The autumn of 1974 was not a good time to be a fan of a north London club. On 16 October the result was Manchester City 2 Arsenal 1, the crowd a paltry 26,658 and Arsenal were looking like relegation candidates. The only relief was to know that Tottenham were in just as bad a position.
Tottenham recorded its lowest home crowd since the second world war (12,813, for the draw with Carlisle) while Arsenal went back to the bottom, after nine games without a win. At least our crowd size had not (yet) shrunk as low as theirs.
So it was that on 19 October Arsenal (bottom of league) played Tottenham (one from bottom) in front of 36,194. Here’s the table before the game took place.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 12 | 8 | 1 | 3 | 20 | 8 | 17 |
| 2 | Ipswich Town | 13 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 18 | 8 | 17 |
| 3 | Manchester City | 13 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 18 | 15 | 17 |
| 4 | Derby County | 13 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 21 | 16 | 16 |
| 5 | Everton | 13 | 4 | 8 | 1 | 18 | 15 | 16 |
| 6 | Middlesbrough | 12 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 15 | 10 | 15 |
| 7 | Newcastle United | 12 | 5 | 5 | 2 | 19 | 16 | 15 |
| 8 | Burnley | 13 | 7 | 1 | 5 | 23 | 21 | 15 |
| 9 | Stoke City | 12 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 18 | 15 | 14 |
| 10 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 13 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 15 | 13 | 14 |
| 11 | Sheffield United | 13 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 19 | 21 | 14 |
| 12 | West Ham United | 13 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 24 | 22 | 12 |
| 13 | Birmingham City | 13 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 17 | 20 | 12 |
| 14 | Carlisle United | 13 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 12 | 11 |
| 15 | Coventry City | 12 | 3 | 5 | 4 | 14 | 19 | 11 |
| 16 | Chelsea | 12 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 12 | 19 | 10 |
| 17 | Leeds United | 12 | 3 | 3 | 6 | 14 | 15 | 9 |
| 18 | Queens Park Rangers | 12 | 2 | 5 | 5 | 11 | 15 | 9 |
| 19 | Leicester City | 11 | 2 | 4 | 5 | 13 | 18 | 8 |
| 20 | Luton Town | 13 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 20 | 8 |
| 21 | Tottenham Hotspur | 12 | 3 | 1 | 8 | 14 | 20 | 7 |
| 22 | Arsenal | 12 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 12 | 18 | 7 |
Tottenham won 2-0. Arsenal remained at the foot of the table while the bottom six also included QPR and Chelsea.
Quite when Arsenal last played Tottenham while being bottom of the league no one could remember – if it had ever happened before that is.
After the game the bottom six in the first division read, Chelsea, Leicester, Tottenham, QPR, Luton, Arsenal – it was not the time to be from the south. Worse, with Man U having gone down last season, the notion that somehow Arsenal, in the top league longer than any other club, could be “too big to go down” was clearly nonsense.
Alan Ball changed his tune from just a few weeks before and suggested Arsenal were just “not good enough”, but it wasn’t that simple. The injuries to George, Armstrong, Rice, Kelly, Nelson, Ball, and McNab, plus the poor form of Blockley, were all part to blame.
But also so was the policy of Mee, and presumably the board, of keeping the number of first teamers low. He had got away with it, when in seasons like the Double Season, they could use a tiny number of players. But injuries do come around, and the club knew that the good run of few injuries would not last forever. A good management and directorial team prepare for what can happen, and in the case of injuries they most certainly did not do that.
Perryman and Chivers scored for Tottenham from far post headers, and Tottenham found it easy to work through Arsenal’s newly attempted open and positive style, but they won’t have fooled themselves. They were in trouble too.
Of course in the end it got sorted out. On 24 October Arsenal announced they had finally bought Terry Mancini from QPR with Arsenal reportedly offering far more than it would have taken to prize Mancini out of west London.
And with Mancini in the team finally relief came on October 26 as Arsenal beat West Ham 3-0 at Highbury. That 41,004 turned up was really something of a surprise. Maybe we all just thought it could never be that bad again.
So, after 12 games in a row without winning and a month sitting in the relegation zone Arsenal finally got a result – and a decent crowd as well. McNab came back, and Mancini made his debut. They both made a difference.
- Henry Norris at the Arsenal: There is a full index to the series here.
- Arsenal in the 1930s: The most comprehensive series on the decade ever
- Arsenal in the 1970s: Every match and every intrigue reviewed in detail.
