By Tony Attwood
If you wish to go back to start of this series, the first article is: Taking over from failure
Recent articles in this series
- 1935/6: Arsenal have lost their manager but still come good
- 100 seasons in the top division: 1934/35: Arsenal after Chapman
- 100 seasons in the top divison: a key turning point 1933/4
- Arsenal Are Top of the League – But Can They Get the Job Done?
And to give a little context to this article…
Ahead of the 1919/20 season, the Football League decided, among other things to expand the number of clubs in the first division by two. As a result of this,s Arsenal were among the clubs elected to the first division. The full story of that election is told in earlier episodes of this series, and I don’t want to repeat everything, but in essence Arsenal’s run in the top flight of English football began in 1919. There was obviously a pause in football during the Second World War, and taking that into account, Arsenal reached 100 consecutive seasons in the top division in 2025/26. Something we are celebrating with this series.
Unfortunately, the club chose not to celebrate this extraordinary event, so it fell to us to do so, as we are doing in a series of articles being published once or twice a week.
Arsenal’s record from 191/20 onwards in terms of finishing positions is charted below. In these initial years of Arsenal’s run there were 22 clubs in the league, and the 21st and 22nd placed clubs were relegated to the second division.
| Season | FA Cup round | L:eague position | Manager |
| 191/20 | 2nd round | 10th | Leslie Knighton |
| 1920/21 | 1st tround | 9th | |
| 1921/22 | 4th round | 17th | |
| 1922/23 | 1st round | 11th | |
| 1923/24 | 2nd round | 19th | |
| 1924/25 | 1st round | 20th | |
| 1925/6 | 6th round | 2nd | Herebert Chapman |
| 1926/27 | Final | 11th | |
| 1927/28 | Semi-fianl | 10th | |
| 1928/29 | 6th round | 9th | |
| 1929/30 | Winners | 14th | |
| 1930/31 | 4th round | Champions | |
| 1931/32 | Final | 2nd | |
| 1932/3 | 3rd round | Champions | |
| 1933/4 | 6th round | Champions | Chapman / Shaw |
| 1934/5 | 6th round | Champions | George Allison |
| 1935/6 | Winners | 6thj |
Thus, from having just missed relegation under Knighton in 1924/5, in the following 11 seasons the club won the league four times, the FA Cup twice, were league runners up twice and beaten cup finalists twice. A remarkable achievement by any estimate, but for a club that, before Chapman, had absolutely no significant achievements to its name, it was utterly extraordinary, to the point of being beyond belief.
So we left Arsenal in our last article, winning the FA Cup in 1935/6 while coming sixth in the league – their lowest position since 1929/30.
During the spell since Chapman had joined the club Arsenal had won the league four times, come second once and won the FA Cup twice. Could this amazing run of a club that, before Chapman had come along, had looked like relegation certainties and had never once won either of the major trophies, continue?
In 1936/7, Allison’s third season, the answer appeared to be “no” as Arsenal sank to third in the league and went out of the FA Cup in the sixth round.
But it is important to see this situation within a certain amount of historical context. Between 19301 and 1934/5 Arsenal had won the league three times and come runners-up once. Then, in 1935/6 the club sank to sixth in the league but won the FA Cup, and we should remember that at this time the FA Cup was considered by most people to be just as prestigious a trophy as the League.
So in 1936/7 the pressure was on to improve and Arsenal did, moving up to 3rd in the league, and gaining seven more points than in the season before (remembering it was 2 points for a win in those days).
It was indeed true that Arsenal had slipped down the league, but the fact was that on 19 March 1937 Arsenal were top of the league, although only on goal average.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 33 | 16 | 11 | 6 | 72 | 43 | 43 |
| 2 | Charlton Athletic | 33 | 16 | 11 | 6 | 47 | 37 | 43 |
| 3 | Middlesbrough | 33 | 17 | 6 | 10 | 64 | 55 | 40 |
| 4 | Portsmouth | 33 | 15 | 9 | 9 | 54 | 49 | 39 |
However, Arsenal had developed a habit of drawing games rather than winning them, and although Arsenal only lost two of the last nine games, they also only won two, drawing the rest. The season finished with Arsenal in third place…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester City | 42 | 22 | 13 | 7 | 107 | 61 | 57 |
| 2 | Charlton Athletic | 42 | 21 | 12 | 9 | 58 | 49 | 54 |
| 3 | Arsenal | 42 | 18 | 16 | 8 | 80 | 49 | 52 |
For a club that had previously won a trophy in each of four consecutive seasons, now to win neither trophy seemed the announcement of decline. Third in the League and going out in the quarter finals of the FA Cup was not what Arsenal was used to. In each of the previous seven seasons Arsenal had either won the FA Cup or the League, orat least come runners up in both. Now they were third and out in the quarter finals. Was the rule of Arsenal over?
In fact the rule of football would soon be over with the outbreak of the Second World War, but there were still two more seasons of football to go before everything stopped, and that meant there was still one more trophy for Arsenal to gain.
I’ll look at the two final years before everything stopped as the Second World War obliterated all thoughts of football, and still one more trophy for Arsenal to gain. And perhaps there was one other little issue that could give Arsenal supporters something to smile about. In the season 1934/5 Tottenham Hotspur came bottom of the 1st division.
It was an extraordinary decline since in the previous campaign the club had finished third in the 1st division. But down they went, back to the lower tier, from whence they did not re-emerge in the elite level until 1950/51. It left London with just three top-tier clubs: Arsenal, Brentford and Chelsea. Something of a contrast with today, wherein we have seven London clubs in the top league.
The series continues
