The League Cup started life in 1960 and was initially the brain child of Stanley Rous – the former Secretary of the FA and future FIFA President and later Arsenal life president. It came to be implemented however by Football League Secretary Alan Hardaker. The main reason why it never existed earlier was due to the fact that as floodlights were not permitted until 1955, it was not practically possible for a second domestic Cup competition to be implemented. During the five-year interim there was a forerunner trophy called the Southern Professional Floodlit Cup. Arsenal competed in four of these tournaments, winning the competition in 1958/59.

The final came in late April at Selhurst Park. Over 30,000 turned out for the game and Arsenal took the trophy with a 2-1 victory over Crystal Palace in the final. This trophy was the only one won by the Gunners during the seventeen years between their 1953 League title win and their first European trophy in the shape of the Inter Cities Fairs Cup in 1970. The competition discontinued when the League Cup was created for the 1960/61 season, however Arsenal initially chose not to compete within the tournament. The club’s position changed in 1966, when the final moved to Wembley after the first six had been two legged affairs.

Arsenal’s first tie within the competition came in mid-September 1966 at Highbury against third tier Gillingham. Only 13,029 spectators turned out for the tie at Highbury. The Gills went in at half time a goal up, after a twenty-five shot from Charlie Crickmore found the net. A goal from Tommy Baldwin spared Arsenal’s blushes, taking the tie to a replay. Making his final competitive appearance for Arsenal at right back that evening was Don Howe. The replay came eight days later, the replay took place with Arsenal heading to the Medway. The replay attracted a crowd of 20,566 – seven thousand more than turned out at Highbury. The match however was played out in thick fog. Charlie Rackstraw put the Gills ahead past the hour mark, before Tommy Baldwin equalised to take the game to a second replay back at Highbury.

Another week later back at Highbury came the second replay. A crowd of just 18,409 turned out to witness Arsenal finally bagged their first win in just over one month with a 5-0 victory secured with goals from Tommy Coakley and two apiece for Frank McLintock and Tommy Baldwin – the latter playing his final game before a swap deal with Chelsea for George Graham saw Baldwin do a Giroud and head to Stamford Bridge from Highbury. Another week further on, Arsenal played West Ham United at Highbury in the third round of the League Cup. The tie had meant a debut for seventeen-year-old John Woodward and eighteen-year-old FA Youth Cup winner Micky Boot. Goals for Martin Peters and two for Geoff Hurst saw Arsenal face their first ever elimination from the League Cup with a 1-3 defeat, while David Jenkins would be on target for the Gunners.

The following year however saw Arsenal progress further. Arsenal kicked off their League Cup campaign with a trip to Highfield Road to face Coventry City. Goals for George Graham and Jon Sammels earned Arsenal’s passage to the third round with a 2-1 victory, while Ernie Machin was on target for Coventry. The first day of November saw a visit to Highbury from second tier Blackburn Rovers in the fourth round of the League Cup. 20,044 people turned out for the tie. Goals for Colin Addison and George Graham gave Arsenal a 2-1 victory and their passage to the Quarter Finals. On the penultimate day of November 1967, Arsenal headed to Turf Moor to face Burnley in the Quarter Final of the League Cup.

The match would be a piece of televisual history, as it would be the first competitive game in Britain to be available on pay per view. Back in the late 1960s, a company called Pay-TV was founded and jointly owned by the Associated British Picture Corporation, British Home Entertainment and British Relay Wireless. It provided an experimental coin-slot TV service, which was limited to 10,000 subscribers and operated in the Westminster and Southwark boroughs and then later in Sheffield. Pay-TV viewers got their ten shillings worth in terms of goals. With Frank McLintock on target and two for George Graham, Arsenal earned a 3-3 draw and a replay back at Highbury. In the replay, goals for Terry Neill and John Radford earned Arsenal a 2-1 win and their passage to the Semi Final to face second tier Huddersfield Town.

Arsenal went into their Semi Final tie with Huddersfield in poor form. Herbert Chapman’s old side stood mid-table in the old Second Division at the time of their visit to Highbury for the first leg. A crowd of 39,986 turned out for the event. Goals for George Graham, John Radford and Bob McNab against his old club meant that Arsenal scraped through the first leg with a 3-2 lead to take to the away leg at Leeds Road. In the second leg of the League Cup Semi Final at Leeds Road in Huddersfield. Goals for Frank McLintock, Jon Sammels and David Jenkins secured Arsenal’s passage to their first Wembley final since 1952 with a 3-1 victory (6-3 on aggregate).

