Dan Lewis
Parker Butler John
Rutherford, Blyth
Lawson, Young Brain, Ramsay Hulme
In fact, Arsenal used 29 players in the season (remembering of course, there were no substitutes in those days) but it was only in the last four games of the campaign that the selected XI was the same. But the league table contrasted with the year before was utterly incredible.
And it is interesting to compare this first Chapman season with the previous season under the man who was sacked to make way for Chapman – Leslie Knighton (while remembering, as ever, that in those days it was two points for a win and one for a draw).
What we can immediately see is that the number of defeats was just on halved in the space of one season. The number of goals scored was almost doubled (they went up by 91%), although the goals against did also increase although just by five.
But above everything else, the club moved from one place above relegation in 1924/25 to second in the league in 1925/26. Now, against this, we have the oft-repeated comment made by Chapman’s predecessor, Leslie Knighton, that Sir Henry Norris told Knighton that sacking him was his (Norris’) single greatest mistake. Of course, we can’t know what was going through Sir Henry’s mind when he said that, or if he ever said that, (I really do have my doubts, it was simply not a Sir Henry thing to say), but given the turnaround that Chapman achieved in his very first season at Arsenal both in terms of crowd numbers (and thus income) and team performance, and given Kngihton’s propensity in his book for creating fairy tales, it seems unlikely. How could sacking the man who almost relegated Arsenal be a mistake? If there was a mistake, surely it was in not doing it sooner.
His first season was, we must also note, a season of experimentation for Chapman. He used 28 players all told, and changes started happening from the very start. Indeed by the tenth game of the season over half of the players who had played in the opening match had been replaced. By the final game of the season only four men who started in that opening match on 29 August 1925 were still in the team.
That opening game was against, of all teams, Tottenham Hotspur, and Tottenham beat Arsenal 0-1 at Highbury in front of over 53,000. By the final home game on 1 May, enthusiasm had waned and only just over 22,000 turned up to see Arsenal beat Birmingham City 2-0.
But there was something else we should note, particularly, because I don’t think I have seen it noted by any other commentators on Arsenal’s history, and that is Arsenal’s away form. In Leslie Knighton’s last season with Arsenal, the club won just two of its 21 away league games and drew another two. That gave the club a grand total of six away points, which of course was a major factor in sending Arsenal to the very edge of relegation.
In the following season, six away games were won and six were draws, meaning the level of away defeats was more than halved. The number of away goals scored was almost tripled.
Now we have to remember that at this time the level of away wins was much lower than we generally see today, not least because it was commonplace for players to get an early morning train or coach trip and have at best a packed lunch before the match, looking forward to a return trip home that evening after the game. There were few pleasantries, such as an overnight stay in a hotel.
So by contemporary standards, Arsena’s record of six wins, six draws and nine defeats away from home was indeed impressive. They had moved from being the worst away club in the league to the fourth best away club in the league, in just one season. If we wanted a single example of how Knighton had no idea what he was up to, while Chapman did know what is going on, we only have to look at the away results!
But of course, our eyes must stray to the final table for both home and away games.Comparing that final season of Knighton in 1924/5 and that first season of Chapman (1925/6) reveals totally how ludicrous Knighton’s complaints about his sacking were, and how unlikely it was that Norris might say sacking Knighton was his biggest mistake. Arsenal had moved from 20th in the league to second in the league in one season, to second in the next, and there was a clear feeling around Highbury that Chapman had only jusst begun. What, the newspapers and the supporters wondered, might he conjure up next time around?
1926 – the top five.