By Tony Attwood
Sitting here in 2026 and trying to answer that question in the headline, I guess most of us would immediately head towards the Unbeaten Season as the greatest moment in Arsenal’s history. And it clearly was the greatest achievement because the only other unbeaten season in league football came in 1888/9 – the very first football league season. There were 12 clubs in the league, and the top one, Preston North End, was unbeaten. They won 18, and drew four of the league fixtures. Here’s the table
| Season | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1888-89 | Preston North End | 22 | 18 | 4 | 0 | 74 | 15 |
| 2003–04 | Arsenal | 38 | 26 | 12 | 0 | 73 | 26 |
Comparing the two sets of results is difficult of course – the numberof points per win was different, the way of separating clubs on the same number of points was different etc, but we can nevertheless devise a table based on how it might have been if Preston had played 38 games instead of just 22 while also awarding, as in today’s football, three points for a win and one for a draw.
Here’s how the Preston position would have looked from the first season (1888/9) if each team had played 38 games, and had continued the same results ratio as they actually got in the 22 match league…
| Season | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1888/9 | Preston North End | 38 | 31 | 7 | 0 | 128 | 26 | 100 |
| 2003/4 | ARSENAL | 38 | 26 | 12 | 0 | 73 | 26 | 85 |
What immediately struck me is that while of course as we would expect Preston NE shoot ahead of Arsenal in this imginary 1888/9 table, their defence let in the same number of goals as Arsenal did in their unbeaten season. 26 goals against, for each.
Which is interesting since it was much harder to score in 1888/9 than it is today under the origianl offside rule.
For in the 1888/1889 season, the offside rule stated that a player was offside if he was in front of the ball when it was played forward and/or did not have three or more opposing players (including the goal keeper) between the receiving player and the goal line at the moment the ball was received.
Now Preston North End with their average of over three goals a game clearly had mastered this in a way that their opponents in this first season of the league had not, since not one of their rival clubs managed to get more than three goals against them in any signle match. Indeed it was interesting that Accringgton Stanley actually played out a goalless draw in their first match against the eventual league winners. Clearly Preston did not come to the season with their tactics fully in place.
Such reports as we have suggest that the concept of catching the oppositon offside by pushing the defence forward was considered ungentlemanly and thus the team tended to move en masse up and down the ptich following behind the position of the ball.
Nevertheless there were already some recognised goal scorers John Goodall got 21 goals in 21 games and Jimmy Ross got 19 in 21 in this first season for example. Amazing achievements given the “three behind the ball” offside regulation.
Interestingly, the high scoring games faded out as the season progresed, for while the club that eventually won the league scored 22 goals in their opening five games, they only got half that number in their last five games. The defence however was more consistent. They let in five in the last five games and the same number in the first five.
Now the offside requirement of three defenders behind the ball when the attacking player receives the ball was not changed until 1925, but it is clear that clubs were already developing tactics to accommodate the rules from the start.
These are of course basic numbers: the table at the end of the first season of Arsenal’s engagement with the League Divison Two read…
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 28 | 22 | 6 | 0 | 77 | 18 | 50 |
| 2 | Small Heath | 28 | 21 | 0 | 7 | 103 | 44 | 42 |
| 3 | Notts County | 28 | 18 | 3 | 7 | 70 | 31 | 39 |
| 4 | Newcastle United | 28 | 15 | 6 | 7 | 66 | 39 | 36 |
| 5 | Grimsby Town | 28 | 15 | 2 | 11 | 71 | 58 | 32 |
| 6 | Burton Swifts | 28 | 14 | 3 | 11 | 79 | 61 | 31 |
| 7 | Burslem Port Vale | 28 | 13 | 4 | 11 | 66 | 64 | 30 |
| 8 | Lincoln City | 28 | 11 | 6 | 11 | 59 | 58 | 28 |
| 9 | Woolwich Arsenal | 28 | 12 | 4 | 12 | 52 | 55 | 28 |
| 10 | Walsall Town Swifts | 28 | 10 | 3 | 15 | 51 | 61 | 23 |
| 11 | Middlesbrough Ironopolis | 28 | 8 | 4 | 16 | 37 | 72 | 20 |
| 12 | Crewe Alexandra | 28 | 6 | 7 | 15 | 42 | 73 | 19 |
| 13 | Ardwick | 28 | 8 | 2 | 18 | 47 | 71 | 18 |
| 14 | Rotherham Town | 28 | 6 | 3 | 19 | 44 | 91 | 15 |
| 15 | Northwich Victoria | 28 | 3 | 3 | 22 | 30 | 98 | 9 |
At the end of the season Liverpool and Small Heath were promoted via a series of “test matches”. Middlesbrough Ironopolis were dissoved, Ardwick and Rotherham were re-elected while Northwich resigned from the league. In short approximately a quarter of the teams from that first season did not play in the league in its second season.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that Arseanl FC should seek out the living relatvies of all the players who played in that first season and offer them a trophy as a memorial of being one of the few who launched the club so that all these years later we could continue to support Arsenal FC. They could receive their trophies before a league game perhaps. It would be a nice gesture.
