By Tony Attwood
This article continues the review of Arsenal’s 100 consecutive seasons in the top division.
The most recent articles in this series are
- Arsenal 1952/53. Whittaker fulfils his destiny but then Arsenal collapse
- 1953/4: the Arsenal collapse begins
- 1954/5 and 1955/6: Whittaker’s final seasons, and still no more trophies
- Arsenal in the wilderness: the Jack Crayston era
The full index of articles so far is published here
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Between 1936 and 1954 George Swindin played 297 games for Arsenal as a goalkeeper, and his early days at the club were rather unusual.
In 1934/5, when Arsenal won the league, he had played the last nine games of the season in goal, replacing the injured Frank Moss. Then in 1935/6 he didn’t get a single game, despite the injury to Alex Wilson midway through the season. Frank Moss in fact took over in goal.
In 1936/7 however, Wilson only got the first league game in goal (Arsenal won 3-2) before Swindin took over for 19 games before he himself was replaced by Frank Boultron who played in the last 21 games.
Despite Arsenal coming third that year, Wilson then came back for ten games early in the season but was then replaced by Frank Bouolton who in turn was replaced by George Swindin for the last 17 league games.
Then in 1938/9, the last season before the war, Swindin got the first 18 games in goal (plus three near the very end of the season) but was replaced by Wilson for 19 games, but then, for the last two games when George Marks turned up in goal – his only two games for the club as no sooner had the following season begun than it was cancelled due to the outbreak of war.
When the war was concluded, Swindin was in goal for Arsenal again, playing 38 games. Ted Platt played the other four, due to an injury to Swindin, and then finally in 1947/8 Swindin got to play an entire season – he had become Arsenal’s number 1. So yes, he was part of the league-winning side of 1947/8 and indeed to a degree 1952/3, although he was replaced by Jack Kelsey for most of that season.
He also won the FA Cup with Arsenal in 1950 and got a runners’ up medal in 1952 – all of which was no mean achievement, but it wasn’t until 1953/4 that he played most of a league season (39 games in fact) as Arsenal came 12th. 1954/5 saw him play 38 league games as Arsenal came ninth.
Kelsey was in goal for 32 games in 1955/6 as Arsenal improved once more to take fifth place, and in that season and the one to follow, he reached the sixth round of the cup with the club, and played 30 games in the league.
That was the season Crayston took over as manager, and Arsenal had the ignominy of exiting the FA Cup in the 3rd round to Northampton Town. Jack Kelsey was in goal for that game and played 38 league matches as Arsenal came in 12th.
But the following season 1958/9, injury struck again, and he only made 27 league games and five FA Cup matches as Arsenal finished third. Kelsey did however, stay with the club, and with George Swindin taking control in 1960/61, Kelsey played in 37 games, but Arsenal slipped to 11th. There were 35 games in 1961/2 but Arsenal could only manage 10th position. The following season, McKechnie and McClelland shared the goalkeeping duties and Arsenal did rise slightly to 7th.
However, despite not getting the absolute success he and the team wanted at Arsenal, Kelsey was also first choice keeper for Wales, playing for his country 41 times, including in the 1958 World Cup Finals – a series in which Wales were knocked out by Brazil in the quarter finals, with, of course, a shot from Pele.
Kelsey finished playing earlier than he would have wished due to a back injury sustained while playing in a friendly for Wales, after which he retired, having played 327 league games for the club, plus 24 FA Cup matches. He moved on to be the commercial manager at Arsenal, retired in 1989 and died just three years later at the very young age of 62.
The number of games Kelsey played for Arsenal is not exactly clear – certainly it was over 300, but some counts of Arsenal players seem to omit him completely for reasons I can’t explain. David Seaman is said to have played 325 games for Arsenal, and Kelsey’s number is certainly somewhere around that total. The official Arsenal website says 351, and AI (never the most reliable of sources) has 352, so we’ll take it that it is around that number. And we should not forget that in effect he started the notion of a serious fan-facing commercial side to Arsenal’s activities off the pitch.
