By Tony Attwood
In 1892/93 there were two divisions in English football. In the first divsiion Sunderland won the league for the second time. The bottom three clubs played a series of test matches between themselves (thus four games each) and as a result of these Newtlon Heath FC were relegated from the first division to the second divison.
The second division itself consisted of 12 teams, and the bottom four here also played a series of “play off” matches at the end of the season. However these did not actually define who continued in the league, as Small Heath (which later became Birmingham City FC) and Notts County, continued in the league. Accrington Stanley however resigend from the league of their own volition, thus leaving one place vacant.
Accrington had had the lowest attendance of any club in the league during that season (averaging about 4,000 a game) and were seemingly losing money big time. The highest average attendance in their league was that of Small Heath which had an average of 13,320.
This left 11 clubs in the second dvision, and it appears (although I don’t have evidence of how this was arranged) that clubs were invited to apply for the vacancy. That 12th place when to Woolwich Arsenal FC.
Now that is interestining in the light of the other clubs in the second division at the time, that although Arsenal were specifically invited to join the league by much of the rest of the Football League, who wished to expand its influence tothe south. By 1893 there were no other southern clubs in the league but there was much talk of setting up a professional league just for clubs in the south.
But at this moment the nearest “local” rivals were in the East Midlands. Arsenal did however also enter teams into the Southern Combination and the United League.
Arsenal then played in the Second Division of the national football league for eleven seasons, Now it is noted in some places that the club also participated in the Southern Combination, and I must admit I have quoted that myself, but I now have doubts on that score and have found no collaborating evidence, so my apologies but I now think that was a false trail.
However the United League was formed in 1896 and it seems much more likely that this is where Arsenal’s second team also played. Indeed a league table from 1896/7 has been preserved and shows Woolwich Arsenal third in the league table, with Tottenham bottom. It would appear that Arsenal left that league at the end of the 1898/9 season, in which they came third, the same position as they had achieved for their first two seasons.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD* | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Millwall Athletic | 14 | 11 | 1 | 2 | 43 | 22 | +21 | 23 |
| 2 | Luton town | 14 | 10 | 1 | 3 | 52 | 16 | +36 | 21 |
| 3 | Woolwich Arsenal | 14 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 28 | 34 | −6 | 15 |
| 4 | Loughborough | 14 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 29 | 31 | −2 | 13 |
| 5 | Rushden Town | 14 | 6 | 1 | 7 | 25 | 42 | −17 | 13 |
| 6 | Kettering | 14 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 23 | 24 | −1 | 12 |
| 7 | Wellingborough | 14 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 17 | 39 | −22 | 9 |
| 8 | Tottenham Hotspur | 14 | 1 | 4 | 9 | 25 | 34 | −9 | 6 |
*Goal difference was not used at this time and the numbers are included as a guide as to how well the clubs were doing according to present-day measurements. At the time clubs with equal points were separated by “goal average” calculated by the goals scored divided by the goals conceded.
Althought the United League had some initial success, the league in fact ceased to exist in 1902 but then was reformed in 1905 and continued until 1909.
Now the point of all this is that professional football, in its early days, was primarily a midlands and northenrn activity, and Woolwich Arsnal playing as a professional club in the south was very much an outlier.
Nonetheless Woolwich Arsenal became a professional club in 1891 and was part of a movement to set up a professional Southern League which would mirror the Football League, which was in fact a Northern and Midlands League in all but name.
However the London Football Association made up of amateur clubs vigorously opposed this, and thus professional club Woolwich Arsenal joined the Football League in 1893 as the only southern representatives. This movement towards leagues and professionalism made clubs that were not in a league seek to find a league in which they could be guaranteed regular saturday games, and so the notion of the Souterh League was reintroduced in that league was set up in 1894.
Undoubtedly one of the major factors in this regard was indeed that Woolwich Arsenal had by then joined the Football League – even though this put enormous strain on the club’s finances, since every away game involved considerable journeys to the midlands and north of the country. Even nearby Millwall Athletic refused to follow Arsenal’s move in applying for a Football League place, and went for the new Southern League which finally launched in 1894/5.
This battle between there being an England-wide football league, and a set of regional leagues continued, and there is little doubt that the clubs in the midlands and the north, recognised Arsenal’s work in taking the Football League to London (rather than Arsenal joining the Southern League as other London clubs had done).
The Football League rewarded Arsenal in this regard after the first world war when it was decided to incrase the size of the two divisions of the Football League to 22 clubs from 20. At the AGM of the League a secret vote was held and Chelsea and Arsenal were elected to the first divsion.
There is no record whatsoever at the time of this being contraversioal in any way since virtually every club in the Football League was ageed on the benefit of the league being seen as the national league of football, and thus the election of Cheslea and Arsenal was very popular. Indeed as I have covered elsewhere, the northern clubs were very aware of two factors here. One was the enjoyment their own players got from a saturday night out in London after playing one of the London teams, and the other was the desire throughout the Football League to stand up to the Southern League. Football in the north and the midlands wantetd a national league of two divisions, and Arsenal was very much seen as the part of the mechanism to achieve this.
Indeed although no one could possibly have imagined it at the time, 133 years later Arsenal celebrated 100 consecutive seasons in the top divison by winning the league yet again – for the 14th time. And that does make it seem a good time to celebrate Arsenal’s role in the creation of a nation-wide league system.
