrities and ex-pros 11 and i used to go and watch them because they'd play at bromley when i was younger and that's and it's really difficult to kind of get across and it's really difficult to believe actually that like the humility the humbleness of the beginnings are that this was kind of just a local community thing right that for the first few years there was very little sense of and and we should say that Arsenal you know and by no means like one of the first women's clubs women's clubs go way back before 1987 but but it really was Arsenal in the community stuff and therefore

15:21Tim: there's lots that's missing in those early years as well right uh yeah absolutely um you say in terms of teams so Arsenal formed in say in 1987 they competed in a league called the Home Counties League there were no national leagues there was no WSL at the time the main league sort of national league for Citadel came back in 91 so they competed in the Home Counties League and they competed against teams like Friends of Fulham no relation to Fulham they became Wimbledon Millwall Lionesses Red Star Southampton and most of these clubs were not actually aligned of a main club they were like supporters run clubs the first team to win the Women's FA Cup was Southampton women that was just the fans of Southampton made their women's team not to be linked with another so that Arsenal were kind of more unique in that sense that they were actually affiliated with a men's team and we owe Vic Hakers to that but the real heritage is actually the Ellsbury ladies yeah they were the original Arsenal team um they were looking for a sponsor and Vic Hakers came in and and rechristened them as Arsenal and the history sort of carries on from

16:23Adam Salter: there yeah absolutely and I think there was another team nearby them they might have been called Islington Ladies or something.

16:29Tim: Yeah, so I also competed against them for a few seasons. And then suddenly you notice that team disappears and quite a lot of players suddenly come into our squad. I'm looking through some team sheets. One off the top of my head is things like Jackie Eckerman, who was a goalkeeper, suddenly was in Islington in a cup tie against us. And then suddenly she's playing for us for a few seasons. And then we see her further down the line for some other clubs. So yes, that did happen. And there's a lot of weird things like that, like Tottenham and Spurs, two separate teams, not to bring them into the podcast, two separate teams playing in that era.

16:56Tim: neither of them were actually originated to the lineup to the current spurs of today they're just two teams that had that moniker and i think there was a thing with them one and being a reserve team of the other but you had weird situations like that as well yeah absolutely so you mentioned

17:10Adam Salter: southampton there if you look on who's you know the history of the women's fa cup southampton a second to arsenal and and it's not southampton fc it is it's and we should say not to be confused

17:21Tim: with red star southampton you asked and were playing in their first they've had three teams it's it's it's bonkers and that's that's again doing the historical research it's very easy to cross the streams and see one team's actually another and i've i fall into that that bear

17:35Adam Salter: trap of quite a few times and so going back to you know this project because we you know we should say like you've uncovered a lot of information that i don't think was really in the public domain um and i know the club a few seasons ago the club went back and did a proper like did almost like a a stock take of like right let's lay our hands every team sheet we've got every program and try and piece some of this stuff together but why did it matter so much to you to go and fill in some of those gaps because you must because i remember you speaking to me and hands up i was quite cynical i was like i don't think you'll be able to do this

18:19Tim: yes no by all means are you absolutely right to i mean i say to myself now when i started to think if i had known the journey i would have been on like to get this far i would have thought it's not worth it just just like no but um unfortunately i mean not unfortunately it's one of my gifts um i am on the autistic spectrum so i'm very it's very easy for me to get ultra obsessive and go down a rabbit hole and and just say no i am committed and i am going to the end on this one and something you may sympathize with on this one too. So for me, the brutal honesty is equality and the way I see the world.

18:56Tim: And when I look at the Arsenal men, I see no difference. I just see it as the Arsenal. And I just feel unfortunate that I see two teams that I love, both wear the shirt, both play for the badge, both win things. And for me, they should both have the same level of coverage, the same level of depth of coverage. and that's not just in terms of the modern day but also we should be able to have the same level of recording going backwards in time and you should and my plan with these pages is that that you should be no difference in depth of insight depending on if you're looking at a men's page or women's page and if if there isn't there's an injustice and one of the things i think of is like we we revere the likes of say alan smith and ian wright from the 90s do the likes of nas ball and Joe Churchman get the same treatment?

