April 1915: New revelations concerning perhaps the most important month in Arsenal’s history

By Tony Attwood

As we have seen in previous chapters, Arsenal’s challenge for promotion to the first division in 1914/15 had more or less faded away through February and March 1915, and with April 1915 being, it was now agreed, the last month of professional football, until the end of the war, one might have expected for things to be winding down.

Except as we have also seen, crowd numbers were on the up, possibly as a reaction to the fact that it might be a while before there was any more professional football to see. And except also for an event which occurred on 2 April which had a profound impact on Arsenal – even though they were not involved in the game in question.

Now, if you already know what I am going to talk about, in relation to Liverpool and Chelsea, I would urge you still to read on, because I’m going to add in another ingredient which I believe is both fundamentally important to what happen subsequently, but also has either not be picked up by other historians who have looked at this topic – or where it has been mentioned its importance has not been fully grasped.

Prior to 2 April 1915 the first division table (which obviously did not concern Arsenal too much as they were in the second division) looked like this

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GAvg	Pts
1	Oldham Athletic	31	15	9	7	64	48	1.333	39
2	Manchester City	31	14	10	7	43	31	1.387	38
3	Sheffield Wednesday	33	13	12	8	56	48	1.167	38
4	Everton	31	15	7	9	66	40	1.650	37
5	Blackburn Rovers	31	15	7	9	69	49	1.408	37
6	Sunderland	31	16	3	12	69	61	1.131	35
7	Sheffield United	29	12	10	7	38	28	1.357	34
8	Bradford City	30	11	12	7	49	37	1.324	34
9	West Bromwich Albion	32	12	10	10	39	31	1.258	34
10	Bradford Park Avenue	30	14	6	10	50	52	0.962	34
11	Middlesbrough	32	11	10	11	52	62	0.839	32
12	Burnley	30	12	5	13	48	42	1.143	29
13	Liverpool	31	10	8	13	52	63	0.825	28
14	Aston Villa	30	10	8	12	47	61	0.770	28
15	Bolton Wanderers	32	9	6	17	60	76	0.789	24
16	Tottenham Hotspur	32	7	10	15	49	75	0.653	24
17	Newcastle United	29	8	7	14	36	40	0.900	23
18	Manchester United	30	6	11	13	37	48	0.771	23
19	Notts County	32	6	11	15	33	52	0.635	23
20	Chelsea	29	5	12	12	36	49	0.735	22

On 2nd April, 1915, (Good Friday) Manchester Utd, played Liverpool and beat them 2-0. If you consult the table above this might be a bit of a surprise – and at the time those who really followed football saw it as a bigger surprise, because it was only their third win in the last ten. In fact in retrospect it was an even bigger turn up because Man U then failed to win any of their next five games (drawing one, losing the rest) conceding 11 and scoring five. It was in fact one hell of an oddity.

But what really raised an interest in the matter was that the bookmakers immediately announced that they had taken a great deal of money on the 7-1 odds offered on a 2-0 United victory.

As we all know bookies of course never like to pay out and so they started to spread the word that the match had been fixed. Apart from the range of bets their other evidence was that Liverpool missed a penalty and Man U were of course fighting relegation. That one game didn’t mean they were certain to stay up, but it certainly gave them hope.

So the bookies refused to pay up and offered a reward for anyone who could unmask the conspirators. The Chronicle took up the challenge and eventually blamed corrupt players on both sides of fixing the match both to get some money and to help get Manchester out of relegation.

So great was the furore and because there were mutterings that at this time of war, stories of corruption were deemed to undermine morale, the FA felt obliged to enquire into the matter and in December 1915 concluded that “a considerable amount of money changed hands by betting on the match and… some of the players profited thereby.”

Three Man U players – including two who were not playing – and a number of Liverpool players were banned them all for life – but with the caveat that if the men joined the army they would not be punished. All the men signed up (although they would have been called up when conscription started anyway) but Enoch West continued to contest the sentence. He did not have his ban lifted until he was 59 years old.

