100 consecutive years in the top divison: Arsenal in 1983/4

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By Tony Attwood

As I mentioned in the last episode of this series, Arsenal had a very modest league season in 1892/3 finishing 10th in the league. Worse, although they beat Tottenham 2-0 at home in December, Arsenal lost to that club 0-5 away in April, in a sequence of nine consecutive matches which alternated between a defeat and a win throughout.

True, as we noted before, the FA Cup and League Cup offered a little reprieve as Arsenal reached the semi-final in each case, but then in each case lost to Manchester United, which seemed to show that Arsenal were simply not making the progress supporters demanded to take the club back to the days of 1970/1.

But there was another problem: Arsenal did not have a reliable top scorer in the conventional sense. Stapleton had been that man getting an acceptable but not sensational 14 league goals in 1980/81, giving a total of 75 lague goals in 225 games. Yet when he left Arsenal in 1981 and went to Manchester United, it seemed a real slap in the face for Arsenal. Indeed, once at Man U, his scoring figures proportionally remained much the same.

But then, having tried McDermott in the number 9 role for the first six games of 1981/2 without him scoring a goal, in what looked like an act of utter desperation, Paul Davis was moved from the wing to number 9. And so it was: he played 37 games and scored once. The man who came (partially) to the rescue was Alan Sunderland who played 38 league games and ended up top scorer with 11. Graham Rix was also a near ever-present knocking in nine, as Arsenal, without a recognised regular goal scorer, did nevertheless finish the season in ninth. Hardly exciting but better than feared.

For 1982/3 what was clearly needed was a new reliable goalscorer. Lee Chapman was introduced and played eight games at number 9, but scored only one goal in 1982/3, and made only occasional appearances after his opening run.

Eventually it was Tony Woodcock who rescued the club in 1982/3 with 14 goals in 34 games. The last player to score at this level was Frank Stapleton in 1978/79, who knocked in 13 league goals.

However, there is another thought to remember here. For the five seasons starting in 1971/72, Arsenal did not score more than 65 goals in a season, and indeed in 1975/6 Arsenal conceded more goals than they scored.

It was not until Macdonald came along in 1976/7 that Arsenal had a goal scorer ranking in the elite, and indeed in four of the first five seasons below Arsenal had no one able to knock in 20+ goals in a season. In fact, in only half of the seasons listed below did Arsenal have a man able to score more than 20 in a season.

Season	League goals	Top scorer	Top man’s goals	Lge pos
19971–72	58	Ray Kennedy	19	5
1972–73	57	John Radford	19	2
1973–74	49	Ray Kennedy	13	10
1974–75	47	Brian Kidd	23	16
1975–76	47	Brian Kidd	11	17
1976–77	64	Malcolm Macdonald	29	8
1977–78	60	Malcolm Macdonald	26	5
1978–79	61	Frank Stapleton	28	7
1979–80	52	Alan Sunderland	29	4
1980–81	61	Frank Stapleton	16	3
1981–82	48	Alan Sunderland	12	5
1982–83	58	Tony Woodcock	21	10

But there is of course, no absolute link between the goals scored and the league position. Twice in the list above Arsenal came fifth in the league, with the top scorer once scoring 12, and once scoring 19. Even when Macdonald scored 29, the club came 8th in the league. Yet when the top scorer was Sunderland with 12, we came 5th. In other words, having a top scorer does not necessarily bring success, even if that is what commentators suggest.

Quite clearly, the club needed an all-round team, as well as a top scorer. Certainly if Arsenal needed one thing it was a man who could repeat what Woodcock had done in 1982/3, and Macdonald had done in his prime seasons. But it was also clear to anyone who bothered to check, that although having a 20+ goal scorer was good, it was not enough. In 1982/3 Arsenal had come 10th in the league (hardly good enough for most fans) and had reached two cup semi-finals, but lost both. And that just added to the simple realisation that Arsenal needed a goalscorer who could knock in 20 plus goals a season.

And this is what Arsenal thought they had with Tony Woodcock, and indeed in 1983/4 he duly delivered with 21 goals in 37 league appearances. But the unfortunate point was that in 1983/4 while Arsenal’s goal tally shot up from 58 the previous season to 74, thanks to Woodcock’s goals, there was one thing this did not do. It did not dramatically cut the number of goals against.

In 1982/3 Arsenal scored 58 goals and conceded 56. In 1983/4 Arsenal scored 74 (a significant improvement) and conceded 60 (slightly worse).

The reason for the improvement was generally seen as the change of manager, and on 16 December 1983, Arsenal did what they rarely do – they said farewell to their manager in mid-season, Nevill leaving on 16 December 1983 after a 0-1 home defeat to West Bromwich Albion. That result had left Arsenal with four defeats and one victory in the last five games, and place Arsenal 16th in the league.

Unusually in such circumstances, Terry Neill did not return to football management even though he left Arsenal at the comparatively young age for a manager of 41. Instead, he set up sports bars in north London, which also provided commentaries for Arsenal TV. Terry Neill also worked with Arsenal on their business development programmes and became one of the professional guests at matches. He finally retired to his home in West Sussex, and passed away in 2022 at the age of 80.

Meanwhile, returning to our central theme, upon Terry Neill’s departure, Don Howe took over temporary control of the first team as caretaker manager, and was confirmed as the permanent manager in April 1984, remaining in post until March 1986.

For Terry Neil, the primary problem had been that although Arsenal were getting more a goals, the club had hardly improved their ability to win games. Thus, for example, having won 16 games in 1982/3 they won just 18 in 1983/4. And with wins now giving three points rather than the previous two, that clearly was not enough.

If the matter were to be expressed in one simple dimension, that would be the “goals conceded”. Arsenal conceded 56 in 1982/3 but 60 in the following season, so all the good work of scoring the extra goals was not reflected at the other end. Arsenal rose from tenth in 1982/3 to sixth the following season, while it was noticeable, and a little enjoyable, that Tottenham, who had risen above Arsenal in 1982/3 now sank to eighth, below Arsenal.

And indeed the celebrations of beating Tottenham twice in the 1982/3 season (4-2 away on Boxing Day and 3-2 at home at Easter) gave an extra edge to the seasonal celebrations, although they still only took Arsenal to sixth in the league. For the problem was that although Arsenal had closed the gap on Liverpool at the top from 24 points down to 17 points, it was still 17 points.

There was a sense that Arsenal were still improving, but there was no real sense that Arsenal could get up to 80 points or more in a campaign to win the League. So yes there could still be improvement, but a leap of turning 15 defeats in a season down to six or at most eight games going the wrong way still seemed an awful lot to ask. We had seen progress, but it clearly wasn’t enough

1982/3

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	42	24	10	8	87	37	50	82
10	Arsenal	42	16	10	16	58	56	2	58

1983/4

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Liverpool	42	22	14	6	73	32	41	80
6	Arsenal	42	18	9	15	74	60	14	63

But things were moving – if slowly, and another trophy still seemed a long way away.

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