19:41Tim: Probably not. Yet they are treble winners. They are invincibles in 95 and they should have that level of celebration, recognition. So part of it is that part of it is also I like a challenge. I like a puzzle. And if someone says something is impossible, I think, well, is it? Those who know me will know I did a video sort of archive and going down that and my argument with that was always well how far can i push it how much can i find and every time i think i found everything i find a bit more and i have found a bit more which i'm looking forward to share later in the year but it was like with with this project um i was very blessed and so it might get delayed to that i was met with some people who had accumulated a lot of data i can't attribute this solely to myself um so i spoke the likes of john williamson who's been going to arsenal for decades and he's been keeping records of the arson women matches a really good friend of mine chris garrett who were very much co-conspirators on this one um he's been keeping spreadsheets on his own research through programs and stuff so i had a very much a head start and then it just i think it just came to me it was when we were up at the lsv that that stupid one-all draw which i like you i'm still bitter about and i was in my hotel room afterwards and i was on wikipedia and i was i was going through and i was just on wikipedia trying to just read casually read through some stuff and it only went as far as like 2016 or something or 2015 and i thought well hang on a minute i know that the missing gaps on this when i can complete this and then it was like could i just do it all like like you know it's the old top gear how hard can it be um no i've been on projects before when i've got to go in it and then i've burnt out because i've realized it's this far beyond my control so i sort of set myself like lines in the sand saying well i'll do this many years and i'll see if i can do it and then i got like to the start of the wsle i thought i could probably push it and go towards the invincibles uh the 2007 the glorious you know quadruple winners and they get that fine for no i think i can go a bit further i've still got enough data i've still got enough resources um and then it came up right i've got to get to the end of the line here and there was an element of when i got to 1987 and every page had been written um not to with there's a depreciation in detail as you go back further in time because of the lack of information but actually getting something in there and there was an element of when i got to 1987 where i sort of had to pause and it taking me about a couple of months to do it i was like oh my goodness I've actually I've actually done it into extent but at least phase one phase two is now filling in the gaps and trying to see what I can do and that's where I'm at now and that's what I'm writing about and promoting and because I would say at the moment I think I've got I've got we've got there is now I would say about 80 percent of Arsenal's history I've managed to get on in the public domain and I would say 90 percent from 1991 onwards and we are still finding out information and still going on it um and i'm hoping one day um we'll have all the results we'll know all the goal scores at the very least um and i don't think that's impossible

22:42Adam Salter: yeah you mentioned there are a couple of people like chris garrett and john williamson good friend of mine people who don't know john when i say he goes to every arsenal game he goes to every Arsenal game. If the under-14s are playing, he'll find a way. And distance is no impediment to that. And he has been going to the women's games for probably as long as they've been around.

23:07Tim: He was bragging to me. He was one of the few people who went out to Emea for the final. He says he was out there when Alex Scott scored that winner. It was him and the players' families.

23:15Adam Salter: Yeah, because he's friends with Leanne Sanderson's dad, which is actually kind of a coincidence, actually he's been friends with Leanne Sanderson's dad since before she was born but yes so that very very good resource and I know John keeps record people might know if you're still on Twitter the AFC fixture news account that is run by John and a lot of people think that that is an actual club resource because it's so useful and it is not it's just John knows everything

23:45Tim: we're very grateful for him

23:47Adam Salter: who else then did you speak to I mean, in terms of the club, you know, did you contact them? And was there ever a time that you were deterred by any of this?

23:58Tim: No, I mean, like I said, because it's kind of sort of snowballed, it's kind of become my life. And I feel there's a mantle of responsibility. And, you know, people sort of see me as this sort of bastion of knowledge now when I sort of think, gosh, I've got to be correct with what I post now. You know, I can't be a clown on social media. I know that feeling. oh oh yes yeah yeah this is like serious now so obviously um chris and john are a debt of grad g4 and i'm still working with chris um we're very fortunate that uh andy andy actually and josh james they were reaching out because they were trying to do their own history work um they're trying to get a lot of stuff about appearances and our experiences so andy actually he he's the

24:40Adam Salter: program editor but is in charge with josh james of a lot of archive historical records and stuff at Arsenal.

24:46Tim: Yeah, and Josh James is on that podcast if you follow on Arsenal with Frimmy. So they reached out and someone from the sports club came to us and said, oh Arsenal are looking for someone who might have some knowledge and said, well we have some knowledge but we would like some knowledge from Arsenal. So we kind of met in the middle. So we've been swapping notes for a while. I can say from my perspective, in one of our group chats with the sports club, someone found a picture of the Arsenal-Mirwall-Lionesses County Cup final line-up renee slag is in we passed that on to the club that picture and said we think this is renee can you check and it's since gone into publications and was using in the in the promotion of uh contract signing um so that's been really good and they've come to us for some questions and we've got to their questions and if i find out some stuff which i have recently which i might get to later um i've passed it on to them to help with their causes uh i've made contact with someone at the fa which i'm hoping might take me somewhere there have been false bleeds and doors that close and so forth, which happens.