As for George Swindin as manager, he lasted four seasons at Arsenal. The club’s record was
- 1958/59: 3rd in the league, round 5 in the FA Cup
- 1959/60: 13th in the league, round 3 in the FA Cup
- 1960/61: 11th in the league, round 3 in the FA Cup
- 1961/62: 10th in the league, round 4 in the FA Cup
Such results meant that since winning the league in 1952/3 Arsenal had gone nine seasons without winning either of the major trophies. Their best achievements had been third in the league and fifth round in the FA Cup.
The table below sets out Arsenal’s achievements between 1953/4 and 1961/2 anjd it is a table I have not seen set out in this form elsewhere, hence its inclusion here. What makes me feel this is interesting is that one can quickly look down each key indicator over the years and draw a conclusion.
For example, there were two seasons when the goals scored really rose to the mid 80s but there was no progress built on those two seasons. Once the goals conceded went down to 61, but again, this was not the start of an improvement in the defence. The club did move up from 12th place to two seasons in 5th, but then this was followed by another 12th place finish, a third place, and then the next season, the start of three seasons of 10th and below. Looking back, it all seems rather hit and miss.
As for the FA Cup, there were a couple of quarter finals (6th round), but then after that a regular dismissal of the club from the cup early on. The club’s “achievements,” such as they were, are shown in red.
| Season | F | A | Pts | Lge Pos | FAC | Manager |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1953/4 | 75 | 73 | 43 | 12th | 4th | Whittaker |
| 1954/5 | 69 | 63 | 43 | 9th | 4th | Whittaker |
| 1955/6 | 60 | 61 | 46 | 5th | 6th | Whittaker |
| 1956/7 | 85 | 69 | 50 | 5th | 6th | Whittaker/Crayston |
| 1957/8 | 73 | 85 | 39 | 12th | 3rd | Crayston |
| 1958/9 | 88 | 68 | 50 | 3rd | 5th | Swindin |
| 1959/60 | 68 | 80 | 39 | 13th | 3rd | Swindin |
| 1960/1 | 77 | 85 | 41 | 11th | 3rd | Swindin |
| 1961/2 | 71 | 72 | 43 | 10th | 4th | Swindin |
In short, if we put all the details together, this was a club standing still. But why would the directors allow this to happen?
The biggest reason was that the ground had been used by the military during the war, but there was no agreement thereafter as to who should pay to return the ground to its former state, in particular vis a vis the rebuilding of the stand over the north bank. As such, the club could not afford major expenditure of transfers while that matter remained unresolved, as the state would immediately point the finger at money going elsewhere and then simply never pay up.
In fact that stand was not rebuilt until 1956 having been destroyed by an incendiary bomb during the Blitz So it could be argued that although the form of the club after that was down to the managers, by this stage Arsenal found it hard to attract players to a club with a ground still suffering war damage and a record of what the media saw as persistent mid-table medicrcity.
Indeed, had Arsenal never won a trophy, it might have been easier to persuade a top manager to join the club, but instead, in part due to the recalcitrance of the state to pay up, Arsenal was now very much seen as yesterday’s team Yes it had won the league in 1952/3 and had had three sucesive managers who each won two league titles and an FA Cup. But Whittaker in his latter years, followed by Crayston had not been seen as league winners, any more than was Swindin. In short, the club was perceived as a sleeping giant, and it needed someone at the top to wake it up.
Arsenal were clearly aware of this, and hence they brought in the highest profile name as manager since Sir Henry Norris had persuaded Herbert Chapman to come to the club. But in doing this Arsenal turned to a man whose sole experience in management was as manager of England’s youth team in 1960 and as assistant manager with England during the 1962 world cup.
Of managing a club, he had no experience. But seemingly in utter des[peration, Arsenal gave him the job of restoring their former glories.
The series continues.
