The story of Arsenal WFC's six-trophy season
Let's talk about one of the greatest sports stories that hardly anyone mentions
Happy New Year! Welcome to another issue of Sports Untold with me, Benjamin Mock.
I hope you are all doing okay at the very least given the ongoing nightmare that is our lives in the here and now.
I have some pieces I am really excited to share with you this month and today that starts by looking at Arsenal WFC’s 2006-07 season, also known as the season in which they won six trophies.
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Most football fans know about ‘The Invincibles’, the 2003-04 Arsenal men’s team that recorded an undefeated season in the Premier League. In fact, searching ‘Arsenal undefeated season’ on Google brings up 3.1M results in just over half a second. However, searching for ‘Arsenal women undefeated season’ brings up just over 700K results. The success of Arsenal WFC, especially in the early to mid-2000s, is one of the best sports stories that doesn’t get told.
I initially wrote a version of this article back in 2018 and found that there was only a handful of existing articles about the feats of the mid-2000s Arsenal WFC. That piece was eventually published by Fixture Calendar in January 2020 and barely scratches the surface of Arsenal WFC’s story.
So today, we going to take a deep dive into their success, with a particular focus on their 2006-07 campaign.
Most of the information in this piece has been sourced from archived news items on arsenal.com, one of the few reliable and consistent sources of information that I could find about this season.
Prelude
Coming into the 2006-07 season of the FA Women’s Premier League, Arsenal was far and away the best women’s team in England. Since joining the WPL in its second season (1992-93), Arsenal had never finished lower than third and had eight titles to their name. They were defending three consecutive titles dating back to the 2003-04 season. Oh yeah, and they hadn’t lost a league match since October 2003. After a 2-1 loss to Charlton on October 16th, Arsenal had proceeded to win their next 48 league games.
The team was led by long-time manager Vic Akers. Akers was a kitman for the men’s team but had been instrumental in the formation of the women’s team in 1987. The team had turned professional in 2002 and now boasted an all-star roster.
In goal was Irish international Emma Byrne. Byrne had been working as a secretary in Ireland after a year playing in Denmark when she was signed by Arsenal in 2000. The recommendation of Byrne had come from her friend and international teammate Ciara Grant, who had been a midfield mainstay for Arsenal since 1998. The back four included the likes of Anita Asante, Alex Scott (who in 2006 was in her second stint as a Gunner), and Faye White. But with White out at the start of 06-07, the defence saw the players like Gemma Davison play a little more out of defence, as well as the addition of youth team star Gilly Flaherty.
Joining Grant in midfield was a wealth of talent such as captain Jayne Ludlow, versatile winger/forward Rachel Yankey, and two new additions for 2006 – Karen Carney and Katie Chapman. Both Chapman and Carney were former FA Young Players of the Year and were et to bring some new, aggressive energy to the midfield.
Up front, Arsenal almost had too many options. Scotland captain Julie Fleeting was a fierce goal scorer; as was the Watford-born Kelly Smith, who had joined Arsenal in 2005 following a collegiate and pro career in the US. And then there was Lianne Sanderson. Sanderson had joined Arsenal at age 9 in 1997 and had been a first-team fixture since 2003. She was the league’s second-best scorer in the 05-06 season, just a goal behind Smith.
Title #1 – Community Shield
The Community Shield is a largely ceremonial title contested during the English pre-season between the winners of the Premier League and FA Cup from the previous season. Given that Arsenal had won both those titles in the 2005-06 season, Premier League runners-up Everton would serve as Arsenal’s opponents.
On August 2nd 2006, the two sides met at Gresty Road in Crewe. Arsenal were coming off a preseason two-game tour of Germany, in which they they had outscored their opponents 7-1. The Gunners dominated the game from whistle to whistle, with goals from Kelly Smith, Katie Chapman, and Gemma Davison securing a 3-0 win.
This was Arsenal’s second consecutive Community Shield, after beating Charlton 4-0 the year before, and their fourth overall since the competition was introduced in 2000.
Title #2 – League Cup
Jump forward to March 3rd 2007 and Arsenal find themselves in the final of the League Cup, which in 2006-07 was contested at the league level rather than across the pyramid of English football. This meant that Arsenal had entered in the tournament in the semifinals, defeating London rivals Chelsea 4-1 in December 2006.
Arsenal had eight titles to their name but had fallen to Charlton in the 2005-06 final. Now, a year on, they would look to reclaim the title, this time against Leeds Carnegie. As we’ll see in a few sections’ time, Arsenal had been unstoppable all season. However, despite numerous chances, Arsenal’s title would come in stoppage time as Jayne Ludlow was finally able to put a shot past Gemma Fay to give Arsenal a 1-0 win.