The case was left with a number of anomalies however. First, how was it possible to fix a match with an exact score with only one person on the Manchester team being involved? To be sure of the score, surely you needed more than one person playing for Manchester to be playing in the team.

Second neither club received any punishment at all – which was bizarre given that Manchester United benefited greatly by not being relegated at the end of the season – Chelsea and Tottenham going down.

There the matter rested until the summer of 1919 when the authorities prepared to start up football game. They were of course aware of the continuing rumbles of discontent – the player Enoch West was still fighting them and running a libel case against them, while Chelsea and Tottenham were claiming that at the very least Manchester United should be thrown out of the League, and that Liverpool should be demoted.

Now this story has been quite widely told over the years, although not always in the fullest detail, but we can now add something else by returning to a matter that was mentioned in the article in this series relating to April 1913 – just two years before. That article is titled Arsenal relegated amidst allegations of match fixing and in it we reported that…

On Easter Monday 1913 Henry Norris, having a holiday break in Lancashire, went to Anfield and saw the match which ended Liverpool 1 Chelsea 2, a result which meant that the brief flame of hope of Arsenal’s survival in the first division was extinguished. Arsenal were, as a result of this match almost certain to go down although Norris himself would never let anything he was involved in go down without a fight.

To see the implication of this event, which happened just on two years before the notorious and infamous Manchester Utd v Liverpool game, we now need to have a look at the 1913 league table at the time of that match

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GAvg	Pts
1	Sunderland	32	20	3	9	70	37	1.892	43
2	Aston Villa	32	16	10	6	73	41	1.780	42
3	Sheffield Wednesday	32	18	6	8	57	44	1.295	42
4	Bolton Wanderers	32	15	9	8	55	48	1.146	39
5	Manchester United	31	16	6	9	60	38	1.579	38
6	Manchester City	33	17	4	12	46	31	1.484	38
7	Blackburn Rovers	32	13	10	9	64	37	1.730	36
8	Oldham Athletic	31	12	12	7	41	45	0.911	36
9	West Bromwich Albion	32	12	10	10	51	41	1.244	34
10	Derby County	33	14	6	13	57	61	0.934	34
11	Everton	32	14	5	13	41	43	0.953	33
12	Liverpool	34	14	5	15	51	63	0.810	33
13	Bradford City	31	9	11	11	42	45	0.933	29
14	Newcastle United	31	11	6	14	40	39	1.026	28
15	Middlesbrough	31	11	6	14	52	61	0.852	28
16	Sheffield United	33	11	6	16	49	62	0.790	28
17	Tottenham Hotspur	32	11	4	17	41	63	0.651	26
18	Chelsea	33	8	6	19	40	62	0.645	22
19	Notts County	32	6	6	20	23	48	0.479	18
20	Woolwich Arsenal	33	3	9	21	20	64	0.313	15

Chelsea were four points ahead of Notts County, so not in desperate danger, but there were still five or six matches to go and Chelsea had just lost three in a row. So they had every reason to try and get a win one way or another. What’s more, after this unexpected victory Chelsea went on to lose the next two games – 1-6 at home to Blackburn and 1-3 away to Derby. That victory over the solidly mid-table Liverpool was clearly odd.

Thus it was that in his subsequent weekly column in the West London and Fulham Times Norris virtually accused Liverpool and Chelsea fixing the match. As a result the Football League instituted an enquiry and, of course, exonerated Liverpool. They then seriously warned Norris about making any further allegations of this type, and suggested that directors of clubs most certainly did not go around denouncing other clubs. One more outburst and he could be banned from football.

In essence they were calling Norris out – suggesting that in his desire to get Woolwich Arsenal off the bottom of the league he was maliciously libelling Chelsea and Liverpool.

But now here, two years later, in very similar circumstances there was another match fixing scandal brewing, once more involving mid-table Liverpool who were accused of having players who would fix a match if the money was right.

Henry Norris had let the issue of the 1913 match go – he was ordered to drop the matter and, without any evidence to support his accusations, he did. But now in 1915, with the bookies reporting on lots of money being bet on a result which once again did not affect mid-table Liverpool, the accusations against Liverpool as a club that fixed games could not be swept under the carpet by the League, and they had to look into the matter.

