100 seasons in the top division: 1921/2 (part two)
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To follow this series from the start go to Celebrating 100 consecutive seasons of Arsenal in the top division. You will see at the top of the page on the right side a link to “100 Seasons in the top Division: The Election”. That’s the second article. And from there on look at the top right to find the headline (with the blue background) leading on to the next article in the series.
By Tony Attwood
In 1919/20, Arsenal came 10th in the First Division, having been elected to the top-tier by the other clubs in the League, on the expansion of the two divisions by two clubs each. That position of tenth, just above halfway, along with the much-improved crowd numbers the club was getting at the new Highbury ground, made the decision look very sensible at the time. What’s more, the club appeared to symbolise the nation’s victory in the First World War, given Arsenal’s association with the military, and it was a time of positive thoughts about the sacrifices of war which the club, still associated with Woolwich Arsenal, symbolised.
But Arsenal also showed that the votes in their favour were not just sentimentality, as clearly in 1919/20 they could cope with the pressures of being a First Division club, as well as attracting crowds of 30,000+ for home games, and extra interest when playing away.
This feeling of a good and indeed patriotic decision being made extended into 1920/21 as Sir Henry Norris continued to limit the expenditure of the club and the team (putting the paying off of the debts of the building programme as his main objective) while the club came ninth in their second post-war season. Paying off debts while investing in the future, was the order of the day.
But then as we saw, in 1921/2 things started to go seriously wrong on the pitch and this downturn continued so much that it was only the thought of the FA Cup and an undefeated run in the last five games that kept Arsenal in the 1st Division. In the end Arsenal finished 17th.
By the start of 1922/23 it must have been clear to the manager Leslie Knighton that the only thing that would keep him in his job while Sir Henry Norris continued to pay off the debts that arose from the creation of the Highbury ground was at the very least, mid-table security. A good run in the cup would be handy as well.
The latter was not to happen as Arsenal were drawn against the eventual League Champions, Liverpool, and after an away draw in Liverpool in round one of the FA Cup, Arsenal lost the replay at Highbury 1-4.
The problem was quite simply this: in the six matches from 6 January to 3 February Arsenal scored just three goals. The table now read…
Club P W D L F A Pts
1 Liverpool 24 17 2 5 49 22 36
19 Arsenal 26 8 4 14 40 53 20
20 Nottingham Forest 26 6 6 14 25 44 18
21 Stoke 24 5 6 13 26 38 16
22 Oldham Athletic 25 5 5 15 25 48 15
Stoke City were four points behind Arsenal, sitting in one of the two relegation places, but with two games in hand. The chances of them winning both were modest, but their goal average, although worse than Arsenal’s, was not that much worse although goal scoring was becoming a real problem.
In fact, between New Year’s Day and 3 February 1923, Arsenal scored just four goals in six games and never more than one in a match. Fortunately, Arsenal did recover and were unbeaten in the final nine games of the season, leaving them a respectable 11th at the end of the season. But for the first time the crowd size (the one key element in Arsenal’s income) was down to 20,000 by the final game. True there had been some lower crowds at the end of the 1920/21 season, but there again the crowds had gone down as Arsenal had sunk down the table. Now the message could not be clearer – the crowds would come to Highjbury, but the minimum they required was mid-table and either a cup run or a serious chance of finishing higher up the league.
But the problem turned out very much to be the manager: Leslie Knighton.
To get the full picture of Knighton’s performance as manager, we can look at the final club position over these years. And indeed, taking in 1924/25 – Knighton’s final season at Arsenal – what we can see here is that the club that far from making progress, was declining. Indeed, while the club in the early post-war seasons had in three of the first four sesasons come between 9th and 11th (not spectacular, but safe), after 1922/23 the club started to fall away seriously. And just how seriously it fell away can be measured the fact that the clubs in 21st and 22nd place would go down to the second division.