Their 1-goal margin of victory was their smallest in the competition since 1997-98, when they beat Croydon (later Charlton) on penalties following a 0-0 draw.
Title #3 – London County Cup
Their third title of the season was the smallest, as Arsenal took the regional London County Cup on April 18th in a 2-0 win over Millwall, with both goals coming from Kelly Smith.
I wish I could give you more than this but literally the only document I was able to find about this match was the 67-word arsenal.com match report. But do you want to know something great, dear reader? The match report contains a glaring error, listing the match as Arsenal’s second title of the season, despite the fact that it was played over a month after the League Cup final.
Title #4 – Women’s Premier League
Okay, time for the juicy shit.
As mentioned, Arsenal were looking for their fourth consecutive league title, and to continue their 48-game undefeated streak.
Their WPL campaign began on August 20th, just over two weeks after their Community Shield win, with an away match against Blackburn Rovers. Blackburn were newly promoted, having gone undefeated in their 2005-06 Northern Division campaign. And for the first twenty minutes or so, Arsenal appeared to be on the back foot, with goalkeeper Byrne forced into action by a strong shot from Blackburn’s Amanda Barr. But Arsenal would rally after Kelly Smith put them ahead from 30 yards out after half an hour. The Gunners would add two more in the second half, another from Smith and one from Fleeting. Arsenal could have comfortably won this game by a wider margin, if not for a standout performance by Blackburn keeper Emma Hawke.
They followed this strong start by destroying London rivals Fulham 14-0. Fulham had done the domestic treble in 2002-03 but were not an amateur outfit after losing their affiliation with the established men’s club in May 2006. Arsenal.com didn’t have a match report for this game but a post on football forum ‘Bigfooty’ lists the goalscorers as Sanderson (5), Smith (3), Chapman (3), Carney (2), and Asante.
So we’re two games in and Arsenal already has a goal difference of 17.
They scored another 25 goals over their next four matches, including another nine in the reverse fixture versus Fulham. With one goal allowed in the fifth game of the season against Everton, that left Arsenal with a goal difference of 41 by the end of October.
They scored another eight in December, 16 in January, and 14 in February. This was combined with allowing just two goals over that three month period for a near unassailable league lead and a goal difference of 76.
March saw another 15 goals while April saw 22. And on April 24th, Arsenal secured the league title (which had been all but theirs since early March) with a 5-1 win over rivals Chelsea. Arsenal were 2-0 up within four minutes and never looked back. The match ended 5-1 as mentioned and thus, Arsenal’s title campaign was secured with three matches left to play.
They would win those last three matches by outscoring their opponents 9-3. As the league came to an end on May 20th (with Arsenal beating Leeds 6-0), Arsenal had gone 22-0-0, and amassed a goal difference of 109 (119 scored, 10 allowed). After the win over Leeds, their league undefeated streak also sat at 70 matches.
Lianne Sanderson was by the far the league’s top scorer, putting away 29 goals (10 more than the next best scorer). While I am largely adverse to comparing men and women’s sports, if Lianne Sanderson’s total was for a Premier League season, it would be a top-ten season. Those 29 goals would form a majority of Sanderson’s 40 total goals on the season.
Five other Gunners had goal tallies in the double digits, I think. As I’ve said before, information about this season is scarce. It’s a problem with being a women’s sport journalist – more often that not, data is neglected and sources are lacking. Like no shade or anything but it’s fucking wild and ridiculous that there is more information easily accessible about Lincoln City FC’s 1892-93 season than there is about this 2006-07 Arsenal WFC season.
Anyway, what is means is that there are eight goals from a 9-0 win over Sunderland that I was unable to reliably credit to the scorers, hence the bar called ‘unaccounted for’.
Title #5 – UEFA Women’s Cup
There had been one thing that had eluded always English teams - a European title. Arsenal had first appeared in the UEFA Women’s Cup (Now the Women’s Champions League) during the inaugural 2001-02 tournament , where they reached the quarterfinals before losing to Toulouse. Since that campaign, they had made the semifinals twice, and the most recently the quarterfinals again in 2005-06. However, the competition had been dominated by teams from Germany and Sweden, with only German and Swedish winners up to that point.
Arsenal entered the 2006-07 UEFA Women’s Cup in the Second Qualifying Round, drawn into a group with Danish team Brøndby, Russian team Rossiyanka, and Hungarian team Femina.
Julie Fleeting scored every Arsenal goal in their opening match 5-4 win over Rossiyanka. After 50 minutes, Arsenal were sitting on a 4-1 lead. But Rossiyanka rallied during the second half to keep it close. They were much more dominant against Femina, winning 6-0 thanks to an own goal, two goals from Ludlow, and further goals from Chapman, Yankey, and Davison. Their clean sweep of the group was completed with a 1-0 win over Brøndby.