25:45Tim: I'm going to try and get in touch with the Islington Gazette, see if their archive of newspapers, that's what I want to go down. Newspaper archiving has been a really good help. There's a British newspaper archive, which I've been using a lot, and that's found a lot of much reporting because local press, thankfully, did do reporting on teams like the Arsenal, Wembley ladies. And that is literally all online.

26:07Adam Salter: I've done stuff around the men's history.

26:09Tim: It is fantastic. Yeah, it's a fantastic resource. Unfortunately, there is a lack of coverage, annoyingly in a black hole of coverage around 87, 88, which just happens to be Arsenal's first season, which is a real sort of frustration. But during the 90s, it's filled in quite a few gaps, thankfully. Internet Archive, really good for going into the past of actual websites. So going in for the back door of the Arsenal website and seeing the old Arsenal website. And I mean the old, old. When the homepage was a Dreamcast controller, that's how old we're talking. Those who were around will know what it looked like.

26:44Tim: And thankfully, Arsenal put reporting on there, which is fantastic, and finding other sites as well. Yes, it's been doing things like that. And now I'm reaching out to ex-players and trying to get their insights and help and so forth. So it's about trying to contact as many people as possible and trying to see what they can offer and if they can help. And some have been really helpful. And what I have got from talking to ex-players is there is a lot of respect and love for Arsenal. even those who moved on and played elsewhere they still say no Arsenal there's a lot of love for it a lot of respect and an enthusiasm to help with this which is again really touching and obviously feeds into the I need to, I want to do them justice I want to make sure their stories are told not just the Kelly Smiths and the Rachel Yankees it's the Yvette Reans and the Kyra Lee Reynolds and Joe Gardner's players no one will have ever heard of but had just as much an impact on the club as say an Alex Scott or Leanne Sanderson

27:37Adam Salter: Big time big time and what's what's the most surprising thing you've found during your research or the

27:43Tim: thing that's given you the most satisfaction so yeah surprising um it's it's it's it's uncovering the mistakes and uh there's been a few of them as a few when i've reached out some players and i've looked at my work and they've gone well this is great but you've got the wrong nationality you've had me down as irish and i'm a proud englishman i've got that's that's an error and usually that is because there are other pages on other bits of wikipedia where that player's mentioned and someone has incorrectly attributed that to them. Finding misspelled names, which has been great when fixed because then I've been able to actually properly find them in the system and going all the way through.

28:18Tim: So that's been useful. So I can say the most unexpected thing happened to me was when out of the blue, I got a phone call from Vic Akers. And I had messaged him just saying, oh, I'm working on this. And I was expecting maybe a message back or maybe nothing at all but he actually rang me up when we spoke and had the most fantastic phone conversation for about an hour just talking about the history of the Arsenal ladies and I was just thinking this is the man who in my eyes is the greatest Arsenal manager of all time but and and hearing him just talk about the the team and having a chuckle about things in the past and talking about it and it's just like nothing apart from doing this today obviously nothing's going to top that um so that That was an unexpected joy.

29:03Tim: The thing I'm most proud of, most joy, I suppose, until recently, that would have been probably finding the highlights of the first Champions League final. That was probably just the amount of digging I had to do to pull that out of the fire. And it's fantastic to watch back. Again, the greatest moment of our history, and barely anyone had ever been able to see it, until I got in touch with somebody who used to work the home counties league in the late 80s and it turns out they had kept written records of all the arsenal results in the final league tables for two of the seasons arsenal had been playing in there which i then sent over to the club so we now know all the results in the final league table for arsenal in uh 88 89 and 89 90 which just which was just a mind-blowing like wow that's a game changer suddenly we've only got two seasons left to to fill and if we get all the results for that then we have got the history complete.

29:59Tim: But of course, the last step, as anyone will know with Arsenal, the title challenge, the last step is always the hardest. So that is now the current conundrum is trying to get the greater regional women's, London Women's League, which was 1991 and Arsenal's first ever season. That is now, but getting those two seasons was just like, boom, suddenly we've got a major push on getting more progress in.

30:24Adam Salter: And yeah, can I hold you on the chair? Champions League final thing there and I should have said as well you you were running I believe it's it's dormant for the time being the AW archive yeah it's coming back so that's coming

30:36Tim: back soon um I've done a I was just going to pause it and then I realized actually hang on a minute first I got some new material in and I thought actually I can sort of I know I'm not going to get every uh video of every single game that's just not going to happen especially most games probably won't ever filmed but I do have information of nearly every game and what I want to do also was expose what I don't know because it's just as important. It's not just sharing what we all know, but I said, well, this is what I don't know and want to know. And hopefully someone will see it and go, ah, I've got something here that will help you.

