By Tony Attwood
2 November 1974: Arsenal 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers 0, with a crowd of 27,572. Eddy Kelly asked for a transfer, Jimmy Rimmer asked for an assurance that Shilton wasn’t going to be signed, and Arsenal managed to avoid defeat for two matches running for the first time since getting a couple of draws in September.
The league table however was thoroughly depressing, not just for Arsenal’s position but because of the speed of Arsenal’s decline. In 1971 Arsenal had won the double and joy was unbounded, and indeed on 2 November 1972 Arsenal were still maintaining their position, as they were second in the league after 16 games, just one point behind Liverpool.
But one year on from there on 2 November 1973 the signs of collapse were all around as Arsenal were 14th in the League. And this decline could not be stopped for one year further on, on 2 November 1974 the table showed just how bad things were getting… The only light relief came from the fact that Tottenham were almost as badly off as we were.
And it wasn’t just Arsenal and Tottenham. Four of the bottom seven were London clubs, leading the media to suggest that the soft London life and the distractions of the West End meant that no London team would ever win the league again.
| Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 15 | 10 | 1 | 4 | 22 | 9 | 21 |
| 2 | Ipswich Town | 16 | 9 | 2 | 5 | 20 | 10 | 20 |
| 3 | Everton | 16 | 5 | 10 | 1 | 22 | 17 | 20 |
| 4 | Manchester City | 16 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 20 | 18 | 20 |
| 5 | Stoke City | 15 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 25 | 20 | 18 |
| 6 | Middlesbrough | 15 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 22 | 19 | 18 |
| 7 | Derby County | 16 | 6 | 6 | 4 | 24 | 22 | 18 |
| 8 | Sheffield United | 16 | 7 | 4 | 5 | 24 | 27 | 18 |
| 9 | Newcastle United | 15 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 20 | 20 | 17 |
| 10 | West Ham United | 16 | 6 | 4 | 6 | 28 | 25 | 16 |
| 11 | Birmingham City | 16 | 7 | 2 | 7 | 24 | 23 | 16 |
| 12 | Burnley | 16 | 7 | 2 | 7 | 24 | 25 | 16 |
| 13 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 16 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 16 | 17 | 15 |
| 14 | Leicester City | 14 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 18 | 18 | 14 |
| 15 | Coventry City | 15 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 20 | 26 | 14 |
| 16 | Queens Park Rangers | 15 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 15 | 17 | 13 |
| 17 | Carlisle United | 16 | 5 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 16 | 13 |
| 18 | Chelsea | 15 | 3 | 6 | 6 | 16 | 25 | 12 |
| 19 | Leeds United | 15 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 16 | 17 | 11 |
| 20 | Tottenham Hotspur | 15 | 4 | 3 | 8 | 19 | 23 | 11 |
| 21 | Arsenal | 15 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 15 | 20 | 10 |
| 22 | Luton Town | 16 | 1 | 7 | 8 | 13 | 23 | 9 |
Indeed in our review of the decade, “Arsenal in the 70s” the article for this period is titled “JULY 74 TO DEC 74. RELEGATION BECKONS.”
It didn’t happen of course and Arsenal did finally rally to end up 16th, but the story of the period is one of incredibly rapid decay in the club, largely due to the militaristic style of the manager of Bertie Mee who saw the future of the club as one in which there would just be 18 professionals on the books, and no youth teams at all.
You can read all (or of course part) of the whole series online, free of charge at Arsenal in the 1970s: Every match and every intrigue reviewed in detail.
