As the 1937/38 season dawned, Arsenal appeared to be at a crossroads. After finishing third in the First Division the previous campaign, pessimists suggested that George Allison’s side would struggle to reclaim former glories.
Reigning champions Manchester City, on the other hand, who’d scored a scarcely credible 107 goals in 42 league games in the last term, were confident that they could retain their crown. But, in what proved to be perhaps English football’s most dramatic ever top-flight campaign, things didn’t quite pan out that way..
“I spoke to a journalist at the start of the season,” former Gunners defender George Male told me in 1994, “where I suggested we were some way off winning the league. George Allison pulled me into his office and told me not to be so defeatist.”
It’s easy to see why Male might have thought that way, with 1930s legends David Jack and Alex James departing, and Coventry City’s Leslie Jones was our only major signing. However we started the season well, hammering title favourites Wolves 5-0 in September and scoring 12 goals in our first three games.
But just two wins in 12 followed - one of which was a 2-1 win at Highbury against the holders City at Highbury _\[above\]_, leading former Gunner Charlie Buchan to write in the Daily Mail: “Their decline is one of the surprise features of an amazing season.”
As if to confirm our fall from grace, talismanic forward Ted Drake’s injuries multiplied, and he missed 15 league matches. Filling in for him was pint-sized forward Eddie Carr, who played only 12 times for the Gunners, but the seven goals that he scored at the tail-end of 1937/38 would prove crucial.
That’s because having been 11th in November, Arsenal clawed themselves back into the title race. With three games to go, a crunch match came at Deepdale against high-flying Preston North End, where we won 3-1 in the mud, ending the home side’s title chances.
Going into the last day, Wolves were a point above us and 40,000 packed into Highbury for our final match against Bolton Wanderers, which saw us finish in style with a 5-0 victory, with Carr _\[below\]_ and Cliff Bastin netting braces. News then filtered through that Wolves had lost at Sunderland and we leapfrogged them to clinch our fifth league title, all claimed during the same decade.
Going into the season as champions and with rivals Manchester United in Division Two, City seemed to have it made, boasting such luminaries as goalkeeper Frank Swift, winger Ernie Toseland and the high-scoring trio of Eric Brook, Alec Herd and Peter Doherty. However, things went horribly wrong.
Their forwards were as prolific as ever, with City banging in a division-high 80 goals in 42 games, but their porous backline let in 77. The Citizens won only twice on their travels, and one of those victories was a 7-1 win at Derby County (whom they had also defeated 6-1 at home).
In the new year they embarked on a disastrous run of seven defeats and two draws in nine games. Nine clubs were still battling the drop in May in the tightest relegation scrap ever, and defeat on the final day condemned City to the drop.
City became the only champions to go down the next season and the only side relegated with a positive goal difference, while our 52 points from 42 games was the joint-lowest total for league champions. Adjusting for a 38-match season and three points for a win, their tally today would have been 66 points, some 24 points fewer than Arsene Wenger’s 2004 ‘Invincibles’.
As Manchester City and Arsenal discovered to vastly varying degrees, this was a topsy-turvy season like no other.
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