P W D L F A PTS POS
1919–20 42 15 12 15 56 58 42
1920–21 42 15 14 13 59 63 44
1921–22 42 15 7 20 47 56 37
1922–23 42 16 10 16 61 62 42
1923–24 42 12 9 21 40 63 33
1924–25 42 14 5 23 46 58 33
Now, Knighton’s defence in his autobiography, published over 20 years later. at which time he had no access to any documents from the era, it was that he was refused money to buy players by the chairman Sir Henry Norris. The problem with that claim, however, is that the records show that new players were arriving regularly, but they were simply not delivering the goods. Indeed, since in this series we are celebrating 100 seasons in the top division, we should note that 1923/24 was the closest Arsenal have ever come thus far relegation. – missing it by one point and a superior goal average.
In terms of the table, however, Arsenal did even worse the following season, coming 20th, with the 21st and 22nd clubs descending to the second division. For the second season running, Arsenal survived, but only just.
The key problem Knighton had in those final two seasons was the lack of a goal scorer. While in the two earlier years, Henry White had scored 22 goals and Bob Turnbull 21 in the league, in Knighton’s last two seasons, his top scorers were Woods with 12 and Brian with 15.
Now Jimmy Brain had joined the club in 1923, age 22, and was indeed going to become the centre forward Arsenal needed, but in 1924/25 (his first full season with the club) he showed promise but only got 12 goals in 28 league games. Good, but not enough when others were also finding it impossible to get the goals the club needed.
Thus in his final two seasons at the club, Knighton saw his side slip closer and closer to relegation, and indeed in three of his last four seasons as manager at Arsenal, the club finished in the bottom six.
But perhaps worse than this (and it is something that Knighton somehow fails to mention in his autobiography, and which other commentators who seem to be more interested in knocking Henry Norris than considering the facts of the case have ignored, in 1925, Arsenal played 22 games with Knighton in charge. Three of those were FA Cup games against West Ham (two draws and a defeat)
At the start of the year, the table showed Arsenal in a decent ninth position, just eight points behind the top club West Bromwich Albion, and only six points behind Huddersfield Town, and eventual winners of the league.
But then came the collapse. Arsenal lost six successive league games, conceding 13 goals and scoring just three. This included a humiliating 0-5 defeat at Highbury to Huddersfield Town – a match that seems largely to be ignored by those who write on such matters, but undoubtedly a match in which the Huddersfield manager, Herebert Chapman, would have met with and talked with, (at least in passing), Arsenal chairman, Sir Henry Norris. But unfortunately, although Sir Henry’s reputation was attacked without remorse from 1929 onwards, none of the minutes of directors’ meetings from this era survives – leaving us unable to prove definitively what happened when he was removed. I’ll come back to the issue of missing board minutes later.
But for now, back to 1925, Arsenal’s disastrous run had taken them down to 19th in the league (with, as ever, the 21st and 22nd placed club going down.) Arsenal had won two of their last 19 league matches.
Then on 14 April 1925 came one of the most talked about and controversial games in the history of 20th-century Division One football. Arsenal, seemingly in freefall, played top of the league West Bromwich Albion at home. West Brom had lost just once in their last 11 games and were top of the league with just four games to play. Huddersfield were just one point behind, so winning every remaining game was vital. Arsenal were 19 places behind, having lost five of their last six matches – including being beaten by West Brom themselves.
And yet amazingly Arsenal beat West Brom 2-0, despite the table before the game reading.
In history that goes down as “one of those things that happens in football”. And strangely it was followed by another “one of those things” as Arsenal won their next match 5-0 against Burnley. Another result that one at least might call “unexpected”. Arsenal lost their last two games but survived as Preston and Nottingham Forest went down, while at the top, West Bromwich missed the title by just two points.
At the end of the season, Knighton was sacked as Arsenal manager, and an advertisement then appeared in the press to the effect that Arsenal were looking for a new manager. Herbert Chapman applied, and the new era started. No allegations appeared about any match fixing, and football continued on its usual course.
Later in the summer of 1925 Leslie Knighton got a job at Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic who like Arsenal had just come 20th out of 22 clubs – although in their case that was in Division 3 (South) In the following season of 1925/26 Knighton took Bournemouth up to eight, while Chapman, in his first season at Arsenal took them to second in the 1st division – their highest position so far.
100 seasons in the top division: 1921/2 (part two)
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