This is part of the history of Arsenal from its first joining of the Football League through to its election to the first division in 1913. You may be interested to note that we have already published a series covering the extraordinary achievement of 100 consecutive seasons in the top division – the only club ever to achieve this. Recent posts in our current series are….
- 1904/5: Arsenal’s first season in Football League Division One, and a record crowd
- Arsenal finally gain promotion to the First Division
- Arsenal at the start of the 20th century: the first promotion to Division 1
By Tony Attwood
Arsenal joined the Football League in 1893/4, playing in the lower of the two leagues at the time – logically called the second division. Arsenal joined the Football League as they were a professional club, and the other leagues in the south were for amateur teams. They were and remained for many years, the only southern team in the national Football League.
As we have seen, in 1903/4, the league had expanded from 15 to 18 clubs, and Woolwich Arsenal came second, thus gaining promotion for the first time to the First Division, which they entered in 1904/5 coming a reasonable 10th out of 16.
Arenal however were,as noted above, still the only southern club in the Football League, other teams from London and surrounding counties choosing to play in the Southern League and by 1905/6 the Southern League had a range of clubs the names of which are still known today, as the table for the Southern League in 1905/6 shows…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fulham | 34 | 19 | 12 | 3 | 44 | 15 | 50 |
| 2 | Southampton | 34 | 19 | 7 | 8 | 58 | 39 | 45 |
| 3 | Portsmouth | 34 | 17 | 9 | 8 | 61 | 35 | 43 |
| 4 | Luton Town | 34 | 17 | 7 | 10 | 64 | 40 | 41 |
| 5 | Tottenham Hotspur | 34 | 16 | 7 | 11 | 46 | 29 | 39 |
| 6 | Plymouth Argyle | 34 | 16 | 7 | 11 | 52 | 33 | 39 |
| 7 | Norwich City | 34 | 13 | 10 | 11 | 46 | 38 | 36 |
| 8 | Bristol Rovers | 34 | 15 | 5 | 14 | 56 | 56 | 35 |
| 9 | Brentford | 34 | 14 | 7 | 13 | 43 | 52 | 35 |
| 10 | Reading | 34 | 12 | 9 | 13 | 53 | 46 | 33 |
| 11 | West Ham United | 34 | 14 | 5 | 15 | 42 | 39 | 33 |
| 12 | Millwall | 34 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 38 | 41 | 33 |
| 13 | Queens Park Rangers | 34 | 12 | 7 | 15 | 58 | 44 | 31 |
| 14 | Watford | 34 | 8 | 10 | 16 | 38 | 57 | 26 |
| 15 | Swindon Town | 34 | 8 | 9 | 17 | 31 | 52 | 25 |
| 16 | Brighton & Hove Albion | 34 | 9 | 7 | 18 | 30 | 55 | 25 |
| 17 | New Brompton | 34 | 7 | 8 | 19 | 20 | 62 | 22 |
| 18 | Northampton Town | 34 | 8 | 5 | 21 | 32 | 79 | 21 |
And this is an interesting moment to look at the Southern League because at the end of this season no clubs were relegated from Division One as it was expanded to 20 clubs the following season. Indeed we may also note that no clubs applied to join the Football League.
In short those two elements from the history of football show that the Southern League clearly saw itself as a viable alternative to the Football League, and Arsenal, the only southern team in the Football League could have no doubt that they were on their own in bringing professional football to the south. Arsenal’s sacrifices in terms of distances travelled to each away game were extraordinary, but the Southern League and similar leagues, carried on their separate ways, regardless.
But there were two factors that perhaps what gave Arsenal very positive feelings for the future. First the club reached the semi-final of the FA Cup for the first time (the Cup being the competition that brought both the Southern League and the Football League clubs together in the same competition), and second Arsenal were making a profit. It gave a feeling that the Football League was the “real” league of England, and not just a regional part-time affair as the Southern League clearly was.
The number of people coming to watch Arsenal was encouraging, with 30,000 turning up in April for a new league record attendance for the club, while other sides were seeing crowds of under 10,000 on occasion, for their home matches. And it was of course the size of the crowds which enabled the club to continue is policy of being the southern outpost of professional football. The stand of the club in being professional when all around were not, was now so well known and established that there could be no thought of turning back
In 1905/6 Arsenal finished 12th in the league. But it was the FA Cup that grabbed attention, Arsenal going out of the competition in the 2-0 in the semi-final to Newcastle – the game played as today on neutral ground, although with a very modest attendance of under 20,000.
But overall the crowds were increasing, with 20,00 being noted as the attendance at both the first and last home games in the league (all crowd numbers being rounded untl 1911, after which more and more grounds gave actual numbers of those attending.
1905/6 was also noteworthy as the season in which Tim Coleman broke the Woolwich Arsenal goalscoring record, which at 84 goals remained the top number for an Arsenal player until 1927.
He was in fact born in Kettering, a town just four miles from where I now live (not that that fact has anything to do with it). He left Arsenal in 1908 and continued to play professional football until 1915 when he joined the Footballers Battalion. During the war he was awarded the military medal.
Finally we might note that this was the season in which the first ever Arsenal played scored an international goal – this being for Scotland in an away match with Ireland on 17 March 1906.
Arsenal finished the league in 12th place out of 20 clubs, thus securing their place in the First Division now having completed two years in the league. There was no real thought that Arsenal might push on a win the league, but it was hoped that by 1906/7 they might be getting closer to the top… although no one foresaw the challenge that suddenly emerged.
For suddenly on the scene emerged a club who had only been in the League for five years, who like Arsenal had taken professional football to a part of the country where it had not been see before and indeed had only been playing in the Football League for five years and had just won the second division.
That club’s arrival in 1906/7 must have shown Arsenal that although they had made steady progress in taking professional football to London and indeed the south, there was a club that had undertaken the same task, amidst the same level of isolation, but in a fraction of the time out in the far west – and in so doing had overtaken Arsenal in the league. We shall of course look at them with interest in the next episode..