Their group-topping performance set up a quarter-final with Icelandic team Breiðablik. The first leg in Kópavogur on October 12th saw Arsenal put five past the hosts with two from Kelly Smith, one from Lianne Sanderson, and another two from Julie Fleeting. They added another four in the reverse fixture at Meadow Park to finish the quarter-final with a 9-1 aggregate.
Their semi-final was a rematch with Brøndby, who had overcome 2006 runner-up and 2005 tournament champion Turbine Potsdam in the quarterfinals. The first leg in Brøndby actually turned out to be Arsenal’s first non-win of the year. It was a back and forth affair, with Kelly Smith putting the Gunners ahead after nine minutes before Maiken Pape equalized seven minutes later. Smith scored again in the 51st minute but the lead once again lasted less than ten minutes before long-time Danish international Lene Jensen equalized for the Danish side.
The 2-2 draw meant that things looked dangerous for Arsenal, though they would take two away goals into the second leg. A week later they met at Meadow Park and things were much more one-sided. Rachel Yankey put Arsenal ahead after 33 minutes before Karen Carney added a second early after half-time. The win was capped off by a 90th minute goal by Julie Fleeting, sending Arsenal (and England) to their first UEFA Women’s Cup final.
Waiting for the Gunners were two-time champions Umeå. The Swedish side were coming off an 11-1 semi-final aggregate win over Norwegian side Kolbotn and would prove a challenge for Arsenal.
The two-legged final opened on April 21st 2007 in Umeå. The first leg was tense, defensive affair that was looking to end in a goalless draw before the ball fell to an open Alex Scott deep in stoppage time.
After securing the league title between the two legs, Arsenal welcomed their Swedish opponents to Meadow Park. This game did end 0-0, meaning that Arsenal would lift the UEFA Women’s Cup for the first (and to date, only) time.
Title #6 - FA Cup
Arsenal’s final title of the season was the FA Cup. Once more they were looking to defend a title, having defeated Leeds 5-0 the year before. Their opponents this time around would be familiar foes Charlton, who were three-time winners in their own right.
And it would be Charlton who struck first, as Katie Holtham caught Arsenal off-guard inside the first two minutes. However two goals in the next thirteen minutes put in Arsenal ahead. From there they looked to be firmly in control. Jayne Ludlow would add a third (and her second of the game) just before half-time. Arsenal played an outstanding shut down game in the second half, and capped off their sixth title of the year with an 80th minute goal from Kelly Smith, who had scored Arsenal’s equalizer back in the 7th minute.
Arsenal had done it, going undefeated across every competition to win six fucking trophies.
Legacy
Arsenal WFC is only one of two clubs to win six titles in a single season, the other being Maltese club Valetta.
Arsenal’s winning ways didn’t end either. They won another five consecutive league titles as well as another three consecutive FA Cups. Their league winning streak would run until 2008, when they lost 3-0 to Everton in their only loss of the season. The final total of consecutive league wins was 108.
Lianne Sanderson scored 51 goals in all competitions in 2007-08 before signing with Chelsea alongside Anita Asante in July 2008. She spent most of the 2010s in the US and was last seen playing for Juventus in 2019. She also earned 50 caps for England.
Kelly Smith stayed with the club until 2009 before she moved back to America to play with the Boston Breakers in the short-lived WPS. After the hiatus and eventual dissolution of the league, Smith returned to Arsenal, who she would play with until her retirement in 2017. Smith also earned 117 caps for England and remains the national team’s all-time scorer to this day.
Alex Scott, who scored that title-winning goal in the UEFA Cup, is a club legend with Arsenal. She joined Smith in Boston for the WPS but also returned to Arsenal until her 2018 retirement. She also made 140 appearances for England and is now commonly seen as a pundit for both men’s and women’s football.
Julie Fleeting left the club in 2012 and played a few more years in Scotland while also amassing 116 goals in 121 matches for Scotland. Emma Byrne was Arsenal’s first-choice keeper for the best part of 17 years before being released on a free transfer in 2016 after the emergence of Dutch keeper Sari van Veenendaal. Jayne Ludlow would leave in 2013 as Arsenal’s all-time scorer and has served as manager of the Welsh national team since 2014.
Vic Akers retired in 2009, having won a total of 32 trophies since helping found the team in 1987.
Arsenal remains one of the top teams in English women’s football, currently boasting a new generation of stars such as Dutch superstar Vivianne Miedema. But their 2006-07 season will go down as one of the greatest sports stories in history.
I really hope you enjoyed this issue of Sports Untold. I am really glad that I have a place to tell this story because it’s just one of my all-time favourites in the world of sport. I’ll be back next Friday but until then, stay safe and keep sporting.