Now what did Henry Norris do? I want to be quite clear that from this point on I am drawing implications. We know there was alleged match fixing in 1913 and proven match fixing in 1915 and that after lobbying Arsenal were elected to the first division in 1919. We also know that the whole process of that election was perfectly straightforward and above board – Andy Kelly’s exhaustive analysis of the events in 1919 show this. Indeed if you have not read this piece I would recommend it, complete as it is with newspaper commentaries at the time.

But I believe we can now add one other likely element to the situation in 1915. For the second time in three seasons Liverpool were accused of match fixing in almost identical circumstances and on this second occasion they were proven guilty. Norris had been seriously attacked and warned over his 1913 commentary, but it was surely this article which had in part at least alerted the bookies to be wary of anything odd happening with Liverpool.

Norris would surely have reminded the League how he had been reprimanded in 1913, and how “curious” to say the least it was that it was Liverpool implicated in match fixing for a second time in three years. I think he would have at least “reminded” the League that he had let that issue go in 1913, but that if the League had properly investigated the matter then, the match fixing of 1915 could have avoided.

Most certainly, if absolutely nothing else, Norris enhanced his case for Arsenal to be in First Division in 1919, because he had shown himself to be a vigilant viewer of the game, unafraid to speak out when he saw corruption. And of course if matters were not going to be investigated he would not be bullied into keeping quiet about 1913. One can only imagine what he was thinking as the story about Liverpool and Manchester Utd match fixing started to spread through all the papers around Easter 1915.

Of course none of this would now be played out until 1919, as the League began to get itself back together in the aftermath of war. And in 1915 while Liverpool and Manchester United were busy fixing a first division match, on 2 April 1915 the result elsewhere on this Good Friday was Hull 1 Arsenal 0. Arsenal’s poor run thus continued, this was the third defeat in a row without Arsenal scoring, and one win and five defeats in the last six games with just two goals scored.

This was also the last game for George Grant with Arsenal – a truly local player who was born in Plumstead.

Next on 3 April 1915 Thomas Winship also played his last game for the club – the result was Bristol C 1 Arsenal 1. Winship gained a certain amount of fame after the war when he played for Darlington and put over the cross for the first ever goal scored in the third division north.

The last of the three Easter games was on April 5, when finally, after three defeats and a draw Arsenal gained a victory – 1-0 over Barnsley in front of a 15,000 crowd. Clearly the effect of the announcement of the end of football for the duration was continuing to have an impact on those wishing to catch the last few games before the cessation.

Away from football, at this time the War Office was once more writing to all the mayors of London boroughs, suggesting that they redouble their efforts to raise a troop of volunteers from the young men in their borough. In this regard Norris hardly needed reminding. Not only had he been the made to come up with the idea of the Footballers Battalion, but between 1878 and 1896 he had served in just such a volunteer militia: the 3^rd Middlesex Artillery Volunteers Corps.

So when the War Office suggested Norris raise just such an artillery brigade he not only did this, but, according to Sally Davis, “paid all the expenses of the recruiting drive out of his own pocket, at least for the first brigade that he formed.” It was this work in particular that led to Henry Norris becoming Sir Henry Norris.

On 10 April, Arsenal won again, a 3-1 home victory over Bury with 12,000 in the ground. It was the first time that Arsenal had won two games in a row since February 6. In the following two weeks there was then a further London-wide recruitment campaign, supported by the mayors to convince yet more young men to sign up.

Around this time (the date we have in previous articles is 19 April) George Morrell resigned as manager of the club, knowing undoubtedly that all staff were going to be laid off after the final match of the season on 24 April. This was not a move unique to Arsenal – all clubs did the same thing, as they now had no league or cup to play in and more and more of their players were signing up to the armed forces.

I say “at some point” because it is possible that Morrell left before the Preston game on 17 April, but I have no way of being absolutely certain. What we do know is that he went back to Scotland (he had previously been secretary of the reserves of Rangers FC, and Manager of Morton, from August 1904 to January 1908.

