This article is part of a series celebrating 100 Arsenal seasons in the top division – a record achieved way ahead of any other club. The 100 record was achieved by being in the Premier League in 202/26, Arsenal having been elected to the league in 1919/20 – the fact that this run is spread over more than 100 years is, of course, due to the cessation of the League in the Second World War.
The full index of articles so far published in the series is published here. The last three articles were
- Arsenal 1952/53. Whittaker fulfils his destiny, but then Arsenal collapse
- 100 years in the top divison: Arsenal 1951/2; losing the cup final
- 100 years in the top division: Arsenal. 1950/51 – a roof for the north bank, but no trophy
By Tony Attwood
If you have been reading this series as we move through the years, you will have seen that by 1952/3 Arsenal were top of the league in terms of the number of league wins – they had won the top division seven times.
But then something went horribly wrong and this could be seen from the start of the 1951/2 season had been moderate to say the least, with just three wins in the first eight games, leaving Arsenal in seventh.
As we have also seen however in the last episode, Arsenal overcame their problems and went on to win the league for the seventh time in 15 seasons – a wholly unprescedented run, made all the mre amazing by the fact that those 15 seasons Arsenal had seen three permanent managers, one stand-in manager, a seven year pause for the second world war, and one season when Arsenal played their home games at White Hart Lane with the management being run from one tiny room.
But everything comes to an end sometime, and in Arsenal’s case that end was 1953/4 when the club finished 12th in the league while being knocked out of the FA Cup in just its second game..
In fact, one could argue that the problem was that Arsenal started the season badly and got worse, getting just two points in the first eight games – despite Arsenal now being the club that had won the league more times than any other.
Worse, the match on 12 September away to Sunderland ended 7-1, with Swindin in goal for the last time. He had played that and the previous game in place of Kelsey who was injured, but thankfully Kelsey recovered to play the rest of the season. That change didn’t take Arsenal to the top of the league, but it did stop any more huge scores against the club.
Action was thus clearly needed, and Tommy Lawton came in from Brentford. That helped, but even then, it was almost more of a publicity stunt than a way to solve the crisis, in that Lawton was by now 34 years old. Indeed, the transfer tells us much about the state of uncertainty if not panic, that surrounded the club and its finances, combined with its extraordinary drop in form.
At this point, Arsenal started to do what they had criticised other clubs as doing – buying in desperation £15,000 may seem like nothing to pay for a player but in 1953 it was a world record transfer. Lawton helped steady the team, but he was also moving to the end of his career, and Arsenal were now clearly engaged in panic buys.
Worse, as the season drifted to its end in April, Joe Mercer broke his leg and was to be seen no more in an Arsenal shirt. The club finished 12th.- an extraordinary collapse after winning the league season before, although perhaps we might note that the runners-up the season before (losing out to Arsenal only on goal average) was Preston North End, who in 1953/4 sank to 11th. One title, and then back to mid-table seemed to be the new rule of the post-war era.
Worse again, the crowds which had started at the 50,000+ level were down to the mid-30,000s by the end of the season, although one match (the home game with Aston Villa on April 6) there was an excuse as it was a midweek afternoon game, played because the original match had been abandoned due to fog on 2 January. Villa themselves had no floodlights at this time, and refused to play games under floodlight, hence the kick off time.
Arsenal’s 43 points was their lowest since the first season after the Second World War, a season which Arsenal played at Tottenham’s stadium. It was, in fact, the lowest home crowd since 1929/30 when the club came 14th under Chapman, but had all their attention focused on their first ever FA Cup Final, which of course they won.
And thus, amidst all the gloom that such a set of circumstances delivered, even the statistics gave little room for hope. The goals scored in 1953/4 we 22 fewer than in the previous season, while those conceded were nine more. The only compensation anywhere was that Doug Lishman was still knocking in goals – 20 in 1953/4 and 19 in 1954/5. But even he could not last much longer.
Thus, the drop from being Champions in 1952/3 to coming 12th in 1953/4 was significant indeed. Arsenal had finished 14th in 1946/7 but that was the season where George Allison had been a very reluctant manager in Tom Whittaker’s absence, running the club out of one room at White Hart Lane.
And this was the second time since the Second World War that Arsenal had finished in the lower reaches of the league: 13in 1946/7, and now 12th in 1953/54. But in 1946/47, Arsenal followed their 13th place by winning the league the following season. Now it seemed everything was the other way around: league winners in 1952/3 but now 12th in 1953/4. There was a feeling, an expectation and perhaps also a demand that things would now change quickly for 1954/55. Unfortunately, a trophy was still well over a decade and a couple more managerial changes away.
But there was still faith in Tom Whittaker as manager and a feeling that Arsenal could soon bounce back to the type of form that had given them two league titles and an FA Cup win under Chapman, Allison and indeed Whittaker himself.#
However, such money as there was available was going on rebuilding the North Bank, and the notion of some further big money signings seemed ever more distant. Plus of course, the war had removed so many exciting young players that it began to seem Arsenal had nowhere else to turn. Those born post-war were certainly not yet old enough to join the club, while those born just before the war began and who had shown real talent, by now were 17 or 18, but had missed out on their years of playing youth games that had for decades been the preliminary to joining the reserve team of a 1st Division club.
All clubs suffered of course, but it appears that London, with its heavy bombardment and its evacuation policies, saw its clubs suffer more than most. The top London team in 1953/4 was Chelsea, who came 8th that season, followed by Charlton (9th), Arsenal (12th), and Tottenham (16th). The youth players were simply not emerging for the London clubs and there was not a signle club in the top seven.
