Morris Bates

Morris Bates helped Fred Beardsley make Arsenal red.

The half back took up work at Royal Arsenal after a period playing amateur football with Nottingham Forest and, together with Beardsley, helped obtain a set of kit from his former club.

The rest is history. Bates later captained the team and played in their first ever FA Cup match, an 11-0 qualifying win over Lyndhurst in October 1899.

Bates, who served in the Royal Army Medical Corps Volunteers, led Arsenal to their first silverware - the London Challenge Cup and Kent Senior Cup in the 1899/1900 campaign.

By this point the defender was nearing the end of his playing career, however, and after three competitive matches for the Club he left in 1900.

After retiring from football he continued to work at Royal Arsenal until his death from tuberculosis aged 41 in September 1905.