31:07Tim: So coming up from about August onwards, we're going to do, I'm going to set up, I've scheduled in nearly, I've got a few more to do, every single Arsenal competitive game from 1991 to the end, well, it'll be the FA Cup final against Chelsea that we don't like to talk about but up to then every single result whether it be a video or a link to the old Arsenal website or a newspaper cutting or some sort of evidence to tie it to that game and so it can people can just have it in their feed and learn every day and there's a lot of stuff that happened a lot of days sometimes the Arsenal history and they can read

31:46Adam Salter: it throughout the next year and a half yeah that's incredible but like the the 2007 Champions League final i'd never seen it but i was there for the second leg i'd never seen it back and stuff like the ball hitting the post and hitting ember burn on the face i was like that did happen didn't it and uh i think the first time i saw adam was um i spoke to the people that made a documentary about julie fleeting yes on this podcast a couple of years ago and i think they uncovered and i forget what exactly they said they have but this is the champions league final and it was like it was on you were a sport i think and it just seems like no one ever kept it it's just it's bizarre isn't it

32:28Tim: it's so frustrating and this is again one of the things just the the lack of care for these sort of things getting anything uafer related is an absolute nightmare and it's a bit more to this so this was actually a video in a membership dvd that went out um i i'm guessing you never received the copy but it was it was an it was a thing that arsel sent out i think it was for like 2007 2008 and it was just a little mini documentary that detailed this great moment and obviously showed the highlights in it and I found it buried in the internet archive because somebody else who'd actually stuck it on a TikTok uh but yes I messaged them I said where did you find this and they showed it to me and then sadly that that account closed but I followed the breadcrumbs and found it and pulled it out um and then someone actually contacted me recently said oh this footage we're like they're like a content producer like the norwegian fa and they said do you have the rights to this footage you know be great it's not my footage i'm sharing it but you know i'm careful of that you're probably best asking you way for it said well we've asked you way for it they don't have a copy of it i'm like oh good grief it said it's stuff like it's nonsense like that but you have a julie feeding documentary i watched that um it's where i got clips of the uh the 2004 fun uh four five against charlton the fleeting hat trick so that's the only footage i've ever found of that and I was going to use footage of that final as well until this one came about and I was like, oh, this is absolutely brilliant.

33:50Tim: This is actually the actual final that no one has ever seen and everyone should see for our first European trophy.

33:58Adam Salter: Yeah, and there is a need to distinguish obviously because as people know Arsenal are the current European champions as well. How long may that continue? Just in kind of closing then Adam, I mean, you know So if anyone is listening to this episode and has something, well, I'll let you make the appeal, but has something that they think might be useful to you in your quest. Is this where I'm meant to step up on my soapbox and print the masses?

