100 years since the arrival of Chapman part 2: taking over from failure…
By Tony Attwood
Previously in this series:
By Tony Attwood
Retracing our steps for a moment, Arsenal had struggled financially at Plumstead (the picture left is of Plumstead high street four years before Arsenal FC was founded) and even with earning promotion to the top league in 1904 had never had the crowds that it needed to maintain a club at that level.
On the edge of liquidation in 1910, the club was taken over by Henry Norris, who personally paid off all the club’s debts before allowing those who did not want the club to move away from the area the chance to refinance the club themselves, to keep it on the south bank of the Thames.
When no offer to take on the club as a going concern in Plumstead or Woolwich emerged, Norris went searching for a new home for Arsena and eventually found land he could buy and concert into a stadium in Highbury. The club moved north in 1913.
Unfortunately, this was not the best of times to move, for football was suspended for the duration of the war after Arsenal had experienced but two seasons at Highbury. But then prior to professional footbal’s return in 1919, it was decided that the two divisions should be expanded from 20 to 22 clubs, in order to give the clubs more games to play, and hence more income per season.
But nothing was established in terms of how such an expansion of the league could be organised, for there was no automatic promotion to the Football League from any of the regional leagues that were already in existence. Thus there was much debate as to how this expansion should be arranged, and as this has been examined in depth elsewhere pon this site, we can look at this in summary.
There was a significant amount of evidence that match fixing by players had been taking place in 1914/15 and it was evident that Chelsea in particular had suffered as a result of this, being relegated from the first division at the end of the 1914/15 season (at which time football was then put on hold).
Chelsea made it clear that they would not accept such a relegation, and there were suggestions that they might take the matter to court if the League tried to impose the relegation that the League table implied. Since the match fixing in question had been utterly blatant and widely reported in the media, it was obvious that the rest of the clubs would agree that Chelsea should not go down.
And so, through the simple expedient of expanding the league by two clubs, it was possible for the AGM of the League to vote Chelsea back into the top division, without facing the awkward question of what should be done about the matching fixing clubs.
Since everyone agreed that there should be an even number of clubs in each division, this left one extra place in Division One and the matter of who this should be went to a vote of the clubs.
Many accusations have been made in more recent times suggesting Arsenal, who had come fifth in the second division in 1914/15, but were elected to the first division, somehow fixed the vote.
However, this evidence is primarily of the type that says, “there was no good reason for Arsenal to win the vote, so they must have fixed it.”
But not only has no such evidence has ever been produced, there was no suggestion at the time that anything was wrong with the vote. On the contrary to the commentators at the time, electing Arsenal to the top division made excellent sense.
For a start there was a lot of concern about the strength of the Southern League, and it was felt that more London clubs in the top division would help the Football League see off the challenge of the Southern League.
Second it was recognised that despite the difficulties it brought the club, Arsenal had always been staunch supporters of the Football League unlike (for example) Tottenham Hostspur, which had joined the Southern League.
It was also suggested that clubs from the north liked their trips to the capital especially so that the players could enjoy the singular delights of the West End (which did not include trips to the theatre).
But what there was not, was any suggestion of vote rigging. Arsenal won the most votes easily, and then immediately advertised for a new team manager, their previous manager having left the club for Scotland at the outbreak of war – as football in Scotland was not being suspended there as it was in England.
The advert that Sir Henry Norris placed in the paper was:
Arsenal Football Club is open to receive applications for the position of TEAM MANAGER. He must be experienced and possess the highest qualifications for the post, both as to ability and personal character. Gentlemen whose sole ability to build up a good side depends on the payment of heavy and exhorbitant [sic] transfer fees need not apply.
We don’t have details of who did apply, but Lelsey Knighton who had been assistant manager at Manchester City between 1909 and 1912 and again at Huddersfield Town (1912–19). He was appointed on 25 May 2019 and lasted six seasons during which Arsenal came 10th, 9th, 17th, 11th, 19th and 20th.
The story will continue in the next episode.