1954/5 and 1955/6: Whittaker’s final seasons, and still no more tophies

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By Tony Attwood

In the last episode of this series we considered Arsenal in 1953/4 – a season in which Arsenal came 12th in the first division in 1953/4 and were knocked out of the cup by Norwich City of Division 3 (South). who were in turn knocked out by Leicester City of the second division in the next round.

Arsenal ended the season of 1953/4 in 12th place, which was a huge shock since the club had actually won the 1st Division the season before. But the warning was there from the start since the Champions opened the season with just two points from their first eight matches. And in fact, the club was bottom of Division 1 in late September.

The one thing Arsenal did have was a high attendance at home games – in fact, the highest in the league – although this was the last time that happened. The declining achievements of the club combined with the development of rebuilt post-war grounds, saw to that.

Results through the season were erratic, and as a result, the crowds, which had been solidly in the 40,00 to 60,000 level now started to settle into the 30,000 to 40,000 region. Decent enough crowds, but not what Arsenal were used to – showing that the crowds were not happy with mid-table finishes – and they were of course not helped by the long delayed rebuilding of the shelter over the north bank.

Indeed, part of the problem was that the ground was still very clearly not back to its pre-war standard, and indeed it was not until the start of the 1955/6 season that the club announced that it had reached an agreement with the War Damages Commission to pay for the cost of the much-anticipated new cover over the north bank.

On the pitch 1954/5 styarted with three straight defeats, which did not convince either the newspaper writers or the fans that the faults with the team that had taken them down to 12th last season. It was their lowest since the first post-war season of 1946/7 when the club had an excuse for its performance, having no ground of its own, and being run out of one room in Tottenham’s ground, where their home matches were played.

In a dreadful run starting on 16 October 1954, Arsenal played eight Division One games, and didn’t win a single one of them, drawing three and losing five. The goals tally was 11 for and 18 against.

By the end of November, the foot of the table read:

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
20	Arsenal	24	7	5	12	40	44	19
21	Leicester City	24	4	7	13	40	58	15
22	Sheffield Wednesday	24	4	5	15	37	62	13

At this time, of course, only the bottom two went down, so Arsenal were not technically in the relegation zone, but were not far above. Yet Arsenal had been Champions in 1952/3.

By 5 February 1955, Arsenal had climbed back to 18th following a five-match unbeaten run, but it was the seven successive wins up to a 2-1 victory over Cardiff on Easter Monday (April 11) that finally took Arsenal to a respectable position in the league. Unfortunately, three defeats and a draw in the last fourgames of the season meant the club finished in ninth position – not what supporters expected after the earlier successes, but at least Arsenal were back in the top half of the league.

Chelsea, who had won the league, had, however, won only three more games than Arsenal, but it was their goal scoring, along with that of second-placed Wolverhampton, that marked them out from mid-table Arsenal. Chelsea scored 81 goals in 42 games, and Wolverhampton 89. This compares with Arsenal’s 69. Arsenal were not that far off the top-scoring clubs, but far enough to end up ninth in Division One.

Now this league position needs to be seen in context. Arsenal had finished 13th in Division One in 1947, having played, as noted, their home games at White Hart Lane. From then on, their league position year by year was 1st,5th, 6th, 5th,3rd, 1st, 12th, 9th.

Looking at that sequence, it was clear that having been a “there or thereabouts” team in the early post-war years back at Highbury, resulting in that title-winning season of 1952/3, Arsenal had again sunk back.

Now for a club that had regularly finished each season in mid-table, a couple of years finishing 12th and 9th out of 22 would seem reasonable, but this was Arsenal and supporters while not expecting a tophy each season, they were expecting more than two season of 12th and 9th in the league, combined with exits from the FA Cup in the fourth round in each camapgin,.

Thus, there was a demand for great improvement in 1955/6. Unfortunately, by 24 September 1956, it was clear that this improvement had not been delivered, as the first division table showed Arsenal in 8th.

But there was a little light relief for Arsenal fans in looking down to the foot of the table, but there really wasn’t even much joy there, for on 10 September Tottenham had won one of their two early-season victories by beating Arsenal 3-1 at White Hart Lane.

By 24 September, Arsenal had played nine, won one, drawn three and lost five, and it was quite clear that their problems were continuing.as by 17 March 1956, Arsenal were lingering at 17th in the table, just six points clear of relegation. True, there was a little compensation in the fact that Tottenham were even worse off in 19th position, and it was also true that the bottom eight clubs in the table contained four London teams: Charlton, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham. Indeed, there was a growing feeling that football was a northern game, and London should focus on rugby.

But in fact Arsenal won eight of the last nine league games, although for Arsenal’s home games, the crowds were dropping down towards 30,000, instead of the 50,000+ that they were used to. But that run had taken Arsenal, amazingly, up to fifth position in the final league table, although Tottenham were left languishing in 18th. Huddersfield and Sheffield United went down, and Manchester United won the league, 11 points above their nearest rivals, Blackpool.

As for Arsenal, they finished fifth in 1956, way above their nearest London rivals Chartlon, who finished 15th, but really Arsenal supporters expected more. But sadly, a bit of silverware was still another 14 years away.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1	Manchester United	42	25	10	7	83	51	60
2	Blackpool	42	20	9	13	86	62	49
3	Wolverhampton Wanderers	42	20	9	13	89	65	49
4	Manchester City	42	18	10	14	82	69	46
5	Arsenal	42	18	10	14	60	61	46

The one thing we can clearly say about 1955/6 was that although Arsenal came fifth and had the fifth best defence in the league, it was the attack that let them down – they were 17th in the league in terms of goals scored, scoring 24 goals fewer than the top league scorers. While in 1952/3 Arsenal had scored 97 goals in winning the first division, in 1954/5 that total had sunk to 69 goals and in the following season it sank further still, as shown above, to 60.

Indeed, if we look at the table above, we can see just how far Arsenal had sunk behind the other clubs. Not in terms of points, but in terms of goals. And the Highbury crowd was starting to become rather frustrated.

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