September 1931; the champions recover from a poor start.

by Tony Attwood

After the disappointing August, Arsenal were now looking to re-establish themselves in September.  Parker took over in goal and we were back with the same outfield players who started, and indeed ran the show during the previous season.

For anyone who took notice of very early league tables Arsenal were indeed in a poor position as September began…

		P	W	D	L	F	A	G.Av	Pts
18	Arsenal	2	0	1	1	1	2	0.500	1
19	Grimsby Town	2	0	1	1	2	5	0.400	1
20	Blackburn Rovers	2	0	1	1	2	7	0.286	1
21	Sheffield United	2	0	0	2	1	4	0.250	0
22	Newcastle United	2	0	0	2	1	5	0.200	0

The opening match of the month however was overshadowed by the death of John Thomson, the goalkeeper of Celtic F.C who died in hospital after fracturing his skull in a collision with Rangers forward Sam English in the match at Ibrox.

On that day – 5 September – Arsenal played Birmingham City away, and still could not get their first win – the game ending in a 2-2 draw, Lambert and Hulme getting the goals.  The following day – the Sunday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Snowden announced salary cuts for all government employees, and reductions to unemployment benefit.

On 9 September Arsenal played their fourth game, this time at home to Portsmouth, and got … another draw, making it three draws and one defeat in opening the defence of their title.  Those who the previous season had claimed that London teams could not win the League began a chorus of the notion that last season’s victory was a fluke, not to be seen again “in our lifetime”.  It was 3-3 with Lambert getting two and Bastin the third.

The following day, 10 September 1931 Jimmy Brain was sold to Tottenham for £2,500.  He had scored 125 goals in 204 league games but with his form failing and Jack Lambert, David Jack and Dave Halliday in the squad he was given a transfer.  He had however got his League Winners medal but missed out on the cup winning run the season before.  He played 45 times for Tottenham in the league and scored 10.

On September 12 Arsenal played Sunderland at Highbury and finally, in front of a very disappointing crowd of 22,926, got the win they wanted.  It was in fact Arsenal’s second worst home crowd of the season.

David Jack was out through injury but Parkin proved an admirable substitute at inside right.  Indeed Parkin’s figures for the season make interesting reading: played nine scored seven.

Parkin had been bought from Newcastle by Chapman in 1928 and between then and 1936 made just 25 appearances scoring 11 goals.   He did however win the London Combination five times – in the days when that was considered an important league in its own right, with games at Highbury often attracting crowds of 10,000 plus.  In 1936/7 he spent one season at Middlesbrough before having two years at Southampton.

On this occasion, on September 12,  Hulme got both goals.

Meanwhile political and economic turmoil was everywhere and on 15 September the Royal Navy went on strike in protest at its salary cuts.

On 16 September Arsenal were away to Portsmouth, and the re-birth of confidence was there for all to see as Arsenal ran out easy winners 3-0, Bastin getting two and Parkin the other.

This was followed on the 19th by a second away win in quick succession, 3-1 at Maine Road against Manchester City, Jack coming back into the team at outside left (from which position he scored two of the goals) and Parkin retaining his position.    Lambert was also once again on the score sheet.

The following day Britain removed itself from the gold standard, and quickly introduce means testing for people in receipt of unemployment benefit for more than six months.

Arsenal by and large had played mid-table teams through the month but with the final game of September Arsenal played one of the top clubs: Everton.  They won at home 3-2.  As a result, having gone into the month in 18th, Arsenal had now moved up to third.

In the second division Tottenham, who had been very close to promotion for most of last season were now having a much tougher time

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GAvg	Pts
1	Leeds United	13	9	2	2	24	8	3.000	20
2	Plymouth Argyle	13	8	3	2	29	17	1.706	19
3	Bradford Park Avenue	13	8	2	3	26	14	1.857	18
4	Bury	13	8	2	3	29	16	1.813	18
5	Stoke City	13	8	1	4	25	13	1.923	17
6	Wolverhampton Wanderers	12	7	2	3	29	14	2.071	16
7	Nottingham Forest	13	7	2	4	27	23	1.174	16
8	Millwall	13	6	2	5	25	19	1.316	14
9	Oldham Athletic	13	5	3	5	22	21	1.048	13
10	Burnley	12	5	3	4	18	18	1.000	13
11	Southampton	13	6	1	6	24	26	0.923	13
12	Port Vale	13	5	3	5	21	25	0.840	13
13	Swansea Town	13	6	0	7	23	20	1.150	12
14	Notts County	13	5	2	6	24	28	0.857	12
15	Tottenham Hotspur	13	3	4	6	24	27	0.889	10
16	Bradford City	13	3	4	6	21	29	0.724	10
17	Manchester United	13	3	4	6	18	25	0.720	10
18	Chesterfield	12	4	2	6	17	28	0.607	10
19	Preston North End	13	3	3	7	19	34	0.559	9
20	Barnsley	13	3	3	7	15	27	0.556	9
21	Bristol City	13	2	2	9	15	29	0.517	6
22	Charlton Athletic	12	1	2	9	13	27	0.481	4

The series so far…

• 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
• 11: April 1931: Arsenal win the league for the very first time.
• 12: Arsenal in the summer of 1931, the records and the Scandinavian tour
• 13: Arsenal in shock – July and August 1931

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