34:27Tim: And get the megaphone. Yes, yes. Let me your ears. Let me your ears. My words, where do we begin? Arsenal Ladies Match Day programs. We're very lucky on the men's side because of, I think it's Andy Kelly set up the Arsenal collection. Yep. where it thankfully has kept in lots and lots of scans of the Arsenal men's programs it's been a gold mine of information and Arsenal said they've kept records of all the men's programs they didn't do it with the ladies programs which for me is is is criminal but they are out there I mean I'm furiously buying them whenever they pop up on eBay because they're great resource they tell you lineups to tell you kickoff time stadiums um referees and um sometimes we play profiles and match reporting so if you've got an Arsenal ladies program for the 90s we want to hear from you um if you've got you know your own um memorabilia so newspaper cuttings or pictures if you go on my pages and you spot a mistake please please get in touch with me so i can fix it we want to we want to find it with players we want to find out the dates of birth of players so we can do birthday posts we do you know also do great posts about celebrating like the freedom mornings and the best me birthdays but there are plenty of other great players jill wiley you know great captain i'll say sean williams another you know warrior midfielder we want to give everybody their their noise so it's it's transfer histories it's match reporting it's goal scorers we got over 90 goal scorers goals rather we don't know the goal scorers of which is just wrong um if you've got any personal experience or knowledge that you can pass on to me please let me know like i said the goal is to try and get every result in if you've got anything from the 1980s there was a post on the um arson women's facebook page of a someone whose father was a referee for some games in the in the late 80s of like and it was like they had a match they program of it it's a two-sided bit of a4 piece of paper but it was of an arsenal ladies game it was quite a few of them so it's stuff like that this is the history that is it's people say oh there was no records i've just found two seasons worth it's the stuff that is in people's lofts in boxes hidden away people don't realize that they are sitting on the answer to a lot of these questions and we're a very very fortunate crossroads in time where the past is still available to us the people are still there to talk to we are blessed with also having the technology the magic of the digital age to preserve it and the people of the present who are willing like myself and i'm not alone who are willing to put in the time and the effort to listen to them and preserve their history and that window is closing it's not going to last forever and we need to now is a time to get it before it's lost forever you know the generation of the age of the 90s they failed this women's team they failed women's football in general they failed to give it the coverage and recording that we are blessed with nowadays you know with the like what we have is now is brilliant but we didn't have that 30 years ago so we need to get this in now and unfortunately the human memory is is fragile and and and i'm not i can't expect players to remember everything they did 30 40 years ago it's just it's unfair and I've since spoken to some of them and even they are like oh that was that year I thought I thought I left in like a different year I thought I scored a different game I said I'm afraid my record's otherwise but there is there is material out there I'm absolutely confident you know through this digging I found stuff that I'm pretty sure was not in the public domain and was not known about and I'm sure there is more out there and it's going to take a collective effort it can't just be me it's a collective effort and to extend beyond Arsenal it shouldn't just be arsenal yeah yeah it's the stories of donny bells of milwall lionesses the rise and fall of fulham um the the child and athletic all of the southamptons i would i mean even even chelsea and and i mean one little little glorious little tidbit i'm pretty confident on the same season that the arsenal ladies were formed 87 88 on that same season a team called chelsea but not related to the current chelsea but a fan chelsea team uh were relegated from the top flight from the same league which is a nice little thing to end on but it's it's every i wish that every club had a person like me who would be willing to do the same for their club because they are of as much history as we do if you trawl back far enough the fa have got stuff now there's a great thing they got on the archive where they list a lot of the results and tables down the years up to 91 because they've gone to the effort now there is a big push now for historical reclamation and restoration that didn't exist but it's happening now and it's going to take everybody to come in to work together and offer and it could be one thing it could just be you know one result or one goal scorer or one day of birth or one bit of transfer news it's just another piece in the puzzle if you go on my pages you can see the gaps and if you know the answer please get in touch yeah absolutely and that you

39:02Adam Salter: know if you want to get in touch with me you want to get in touch with adam um you know it it will get directed to the right place adam that was that was really really fascinating and i think there's just so much here people don't know both in terms of detail and just conceptually about um you know i i remember really going on this journey when i wrote um with andy kelly who you mentioned there and mark andrews about the men's history and about like everyone imagines that history is just recorded like very very faithfully and it's really not it really and sometimes stuff's wrong as well because it's just like one person said this once i mean there was that stories about like you know

39:40Tim: the the the spurs and the arsenal and that relegation and and that the yeah which was which was nonsense but it's been perpetuated for time as a myth um and they have done incredible because they've gone back to the way past the 1980s they've gone to the 50s and the 40s and 30s i only have to go by far as 1987 and the people are still there to talk to you spoke with kirsty peeling you know there are live accounts that still exist so we are in a very lucky place that i don't have to trawl back to you know as far as say the dick kerr ladies in that area which which is another area that you know worth talking about on another podcast so it is it is tangible

40:16Adam Salter: and is there but it needs to be now absolutely what what a note to end on adam thanks so much for that and and for the work that you and others um have done as well um because like i said i've got no problem admitting i never thought you'd be able to uncover oh i didn't think i've surprised

40:34Tim: even myself and um gosh i don't know how far i'm going to get but i'm going to keep pushing until

40:38Adam Salter: I can push no more amazing stuff and listen we hope you really enjoyed that episode a little bit of a break from our kind of usual programming during the international break but this is um this is obviously a subject close to my heart um as well um keep buying the current match day programs we're going to keep doing those interviews we're going to keep running them until we run out of players quite frankly is my message from the club at the moment and I'm I'm delighted to do that and yeah so and anyone who thinks they have anything no matter how insignificant um it will it'll all help um but so much work has been done already and um yeah hope you enjoyed that episode and we'll be back um probably after the lcl game uh myself and jamie will do our our usual after that but until then thanks so much for joining us and we'll speak to you very soon

41:41Adam Salter: over 90 of the top 100 u.s accounting firms trust bill to simplify and secure bill pay that's proven financial infrastructure built on over a trillion dollars of secure payments visit bill.com slash proven for a special offer