Arsenal 100 seasons in the top divison: 1922/3- 1924/5: why Knighton goes why Chapman comes
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A list of earlier articles in this series celebrating 100 seasons of Arsenal in the top division can be found at the end of this piece
By Tony Attwood
Leslie Knighton was an inexperienced manager when he came to Arsenal in 1919, and it is certainly possible to argue that moving from having had part of one season as a caretaker manager at second division Huddersfield in 1912, (they finished 17th in the league), to becoming first-division Arsenal manager in 1919 was an enormous step for him. One might well say it was too much of a leap.
So why did Sir Henry Norris owner and chairman of Arsenal, take Knighton on? One issue that it is easy to ignore today is the simple fact that Knighton was available. The war had finished, and slowly men were returning to their civilian roles, but there were shortages everywhere: shortages of experienced managers, shortages of experienced players, shortages of scouts, shortages of information. Sir Henry needed a manager for the club in which he had invested a fortune in building the Highbury ground. Knighton put himself forward and accepted whatever modest salary Sir Henry was offering.
Reading his autobiography, it is clear that the one thing Knighton never lacked was self-belief. It is unclear what his duties were in his previous job at Manchester City as assistant manager between 1909 and 1912, but their record at the time (carefully ignored by those who seek to bolster Knighton’s image as the good guy who took on the badman Henry Norris), was not great. In his first season City were relegated from the first division, and although they did bounce back the following season, in Knighton’s final two years at the club, back in the top league, they came 17th and 15th. And this, we should remember, was the team that Herbert Chapman took over and whichimmediately won the FA Cup and then, after a one-year pause (in which they came third), won the 1st division in both the next two seasons.
Quite probably the main attraction of Knighton to Norris was that he was cheap to hire, and would get on with the job without demanding large sums to pay transfer fees (Norris being up to his eyes in debt over the building of the Highbury stadium).
But whatever the reason behind his gaining the managerial position at Arsenal after being assistant manager at Huddersfield (who incidentally turned him down for their managerial job after he was caretaker manager in 1912), it wasn’t his past record as a manager.
The fact is that in his final season at Huddersfield, Knighton was assistant manager in a club that was relegated to Division 2. He didn’t stay to see the consequences of that disaster however, because in 1919 he got the job at Arsenal.
In his seasons as manager at Arsenal, the club came 10th, 9th, 17th, 11th, 19th, and 20th (the 21st and 22nd clubs in the league going down to the second division). His reason for his failure, proclaimed in his autobiography publshed a quarter of a century later, long after the passing of Sir Henry, was that Sir Henry Norris didn’t give him free rein when it came to buying players. But two issues mitigate against this. First, although Arsenal had a reputation for getting big crowds, they had no reputation for developing player ability. For many players of the day, London remained a footballing outpost.
Second, Knighton himself had no reputation as a manager. He had briefly been caretaker manager at Huddersfield, but was then moved on, and postwar had got the job at Arsenal, seemingly (and I admit I have no direct evidence on this one) because he was available at a very modest salary. And with all of Sir Henry’s money going into paying off the cost of the move from Plumstead to Highbury a cheap manager was undoubtedly what he wanted.
Chapman was manager at Huddersfield from 1921 to 1925. In the season before he joined Huddersfield, the club came 17th in the league and went out of the Cup in the third round. The next season (Chapman’s first at Huddersfield) they won the FA Cup – their first ever trophy. In the following three seasons, the club came third, first and first in the league.
Meanwhile, from 1921 to 1925 with Knighton running Arsenal, the club came 17th, 11th, 19th and 20th, and only in one of those season got beyond round two of the FA Cup. In his subsequent career managing Bournemouth, Birmingham, Chelsea and Shrewsbury, he won no trophies,
We can therefore criticise Sir Henry for appointing a manager who had had no success as a manager, and indeed whose closest brush with success was to lead out the beaten FA Cup finalists in 1931. And we might note that even this achievement was not a particular triumph since in the final, Birmingham lost to second division West Bromwich Albion, with Birmingham hot favourites to win. In Birmingham, it was considered an absolute failure and disaster.
Thus, Leslie Knighton was a manager who gained no trophies, and indeed gained not much of a positive reputation either, having been, among other things, severely reprimanded by the League for giving his players performance-enhancing drugs. (The experiment did not work). He ended his managerial career overseeing non-league Shrewsbury Town of the Midland League. After that, a quarter of a century after he stopped being a football manager, he wrote his autobiography, which has been used by many subsequent authors as a basis for commenting on the life of Henry Norris. Indeed, many of the comments and actions attributed to Henry Norris have, as their only source, the autobiography of the manager he sacked – Leslie Knighton.
These commentaries include Sir Henry later saying that sacking Knighton was his greatest mistake in football, and that Sir Henry left Knighton a substantial sum in his will. There appears to be no evidence that either of these statements are based on reality, and indeed both seem singularly unlikely given what we know of Knighton’s failure as a manager at Arsenal and subsequently. Maybe Sir Henry did leave Knighton something in his will, but what on earth could ever have made him suggest that sacking Knighton – the man who led Arsenal twice to wihin inches of relegation, was an error?
Given there is no other source, we can only use our judgement of what is likely. The table below helps in that regard…
Season Knighton Chapman
1923/24 Arsenal – 19th Huddersfield – 1st
1924/25 Arsenal – 20th Huddersfield – 1st
1925/26 Bournemouth -20th Arsenal – 2nd
1926/27 Bournemouth 8th Arsenal – – Cup finalists
This, I think, most clearly separates the mythology that Knighton successfully spread about himself, by writing his autobiography 20 years after the events, and with others mentioned in his work, now sadly passed away. Knighton’s one success in this period can be seen as taking Bournemouth and Boscombe Athletic of the 3rd Divison (South) from 20thth in his first season as manager to 8th in his second season. Meanwhile, Chapman delivered two league titles to Huddersfield and then took Arsenal from the 20th place in the league that Knighton had left them in, to second place in his first season, and on to their first Cup final the following season.
Of course, 100 years later, we can each decide who to believe. My choice, as I guess is quite clear here and in the other articles in this series on 100 years in the top division, is that I believe Chapman. But there is another point worth making. By the time Knighton made his allegations in his autobiography, in 1946, both herbert Chapman and Sir Henry Norris were long since gone – both passing away in 1934 some 12 years before Knighton’s book “Behind the Scenes in Big Football” was published. One wonders what sources Knighton used for his evidence, and why he never once referred to that evidence in his book. Or indeed why he never mentioined any of these points when the two main characters in his story, were still alive.
Previously in this series
Arsenal 100 seasons in the top divison: 1922/3- 1924/5: why Knighton goes why Chapman comes
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