On March 2nd 1968, Arsenal headed back to Wembley for the first time in a generation to meet Don Revie’s Leeds United in the League Cup Final. What is interesting however is that the League Cup final wasn’t a fixture shown live on television. From a quick look BBC Genome also, it doesn’t look like it was even covered live on the Radio, so unless you were able to get a ticket for Wembley its highly unlikely you would have followed the game in real time. Luckily, highlights were shown across the ITV network, though not shown until the following day. As this Pathe News piece on the final states, the game against Don Revie’s side turned out to be one of the least glamourous games ever staged at Wembley.

On twenty minutes, Arsenal keeper Jim Furnell had been impeded by Paul Madeley at a corner and Terry Cooper volleyed the ball into the Arsenal net. The remainder of the encounter was quite an ugly affair, with one incident in particular being Frank McLintock fiercely challenging Gary Sprake leading to a bit of a free for all between the Leeds and Arsenal players within the goal mouth. With no further scoring the game ended in a 0-1 defeat for Arsenal and Leeds United’s first major trophy win. Arsenal’s second attempt at Wembley glory in the League Cup came in September 1968, with a visit from Sunderland in the League Cup second round. A goal from Terry Neill gave Arsenal a 1-0 win in front of a crowd of 28,460.

Arsenal headed to Glanford Park to face Scunthorpe in the third round of the League Cup. The North Lincolnshire side were sitting in fourteenth place in the old Fourth Division and had a young Kevin Keegan within their squad. That very same night, Scunthorpe old boy Ray Clemence would be making his debut for Liverpool in a League cup tie with Swansea Town. Scunthorpe could have done with a keeper of Clem’s calibre as Arsenal ran out 6-1 winners, with goals from David Court, Bobby Gould, Jon Sammels and a hat-trick for David Jenkins. In the fourth round, Arsenal faced a stiff test in their quest for a return to Wembley with a visit from Bill Shankly’s Liverpool to Highbury in mid-October.

The Reds were one point above Arsenal in the league table at the time. A crowd of 39,299 turned out for the tie and witnessed Arsenal progressing to the Quarter Finals with a 2-1 victory with goals from John Radford and Peter Simpson, while Chris Lawler would be on target for Liverpool. In late-October 1968, came the Quarter Final tie at Highbury against second tier Blackpool. An attendance of 32,321 turned out for the tie and were rewarded with a goal fest. On target for the Gunners would be Bobby Gould, John Radford, Peter Simpson and two for George Armstrong, as Arsenal ran out 5-1 winners and progressed to a Semi Final meeting with Spurs.

The first leg with Spurs came at Highbury in late November. A crowd of 55,237 turned out for the game, paying five shillings for the privilege (the equivalent of 25p in decimal currency. Adjusted for inflation that would be £4.17 in today’s money). A late goal for John Radford meant that Arsenal took a 1-0 lead back to White Hart Lane for the second leg. Two weeks later, Arsenal took a trip to White Hart Lane to face Spurs in the second leg of the League Cup Semi Final. A crowd of 55,923 headed to White Hart Lane for the tie. Midway through the first half, a Jimmy Greaves goal levelled the scores on aggregate. There had even been an incident where Bob Wilson was knocked out, but in an era without substitute goalkeepers merely got up and carried on with the rest of the game.

With the game heading for extra time, with three minutes to go Radford got his head to a George Armstrong cross to equalise on the night and send Arsenal through to their second successive final with a 2-1 win on aggregate. Meanwhile, a week before Christmas 1968, third tier Swindon Town defeated Burnley to set up a meeting with Arsenal in the League Cup Final. Arsenal had no fixture on the weekend prior to the League Cup Final and along with the confidence of a 5-0 away win, should have been red hot favourites to defeat third tier Swindon Town and win their first trophy for sixteen years.

