By Tony Attwood
This series of articles concerning Arsenal’s earliest days playing in Plumstead, begins with the article “Why Arsenal joined the Football League rather than the Southern League” There are one or two other articles on the site along the way, but if you keep moving forward from there you can follow the story of Arsenal’s early years in League football playing in Plumstead.
Recent articles include
- Season 17: 1909/10: Disaster at the Arsenal
- Season 16: 1908/09 – the highest position in the league so far
- Season 15: Arsenal in 1907/08; relegation avoided by just two points
- What Arsenal’s Pre-Season Told Us About What to Expect in 2026-27
- 1906/7: the unexpected arrival of another team from the south
After the problems of 1909/10, Woolwich Arsenal most certainly needed reviving, not least when it was confirmed that the local torpedo factory that had always been the centre of the club’s support was indeed closing and moving to Glasgow. At a stroke of the pen, Arsenal had lost their most vibrant and energetic supporter base and the financial future of the club looked dubious.
Worse, the death of the director Arthur Kennedy, early in the season was a real loss to the club, and he was perhaps more than any other, the man that supporters saw as the one most closely identified with the club’s origins and heritage. For many it was like losing a key part of the club.
And so Arsenal needed some dramatic moves to reassure supporters that there was still some point in supporting Woolwich Arsenal FC and coming to watch the games, and this was done in part by the signing of Alf Common who had earlier in his career been the first man to command a £1000 transfer fee – something that had gained enormous publicity (and condemnation by those who felt aggrieved that working men should have a sport of their own. There really were serious arguments put forward that the workers would spend all day talking about football, rather than doing what they were told by their employers!).
As it happened, although the newspapers railed in their usual way about anything that football did, and which challenged the perception that horse racing was the only real sport on offer, the transfer worked in terms of giving Arsenal the goals the club needed, and Arsenal finished 10th out of 20 in the 1910/11 season. And that in itself was extraordinary since they had been bottom of the league after a defeat to Oldham in March.
Thus that undefeated run took the club to a very respectable tenth, even though the home crowds by the end of the season had slipped a long way below that which was hoped for, and indeed needed.
London only had two clubs in the top division – Arsenal and Tottenham surviving, with Chelsea having been relegated to the second division in in 1910. Meanwhile other clubs had been drawn to the Southern League with of course fewer long journeys to the away games, rather than the professional nationwide Football League. But the notion of professional football in London was growing, and the 1910/11 end of season table proclaimed Woolwich Arsenal once again the top London team (although just 10th in the first division) with Tottenham 15th.
But the crowds for 1910/11 were poor. 15,000 turned up for the first home match of the season, and although numbers stayed above 10,000 at least until the visit of Notts County, for whom only 8000 turned up (a very poor number for a first division game). 24,000 did make it to see Arsenal beat Tottenham at home in April, but this was an exception. As a mid table club in the top division, Arsenal needed more support.
I don’t have access to the board minutes of the club in this era – and indeed I have the feeling that they were “removed” from the club after Henry Norris was deposed, but looking back at events it is clear that from 1911/12 onwards two ideas were explored. One was of course the notion of moving the club away from Plumstead, with its now declining workforce, and its problems with public transport, and the other was to try and sign one or two celebrity players which would give the clubs some much needed newspaper coverage.
It was in relation to this latter notion that in December 1911 Arsenal signed famous goalkeeper Dick Roose who would be playing in the same team as leading goalscorer Alf Common..
In 1911/12 Alf Common scored 17 goals in 36 games and his appearance with that of Dick Roose meant that the local papers had something to write about Arsenal for much of the season whether Arsenal won or lost.
In the end, 1911/12 proved to be a similar season to its predecessor with Arsenal finishing 10th for the second season running. But perhaps what really attracted the attention of the directors were the two games played on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. These were against Tottenham, and 47,000 turned up on the 25th at White Hart Lane while 22,000 made it to Plumstead.
The home team won each time, and Woolwich Arsenal finished two places above Tottenham in the league at the end of the season, but that difference in attendance must have been part of the evolution of the idea that Henry Norris gained, of moving Woolwich Arsenal to a new ground, close to Tottenham, so that the rivalry between the two teams could really blossom.
And there was also the point about transport. The Plumstead ground was notoriously difficult to get to, while parts of north London were now served by the Underground, including the opening in 1906 of a station opposite the grounds of a religious organisation, which was said to be having difficulty paying its bills.
We don’t know when Henry Norris first hit on the idea of taking Arsenal to a location both close to Tottenham’s ground, and immediately served by the underground system, but it may well have been after that match on Christmas Day 1911.
To be continued…
