By Tony Attwood, AISA Arsenal History Society.
Prelude: This series is called, as you can see, 100 seasons in the top division, and it is being presented because we noticed that 2025/6 is indeed the 100th consecutive season that Arsenal have spent in the top flight of English football. And that is important not only because 100 is a nice round number, but because no other club is anywhere near Arsenal’s achievement.
When we came up with the idea of celebrating 100 years in the top flight, Arsenal FC were doing nothing about this event. Indeed as far as we could see they were still catching up on the other 100th celebration we were undertaking: 100 years since Herbert Chapman came to Arsenal and transformed the club from being relegation near-certainties to regular league and FA Cup winners.
Since then Arsenal FC have caught up on both “100” celebrations and have notices on their web site about both anniversaries. And we’re rather glad to have been of service.
So now in our series we come to what was to have been the 1939/40 season – the season that, because of the difficulty known as the Second World War, was abandoned.
Thus, turning back the clock a little, we note that at the end of the 1938/39 season, the international situation was most certainly concerning, but still the process of preparing for the 1939/40 football season continued as normal. Curiously, most books seem to pass over these events, including the three games that were played, on the grounds that the season was abandoned, but even so, the games took place, and as a result I can’t find a record of the attendance for each game. If you have found it published somewhere, it would be nice to make this table complete.
| Date | Opponent | Venue | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 26 August 1939 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | A | 2–2 |
| 30 August 1939 | Blackburn Rovers | H | 1–0 |
| 2 September 1939 | Sunderland | H | 5–2 |
So there we are – another unbeaten season, although not really one to compare with the real unbeaten campaign!
What we do know is that the Sunderland game kicked off at the odd time of 5.30pm because of the disruption to local arrangements due to the preparations for war. War was, in fact, declared the next day. Players were paid until 6 September, upon which date they were released as per government orders and told to report for military duty.
The government, however, wished to encourage the continuance of football as a form of recreational activity away from the pubs, and a way of suggesting that it would “soon be all over” and life could continue as normal.
But for Arsenal it was not just a case of carrying on, because the War Office took over the Highbury ground as an officially designated Air Raid Precaution (ARP) area, and Arsenal were told to look elsewhere. Only those league and reserve matches prior to the declaration of war were played at Higbury. After that it was a war centre..
There was of course, at this time, the knowledge of how Arsenal had fared in the First World War, when clubs continued to play their regular league matches during the first year of the war, and Arsenal found themselves on occasion under strength. Indeed ince this had ended in tragedy when an obviously unfit Bob Benson volunteered to make up the numbers on 19 February 1915.
The wartime league began finally on October 21, and although the results are not part of the official record and are omitted from most reports on Arsenal’s history, they were recorded, and a league table was kept (although few history books publish it these days).
Arsenal were placed in the Football League South “A” division along with the other London clubs, plus Norwich City, Watford, and Southend United. 18 games were played between October 21 and April 3, and Arsenal won the league. Clubs were encouraged to play their own players where they could, but if none were available for some positions, players could be taken on from other clubs.
Arsenal had been third in the league when the formal decision to end the season after three matches was announced…
| Club | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
| Blackpool | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 6 |
| Sheffield United | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 5 |
| Arsenal | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 4 | 5 |
| Liverpool | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
For the first 14 games of the first war league Arsenal were unbeaten, drawing three, winning the rest, and some scores were mightily impressive, although in reality, revealing the problem for some clubs of player recruitment in wartime. Loaning of players was rife, and players who were moved from their homes to military bases elsewhere were allowed to play for whichever team they found themselves close to.
The opening game for example, was an 8-4 win over Charlton in front of a crowd of 8,934, a small number, although crowds did pick up, and for the “home” game against Tottenham Hotspur which Arsenal won 2-1 the crowd was recorded as the suspiciously round number of 15,000
However, after the first two games in December, crowd numbers declined considerably and on February 8 the low point was reached with just 1000 being noted as being in the Highbury stadium for the 2-2 draw.
Clubs had to use their own players when available, but when not, volunteers who were professional players and able to make the game could be used.
Arsenal won the League South A Division, which ran from October 1939 to April 1940, scoring an amazing 3.4 goals games a match. Although we might also note in fairness that Charlton Athletic who came sixth in the league scored just one goal fewer.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 18 | 13 | 4 | 1 | 62 | 22 | 30 |
| 2 | West Ham United | 18 | 12 | 1 | 5 | 57 | 33 | 25 |
| 3 | Millwall | 18 | 8 | 5 | 5 | 46 | 38 | 21 |
| 4 | Watford | 18 | 9 | 3 | 6 | 44 | 38 | 21 |
| 5 | Norwich City | 18 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 41 | 36 | 20 |
| 6 | Charlton Athletic | 18 | 8 | 1 | 9 | 61 | 58 | 17 |
| 7 | Crystal Palace | 18 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 39 | 56 | 13 |
| 8 | Clapton Orient | 18 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 28 | 60 | 13 |
| 9 | Tottenham Hotspur | 18 | 5 | 2 | 11 | 37 | 43 | 12 |
| 10 | Southend United | 18 | 4 | 0 | 14 | 30 | 61 | 8 |
Although crowds were small, as noted above, 15,000 did turn up for the Arsenal v Tottenham derby game (at WHL of course) on 18 November 1939, witnessing a 2-1 win over their hosts for the duration. It should be noted, however, that by and large, crowd numbers were rounded to the nearest thousand and may not have been completely accurate.
Interestingly, while this truncated league still had one or two games left to play the London South C Division started up once again, including both Tottenham and Arsenal, running from February to June.
This time around, Arsenal lost once and drew once with Tottenham, and ended up third in the league. Crowds by now, however, were significantly higher again reeching 15,000 at one point.
Aside from these two League Campaigns, known as League South A for the campaign starting in October and League South C for February to June, there was the Football League War Cup. This competition was played home and away in each round, Arsenal beating Notts County 4-0 and 5-1 in the first round in April, Crystal Palace 3-1 and 2-0 in May and then losing 1-2 at home to Birmingham on May 18. Quite why there was no second leg, I regret I can’t find in the books. If you know, please do write in.
28 players donned the Arsenal kit across these 41 games the last of which took place on 3 May 1940. The largest crowd was the 21,400 for the FA Cup away game with Crystal Palace on 11 May 1940.
Arsenal’s top scorer for this first wartime season was Leslie Compton, who in 40 games that season scored 35 goals
The series continues…