There were two things however which diminished Arsenal’s advantage over Swindon. First was a flu bug which swept through the first team squad and afflicted six Arsenal players. The second was that continuous heavy rain throughout the early months, combined with the 1969 Horse of the Year Show and England playing France in the midweek, had made for a quagmire of a Wembley pitch. As ever, the League Cup Final would not be televised and once again, from the BBC Genome website, it doesn’t seem to have been covered at all on BBC Radio who at that time held the monopoly over the airwaves. Highlights of the game were again shown on the ITV network.

Ten minutes ahead of half time, a mix up between Arsenal centre half Ian Ure and keeper Bob Wilson led to an opening goal for Swindon from Don Smart, which he practically walked into the back of the net. Swindon held the lead until four minutes from time, when substitute George Graham played Bobby Gould through to equalise for the Arsenal (as Brian Moore would helpfully point out in Bobby Gould’s moment of great emption: ‘he’s crying!’ The ITV commentator also states in his match day commentary that Gould’s father was without his sight, but still at the game and had the game described to him as it occurred by members of his family).

The game went into extra time. Fourteen minutes into which Don Rogers put Swindon ahead again. In the final minute of extra time, as Arsenal pushed for an equaliser, Swindon broke away with Rogers sealing it for the Wiltshire side with his second goal – their first, and so far only major trophy. Arsenal crashed to a shameful 1-3 defeat. Many years after the event, former Arsenal players Bob Wilson, Frank McLintock and George Graham describe the shock of that loss. Wilson describes how McLintock threw his loser’s tankard into the Wembley mud in disgust before being hit by a trombone after walking into Wembley’s marching band.

The press were scathing, with Alan Hoby of the Sunday Express describing that Arsenal were: ‘slaves of their own system, methodical but utterly predictable’. The League Cup would not be the only glory for Swindon Town in 1968/69, as they would also finish runners up in the old Third Division and be promoted to the second tier along with Watford, who were champions by virtue of goal average. Arsenal’s quest for a third successive League Cup final started in September 1969, with a League Cup second round tie with Southampton at the Dell in which John Roberts made his debut. Goals for Arsenal’s Bob McNab and Southampton’s Mick Channon meant a 1-1 draw.

Forty-eight hours on back at Highbury, Arsenal’s bid for a hat-trick of League Cup finals was boosted by a 2-0 win over the Saints secured by two goals for George Graham in extra time. After a 2-2 draw with Man United at Highbury, table topping Everton head to Highbury to face Arsenal in the third round of the League Cup. The two sides play out a 0-0 draw. Six days later, the replay took place at Goodison Park. Just twenty four hours prior, the Gunners took a trip to Belfast to play the second leg of their Inter City Fairs Cup tie with Glentoran. In a game in which Charlie George had been sent off for arguing with a linesman, Arsenal crashed to a 0-1 defeat, but progressed to the next round with a 3-1 victory on aggregate.

The following day, Arsenal crossed the Irish Sea to play Everton in their League Cup replay. A Howard Kendall goal denied Arsenal a third successive final, as Everton inflicted a 0-1 defeat on the Gunners. In 1970/71, Arsenal were drawn against Ipswich Town away in early September. The second round of the League Cup tie ended in a goal-less draw. Forty-eight hours on from a televised 0-5 hammering at Stoke City, Arsenal faced Ipswich at Highbury in their replayed League Cup second round tie. Goals for John Radford, John Roberts and two for Ray Kennedy meant a thumping 4-0 win. In the third round of the League Cup Arsenal travelled to Kenilworth Road to face a Luton Town side who sat third in the Old Second Division at the time. A George Graham goal gave Arsenal a 1-0 win.

At the end of October 1970, Arsenal then headed to Selhurst Park to play Crystal Palace in the fourth round of the League Cup in midweek, where the two sides played out a 0-0 draw. In front of a crowd of 45,026, with goals for Gerry Queen and a Bobby Tambling penalty, Palace achieved their first ever win over Arsenal by inflicting a 0-2 defeat (what turned out to be Arsenal’s only home defeat throughout 1970/71) with the Gunners crashing out of their first tournament of the season. Five days later, Crystal Palace would be back at Highbury for the League fixture. John Radford would give Arsenal the lead, though Crystal Palace would pull it back for a 1-1 draw (this match would be the only score draw at Highbury throughout 1970/71). The Gunners famous went on to achieve a League and FA Cup Double in 1970/71.