Arsenal in the spring of 1924. Relegation is avoided; Chapman wins the League

By Tony Attwood

Before we jump into the football allow me to take you back to the source of Sir Henry Norris’ fortune: property development.  His company had built much of Fulham, working on the tried and tested approach that continued at least until the latter part of the 20th century, of building blocks of houses, selling off approximately two thirds to recover the costs of the development and then renting out the remainder to give an ongoing income.

This business had come to an end as the amount of spare land in Fulham dried up, but Sir Henry later teamed up with football fan, and very famous ex-player Lord Kinnaird and the Kinnaird Park Estate Company.   However with first Lord Kinnaird himself being taken ill, and then Sir Henry, the company had more or less ground to a halt.  It did very occasional works but they were nothing like the scale of either company in the past.  On 1 April they had a planning application considered by Bromley Urban District Council.  It was the first application in over a year, and was for just one house.  It was passed.

Now to the football, and as we have seen in the last episode of this series, at the start of April 1924, issues both at the top and foot of the first division had yet to be resolved.

Four teams at the top of the table felt they were in with a chance of the title, while at the foot of the table matters were much simpler.  Would it be Arsenal or Chelsea who accompanied Middlesbrough into the second division?

The league table at the start of the month looked like this…

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GAv	Pts
1	Sunderland	36	20	8	8	63	42	1.500	48
2	Bolton Wanderers	37	17	13	7	64	29	2.207	47
3	Huddersfield Town	33	20	6	7	50	26	1.923	46
4	Cardiff City	34	17	10	7	52	32	1.625	44
5	Blackburn Rovers	37	16	10	11	50	41	1.220	42
6	Sheffield United	35	15	11	9	58	41	1.415	41
7	Aston Villa	36	14	12	10	40	34	1.176	40
8	Everton	36	14	12	10	48	45	1.067	40
9	Notts County	35	12	14	9	38	36	1.056	38
10	Newcastle United	35	13	10	12	50	40	1.250	36
11	West Ham United	35	11	13	11	31	34	0.912	35
12	Birmingham City	35	11	12	12	34	42	0.810	34
13	Liverpool	35	12	8	15	40	42	0.952	32
14	Tottenham Hotspur	34	10	12	12	37	40	0.925	32
15	Manchester City	33	11	9	13	43	59	0.729	31
16	Burnley	33	10	10	13	46	48	0.958	30
17	West Bromwich Albion	34	9	12	13	39	54	0.722	30
18	Preston North End	36	10	8	18	46	59	0.780	28
19	Nottingham Forest	36	10	8	18	39	56	0.696	28
20	Arsenal	33	9	7	17	30	52	0.577	25
21	Chelsea	36	5	14	17	20	47	0.426	24
22	Middlesbrough	36	7	5	24	31	50	0.620	19

Arsenal, as we have noted several times had two things in their favour: they had games in hand and Chelsea were struggling as much as they were.

Arsenal began the month on the back of a run of two wins and eight defeats in the last ten matches in league and cup, and opened the month with an away game against Liverpool who had been beaten 3-1 at Highbury one month before.

Liverpool were lying 13th in the table, and had a fairly decent home form having won nine, lost four and drawn five of their games.  Away from home Arsenal had won just three and drawn two all season scoring just ten and conceding 31.  Given such form the 0-0 draw was considered a good result.   The Times stated that Arsenal had the best of a poor match; it sounds they came for a draw and got it.  Chelsea did not play, so this was the using up of one of Arsenal’s games in hand.

The next match was Burnley at home, and Arsenal probably took confidence both from the Liverpool draw and from the fact this was at Highbury, for Burnley’s away record before this match was truly shocking: two wins seven draws and eight defeats.  And indeed Arsenal made the most of Burnley’s terrible record; 1-0 up at half time they won 2-0.

Even better Chelsea lost 1-0 away to Manchester City making it ten without a win.   The bottom of the table now looked like this…

Pos	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	G.Av	Pts
18	Preston North End	37	10	9	18	46	59	0.780	29
19	Nottingham Forest	37	10	9	18	40	57	0.702	29
20	Arsenal	35	10	8	17	32	52	0.615	28
21	Chelsea	37	5	14	18	20	48	0.417	24
22	Middlesbrough	38	7	6	25	34	54	0.630	20

At this rate Arsenal might not just escape relegation they could end up as high as 18th.  Dizzying heights indeed.

And now at this moment, we find that Sir Henry was indeed back in England after his long spell at his house in France.  First, Sally Davis has noted him as attending a meeting of the ancient liveried company of which he had long been a member: The Worshipful Company of Feltmakers of London.

