How Arsenal won the League for the very first time.

This is the 11th article in the series Arsenal in the 1930s.  The index to all the articles in the series can be seen at the foot of the article.

By Tony Attwood

April opened with a very curious incident for on 1 April 1931 Arsenal wrote to the BBC banning all future radio broadcasts from Highbury.  (The exact date is uncertain, but certainly it was within two days either way).  They rather bizarrely failed to let George Allison know – even though he was the BBC’s chief commentator and a member of the Arsenal board and club secretary (a position of considerable importance at the time).

The argument was that the commentaries were keeping crowd numbers down, which was an odd claim, probably made more out of emotion than statistics.  Here is what the statistics for the season would have shown, had the club worked them out.  The change column is the rise (or drop) over the previous season.  The figures come from European Football Statistics

But the matter was passed by the board, and although there might have been more arguments when Mr Allison found it, nothing more was heard of it, not least because at the start of the month the league table showed that not only were Arsenal getting the largest average attendances, they were also top of the Football League.

There were six games left for Villa which if they won all of them would give them 63 points.   Arsenal had seven games left to amass 10 points – although almost certainly, given the goal averages, nine points would do.  Two wins and five draws to win the title.

On 3 April, Good Friday, Arsenal got one of their necessary draws 1-1 away with Portsmouth, Bastin scoring the goal.  It was Arsenal’s game in hand as Villa were not playing, giving Arsenal a four point lead.  Roberts returned at centre half, making this the same ten outfield players who had started the season.  Only Keyser had gone as Harper continued in goal.

The following day – Easter Saturday, 4 April, Arsenal were at home to Chelsea while Villa were away to Portsmouth.

Villa came into this game on the back of a tremendous run

Not just this, but a London team had won the League for the first time ever, and that caused some celebrations in the capital as well – although perhaps not in Tottenham.

Plus there was a little social change in the air (not that anyone interested in football noticed much), for the following Monday the House of Commons finally passed a bill allowing places of amusement (by which it primarily meant cinemas and theatres, but which could also mean football grounds, should anyone wish it) to open on Sundays.

Next up in footballing terms there was an oddity, for on 22 April 1931 Arsenal played their  first Sheriff of London game – a competition which was set up to be played between and amateur and a professional side in England once a year by Sir Thomas Dewar.  Arsenal beat Corinthians 5-3 at Highbury; attendance 12,000.  Lambert (2), Hulme (2) and John, getting the goals.

There was one more league game to be played this month – an away trip to Newcastle, and Arsenal continued the winning form, running out on top 3-1 thanks to a goal from Jones (his only goal of the season) and two from Hulme.

The table then looked like this

And suddenly a realisation swept through the football world in that sunday’s papers; one more win in the final game would give Arsenal the highest number of points ever achieved in the first division.

Here are Arsenal’s results for the month’s  games in summary

• Op pos, is the league position of the opposition before the game
• Pos is Arsenal’s position after the game
• AC is the average crowd for the home team through the season, providing a comparison between the crowd on that day and and the norm expected by the home side.

But while Arsenal were celebrating, what of second division Tottenham?  For much of the season they had looked as if they were going to climb back into the first division.  However while Arsenal were entering their all conquering (apart from one game against Villa) run, Tottenham were getting into difficulty.

Just one win while Arsenal were steaming ahead to absolute triumph, left Tottenham missing out on promotion by four points.

Next time: the final game of the season, and the end of season friendlies

Arsenal 1930/31

• 1: Life in 1930 and winning the first major trophy.
• 2: The cup winners who dropped out and the players who came in
• 3: How Chapman put his triumphant 1931 team together.
• 4: September 1930; played 8 won 7 drawn 1.
• 5: October 1930: A stumble, Villa are close behind, Man U have 12 defeats in a row.
• 6: November 1930: Scoring 5 in three games in one month.
• 7: December 1930: 3 games in 3 days and 14 goals scored.
• 8: January 1931: the biggest league win ever at Highbury
• 9: February 1931: the goals just won’t stop coming.
• 10: March 1931: hope, defeat, hope