I’m not sure exactly why he left before the end of the season, nor what he did immediately after his departure, but with football continuing in Scotland we can say for sure that he was manager of Third Lanark from 18 August 1917 to April 30 1921.

And so, on or around 19 April 1915 the Arsenal players and staff were told they were being relieved of their duties after the final game the following saturday. On the same day Athletic News said that The Arsenal Football and Athletic Company Limited were £5000 in debt.

And so we come to the final day of the 1914/15 season on 24 April which ended 7-0 to The Arsenal with Punch McEwen as manager, in a victory over Nottingham Forest. The crowd was recorded as 10,000, and Sally Davis reports this included a group of wounded soldiers undergoing treatment at the Great Northern Hospital on Holloway Road.

It was also the last game for Joseph Lievesley, and Percy Sands. Harry King scored four goals to make it four hattricks in the season – a record. He got 26 goals in 37 league games in the season – another record.

The final league table was famously printed wrongly for some reason at the time with Arsenal shown as sixth not fifth, but a later analysis with goal average corrected (which was never printed in the newspapers at the time) shows that Arsenal clearly had a better goal average than Birmingham or Hull. I wonder how many other occasions we had the League table printed wrongly.

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GAvg	Pts
1	Derby County	38	23	7	8	71	33	2.152	53
2	Preston North End	38	20	10	8	61	42	1.452	50
3	Barnsley	38	22	3	13	51	51	1.000	47
4	Wolverhampton Wanderers	38	19	7	12	77	52	1.481	45
5	Arsenal	38	19	5	14	69	41	1.683	43
6	Birmingham City	38	17	9	12	62	39	1.590	43
7	Hull City	38	19	5	14	65	54	1.204	43
8	Huddersfield Town	38	17	8	13	61	42	1.452	42
9	Leyton Orient	38	16	9	13	50	48	1.042	41
10	Blackpool	38	17	5	16	58	57	1.018	39
11	Bury	38	15	8	15	61	56	1.089	38
12	Fulham	38	15	7	16	53	47	1.128	37
13	Bristol City	38	15	7	16	62	56	1.107	37
14	Stockport County	38	15	7	16	54	60	0.900	37
15	Leeds City	38	14	4	20	65	64	1.016	32
16	Lincoln City	38	11	9	18	46	65	0.708	31
17	Grimsby Town	38	11	9	18	48	76	0.632	31
18	Nottingham Forest	38	10	9	19	43	77	0.558	29
19	Leicester Fosse	38	10	4	24	47	88	0.534	24
20	Glossop North End	38	6	6	26	31	87	0.356	18

Immediately the season finished Charlie Buchan did finally manage to volunteer, and went into the Grenadier Guards serving at the Somme, Cambrai and Passchendaele amazingly without being injured.

Two days after the final round of matches in the League on 26 April 1915 a Footballers Battalion XI played the Sportsmen’s Battalion was played at Craven Cottage.

Here are the matches for the month – all in the Second Division.

Date	Game	Res	Score	Crowd
02 Apr 1915	Hull City v Arsenal	L	1-0	8000
03 Apr 1915	Bristol City v Arsenal	D	1-1	7000
05 Apr 1915	Arsenal v Barnsley	W	1-0	15000
10 Apr 1915	Arsenal v Bury	W	3-1	12000
17 Apr 1915	Preston North End v Arsenal	L	3-0	14000
24 Apr 1915	Arsenal v Nottingham Forest	W	7-0	10000

As far as I can tell, nothing had been worked out in terms of any sort of wartime football competition at this point, but organisation did occur quickly, with the first wartime league starting up on 4 September with a match between Arsenal and Tottenham.

Thus even with the League now closed, there is still a story to tell and we’ll continue with this next time.

The Henry Norris FilesSection 1 – 1910.

Section 2 – 1911

Section 3 – 1912/13

Section 4 – 1913: taking on Highbury and the start of the new season

Section 5 – 1914

Section 6 – 1915

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