Then at the end of the week Sir Henry was back in court for the libel case of Norris v Armfield – this being held on 11 April.  The hearing was a simple formality; Armfield had fully admitted that he had libelled Sir Henry and paid Sir Henry’s costs and 100 guineas (£105) in damages which Sir Henry gave to charity.

The next day 12 April it was back to the football as Arsenal beat Sunderland 2-0.  Arsenal were helped somewhat by the habit of the time (which continued through much of the century) of playing international matches at the same time as league games, with clubs being forced to give up their best players.  As a result Charlie Buchan was absent for Sunderland as he was at Wembley playing in a 1-1 draw for England against Scotland.

Arthur Bourke, writing as Norseman in the Gazette as usual, said he thought Arsenal had played the best football he had ever seen from the club – high praise indeed, and quite possibly true given that Sunderland were top of the league.  Indeed they were still top of the League after the game, but only just.

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GAv	Pts
1	Sunderland	38	21	8	9	66	46	1.435	50
2	Huddersfield Town	35	21	7	7	52	27	1.926	49
3	Cardiff City	37	19	11	7	56	33	1.697	49

Better yet again Chelsea lost away to Newcastle to make that three defeats in a row and 11 without a win.

At the foot the table now looked thus:

Bob John, as we can see was missing having been injured on 15 March against Nottingham Forest.  He only made one further appearance before the end of the season.   And we may notice Dr Paterson, the man so harshly and horribly maligned as the player the manager was “reduced” to playing – the “brother-in-law of the physio”.  He had switched successfully from outside left to outside right.

Six of these players played in the first match of the season, and to be fair to the manager if we look at the last three games of the season, all the opening XI save Toner got at least one game.  That makes me fairly sure it was injuries.  And that makes a certain amount of sense: after all this was the era of the un-medically trained “trainer” who if a player was down would rush on the pitch with a bucket of cold water and a sponge.   If the player didn’t get up at the sight of that, you knew he probably really was injured.

There is one other point of interest in these games: on April 12 the crowd was just 18,000 – way down on Arsenal’s average for the season.   And yet here were Arsenal fighting for their future, playing the table topping team, having just drawn one and won the other two of their last three games.   It would appear that the explanation was that supporters who would have gone to see Arsenal instead went to watch the England game at Wembley.

Now we move on to Good Friday, 18 April a day which Arsenal had to play away from home as part of the arrangements in their lease of Highbury.   The match was against Everton who were sitting eighth in the league – but most worrying for Arsenal was the fact of Everton’s home record – won 11, drawn seven lost only one.  Arsenal away was still a sorry tale having won three, drawn three and lost 11.

Arsenal made two changes – both bringing in experienced players (Blythe and Mackie) but the result was as the form figures predicted.  Everton won 3-1, Haden getting Arsenal’s goal.   Worse, Chelsea suddenly broke the run of defeats and beat Liverpool 2-1 at home.   And for the first time the newspaper’s attention turned to the fact that all four of Chelsea’s remaining games were at home.

This being the Easter period it was game after game, day after day, and Arsenal now took the train from the north west to the north east to play, of all clubs, Sunderland, while Chelsea were at home to Newcastle.

Before the game Sunderland were still top of the league.  Their home record was not quite as powerful as we might expect (won 12, drawn 6, lost 2) but still powerful enough to worry Arsenal.  And yet Arsenal got a 1-1 draw, Woods now playing at number 9, getting his second in three.  The team was the same as for the Everton defeat.

Then the news came in – Chelsea beat Newcastle 1-0.   They had quite amazingly just won two in a row!  While Arsenal had been drawing with Sunderland, Preston (the other relegation potentials) had been beating West Ham.  Now the foot of the table had taken another turn…

Pos	Club	P	W	D	L	F	A	G.Av	Pts
17	Tottenham Hotspur	38	10	13	15	43	52	0.827	33
18	Preston North End	39	11	9	19	49	63	0.778	31
19	Arsenal	38	11	9	18	36	56	0.643	31
20	Nottingham Forest	39	10	10	19	40	59	0.678	30
21	Chelsea	40	7	14	19	24	51	0.471	28
22	Middlesbrough	41	7	8	26	37	59	0.627	22

Thus attention suddenly switched to Nottingham Forest.   Since beating Arsenal on 15 March (the last game before Arsenal’s mini-revival) they had lost two and drawn three; on this day losing 2-0 away to Villa.