The end of Woolwich Arsenal and of the first season at Highbury.

By Tony Attwood

Woolwich Arsenal entered the final month of their first season north of the river still entertaining hopes of promotion – something which was quite remarkable given the difficulties that had to be overcome in moving to Highbury, and in rebuilding the team’s morale after the disasterous relegation season of 1912/13.

At the start of the month Arsenal had seven games to fit in, in just 21 days, with the league table looking like this:

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GAvg	Pts
1	Notts County	34	21	6	7	73	34	2.147	48
2	Bradford Park Avenue	32	19	2	11	58	44	1.318	40
3	Woolwich Arsenal	31	17	6	8	43	33	1.303	40
4	Leeds City	31	17	4	10	69	41	1.683	38
5	Hull City	32	15	8	9	52	32	1.625	38

In essence Arsenal simply had to match Bradford PA’s and then improve on their goal difference – or win their game in hand.

Following the collapse of the wall at Highbury noted in the previous article the ground had been shut but on 2 April 1914 Gillespie Road stadium re-opened for the game Arsenal Reserves v Fulham Reserves after repairs to the leaning wall were declared complete.

4 April 1914 saw Arsenal play Bristol City at Highbury. It was the last game for George Jobey the man who scored the first Arsenal goal at Highbury. It was a 1-1 draw with and Jobey went on to play with Bradford for the final season before football was suspended. There was some relief as the evening papers brought in the scoreline Bury 0 Brandford PA. Both clubs were on 41 points.

6 April 1914: The Islington Gazette reported (not completely accurately) that “Woolwich Arsenal” had become “The Arsenal”. In fact the club changed its name to The Arsenal Football And Athletic Company Limited between 20 and 23 April, and the Board of Directors publicly changed its name on 23 April, but the board did not formally approve the change until 10 May 1915.

Moving away from football for a moment, on 9 April the first colour feature film was shown in Britain: “the World, the Flesh and the Devil.” It was not quite as gory as the title suggests, dealing as it did with a botched attempt to switch children immediately after they were born.

The following day, Good Friday, Arsenal were away to Stockport – a resolutely mid-table team, and lost 0-2. Worse, Bradford PA beat bottom of the table Nottingham Forest 4-0. Arsenal were on 41 points still, Bradford now on 43.

As with Christmas, football was played throughout the Easter period, and on Easter Saturday on 11 April 1914 Arsenal had another draw this time away to Leeds City – it ended goalless as Henry Norris met Leeds’ manager Herbert Chapman for the second time. But the gloom deepended as the news came in that Bradford PA had beaten Huddersfield 2-1. Arsenal had 42 points, Bradford 45.

The final Easter match was on Easter Monday, as Arsenal at last got a win – 4-0 over Stockport. And wouldn’t you know it, Bradford lost 1-0 to of all teams, Nottingham Forest. Arsenal went up to 44 points, Bradford of course were still on 45.

In its edition of Tuesday 14 April the Times reported Arsenal’s official change of name; behind the Islington Gazette, but ahead of the official change over.

Meanwhile away from the football, the suffragette movement continued its agitation as on 17 April members of the suffragettes undertook an arson attack on the pier at Great Yarmouth.

Then on 18 April Arsenal faced their second London derby since moving north, and this time it was with their local neighbours – Clapton Orient, the game ending 2-2 in front of 35,000 the biggest crowd thus far at Highbury. It was also (despite earlier press reports to the contrary) the very last game of Woolwich Arsenal – the club that had played its first match on 2 September 1893.

The team for this momentous match was

J Lievesley

J Shaw R W Benson

GM Grant P R Sands A Graham

J Rutherford Pat Flanagan S J Stonley D Slade C H Lewis

The crowd was also the largest crowd of the day. Up to five minutes before the final whistle Arsenal were 2-0 up and had had a third goal disallowed on the grounds that the whole of the ball had not crossed the line, when suddenly out of nowhere Orient scored. Arsenal were suddenly nervous, Orient rushed forward and immediately got a second.

Bradford were away to Lincoln and won 3-0, giving them 47 points to Arsenal’s 45.

And so Woolwich Arsenal ended their official life exactly as they had started, with a 2-2 draw. The game was followed two days later by a friendly at Highbury against Chelsea – a benefit match for CH Lewis, technically the first match for The Arsenal.

The next game was on Thursday 23 April at home to Grimsby Town. A win would put Arsenal equal on points with Bradford, meaning there was everything to play for in the final game.

For this game members of Islington Trades Council were invited to Highbury by Hall to see the game (which Arsenal won 2-0) and then discuss (of all strange things) the problems the club had been having printing its programmes. Quite why the local council were involved I am not sure, but maybe Arsenal had promised the local council that they would bring work to the borough, not least through the printing of the programmes locally.

As noted above this was the first game under the name The Arsenal, although the League had not formally approved the name change as yet. The board had accepted the special resolution to officially change the name but the name was not formally changed on 10 May 1915.

On 25 April Arsenal were away to Glossop for the final League match, but only 4,000 attended to see Arsenal win 2-0. If Bradford drew or lost Arsenal would be promoted, but if Bradford won, then they would go up, on goal difference. And win they did beating Blackpool 4-1.

Thereafter there was one more game: a friendly against Norwich. As for Arsenal, they would have to play another season in the second division, but by the time the season had started, the world had changed.

Here is the list of games this month.

Date	Opponents	H/A	Res	Score	Crowd	Competiton
04 Apr	Bristol City	H	D	1-1	12,000	Division Two
10 Apr	Stockport County	A	L	2-0	15,000	Division Two
11 Apr	Leeds City	A	D	0-0	22,000	Division Two
13 Apr	Stockport County	H	W	4-0	18,000	Division Two
18 Apr	Leyton Orient	H	D	2-2	35,000	Division Two
20 April	Chelsea	H				Benefit match
23 Apr	Grimsby Town	H	W	2-0	25,000	Division Two
25 Apr	Glossop North End	A	W	0-2	4,000	Division Two
30 Apr	Norwich City	A	W	0-3	6683	Norwich Hospital Cup

And the final League Division Two table…

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GAvg	Pts
1	Notts County	38	23	7	8	77	36	2.139	53
2	Bradford Park Avenue	38	23	3	12	71	47	1.511	49
3	Woolwich Arsenal	38	20	9	9	54	38	1.421	49
4	Leeds City	38	20	7	11	76	46	1.652	47
5	Barnsley	38	19	7	12	51	45	1.133	45
6	Leyton Orient	38	16	11	11	47	35	1.343	43
7	Hull City	38	16	9	13	53	37	1.432	41
8	Bristol City	38	16	9	13	52	50	1.040	41
9	Wolverhampton Wanderers	38	18	5	15	51	52	0.981	41
10	Bury	38	15	10	13	39	40	0.975	40
11	Fulham	38	16	6	16	46	43	1.070	38
12	Stockport County	38	13	10	15	55	57	0.965	36
13	Huddersfield Town	38	13	8	17	47	53	0.887	34
14	Birmingham City	38	12	10	16	48	60	0.800	34
15	Grimsby Town	38	13	8	17	42	58	0.724	34
16	Blackpool	38	9	14	15	33	44	0.750	32
17	Glossop North End	38	11	6	21	51	67	0.761	28
18	Leicester Fosse	38	11	4	23	45	61	0.738	26
19	Lincoln City	38	10	6	22	36	66	0.545	26
20	Nottingham Forest	38	7	9	22	37	76	0.487	23

The Henry Norris Files

Section 1 – 1910.

Section 2 – 1911

Section 3 – 1912

Section 4 – 1913

Section 5 – 1914

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