Blackburn Rovers 5 Arsenal 5; 3 November 1962

Blackburn 5 Arsenal 5.

This was an extraordinary result, no matter which way one looks at it, and yet it is one that seems to have slipped through the reference books, and is not talked about, simply because nothing in the score is a record.  Not highest number of goals, most away goals or anything.

But it was such an extraordinary moment I can still remember hearing the score as a child, standing on a station platform having watched a different match (my family no longer living in north London) and being told the scores by someone who had (presumably) picked up the local paper.

Taking a look at the league table before the game doesn’t give us much help in understanding the game… (GD is goal difference, and points are scored with two for a win).

		Pd	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
11	Blackpool	15	4	6	5	17	22	0.77	14
12	West Ham United	15	4	5	6	26	26	1.00	13
13	Blackburn Rovers	15	5	3	7	23	29	0.79	13
14	Manchester City	15	4	5	6	21	36	0.58	13
15	Arsenal	14	4	4	6	25	29	0.86	12
16	Bolton Wanderers	15	5	2	8	22	27	0.81	12

Arsenal were scoring on average 1.79 goals a game and letting in 2.07.

Blackburn were scoring 1.53 goals a game and letting in 1.93.   Nothing here suggested a high scoring game

Arsenal’s results thus far that season do however suggest something…

			Venue	Result	Pos	Pts
1	18/08/62	Leyton Orient	away	W2-1	5	2
2	21/08/62	Birmingham City	home	W2-0	2	4
3	25/08/62	Manchester United	home	L1-3	8	4
4	29/08/62	Birmingham City	away	D2-2	8	5
5	01/09/62	Burnley	away	L1-2	10	5
6	04/09/62	Aston Villa	home	L1-2	12	5
7	08/09/62	Sheffield Wednesday	home	L1-2	16	5
8	10/09/62	Aston Villa	away	L1-3	17	5
9	15/09/62	Fulham	away	W3-1	15	7
10	22/09/62	Leicester City	home	D1-1	14	8
11	29/09/62	Bolton Wanderers	away	L0-3	17	8
12	06/10/62	Tottenham Hotspur	away	D4-4	15	9
13	13/10/62	West Ham United	home	D1-1	15	10
14	27/10/62	Wolverhampton Wanderers	home	W5-4	15	12
15	03/11/62	Blackburn Rovers	away	D5-5	17	13

So now we get some hints.  After that early run of four consecutive defeats and no win in six something started to move.

Then In match 14 Arsenal had beaten Wolverhampton 5-4, and just two games before that had a 4-4  away draw with Tottenham.  In short this 5-5 draw was the culmination of a spell in which 20 goals were scored in four games – an amazing record for a team that overall was scoring 1.79 goals a game.

As for Blackburn, their results looked like this

			Venue	Result	Pos	Pts
1	18/08/62	Ipswich Town	away	D3-3	9	1
2	20/08/62	Nottingham Forest	home	L2-5	14	1
3	25/08/62	Liverpool	home	W1-0	14	3
4	28/08/62	Nottingham Forest	away	L0-2	15	3
5	01/09/62	Wolverhampton Wanderers	away	L2-4		3
6	05/09/62	Sheffield United	away	D1-1	18	4
7	08/09/62	Aston Villa	home	W4-1	13	6
8	15/09/62	Tottenham Hotspur	away	L1-4	17	6
9	17/09/62	Sheffield United	home	L1-2	17	6
10	22/09/62	West Ham United	home	L0-4	22	6
11	29/09/62	Manchester City	away	W1-0	18	8
12	06/10/62	Burnley	home	L2-3	20	8
13	13/10/62	Manchester United	away	W3-0	16	10
14	20/10/62	Leicester City	home	W2-0	13	12
15	27/10/62	Fulham	away	D0-0	13	13
16	03/11/62	Arsenal	home	D5-5	12	14

Unlike the Arsenal results there is little here to suggest a 5-5 might be on the way – although there had been a 4-1 win and two defeats where four were let in, in September.  From the off their run was one of decline.

For Arsenal this was the first season of Billy Wright’s management, a management period that few have anything positive to say about.  Wright was considered by his contemporaries as an inept manager, flitting from one idea to another, with no grip on the training of the players, no sense of consistent discipline or management skills, nor any tactical insight.

But in one real sense he would have been pleased with these four results in matches 13 to 15 in that his new centre forward for the season, Joe Baker, scored six in three games.  Eastham got three and Skirton the other two.

Wright might have been a bit worried about his keeper however.  McKechnie had been dropped after the 0-3 away defeat to Bolton and replaced by McClelland who played in goal for the rest of the season.  (McKechnie did however come back to make his final 11 appearances for Arsenal in 1963/4 before being replaced for five games by Bob Wilson, and then by Jim Furnell.  With McClelland also taking five games, Arsenal used four keepers that season).

But back in 1962, Terry Neil played two of the four games, with Vic Groves playing the other two, as players shuffled around.

The other change was that in the Tottenham game David Court played at centre forward with Joe Baker injured, and Court scored two goals in that 4-4 draw, but was then dropped.

So the team for the Blackburn game was

McClelland

Magill Brown McCullough

Sneddon Groves

MacLeod Strong Baker Eastham Skirton

After the 5-5 game the league table looked like this

		Pld		W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Tottenham Hotspur	16		11	2	3	58	26	2.23	24
2	Everton	15		10	3	2	32	16	2.00	23
3	Burnley	16		9	5	2	34	24	1.42	23
4	Leicester City	16		8	4	4	31	22	1.41	20
5	Wolverhampton Wndrs	16		8	4	4	37	27	1.37	20
6	Nottingham Forest	15		7	4	4	29	25	1.16	18
7	Aston Villa	16		8	2	6	29	26	1.11	18
8	Sheffield Wednesday	16		6	6	4	30	28	1.07	18
9	West Bromwich Albion	16		7	3	6	28	25	1.12	17
10	Sheffield United	16		6	4	6	25	27	0.93	16
11	Bolton Wanderers	16		6	2	8	24	28	0.86	14
12	Blackburn Rovers	16		5	4	7	28	34	0.82	14
13	Birmingham City	16		5	4	7	22	31	0.71	14
14	Blackpool	16		4	6	6	17	24	0.71	14
15	Manchester City	16		4	6	6	22	37	0.59	14
16	West Ham United	16		4	5	7	27	28	0.96	13
17	Arsenal	15		4	5	6	30	34	0.88	13
18	Manchester United	16		5	2	9	27	35	0.77	12
19	Fulham	16		4	4	8	16	28	0.57	12
20	Liverpool	15		4	3	8	19	23	0.83	11
21	Ipswich Town	16		2	6	8	25	31	0.81	10
22	Leyton Orient	16		4	2	10	18	29	0.62	10

For the rest of the season, Arsenal picked up a little and scored four on three occasions, but there were no more higher scores.  Arsenal finished 7th, a fractional improvement on the last season under Swindin when the club was 10th.

As for the goal scorers, Joe Baker scored 29 in 39 games – an amazing achievement.  Geoff Strong got 18 in 36.   Alan Skirton got 10 in 28.

Here’s the final table

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
1	Everton	42	25	11	6	84	42	2.00	61
2	Tottenham Hotspur	42	23	9	10	111	62	1.79	55
3	Burnley	42	22	10	10	78	57	1.37	54
4	Leicester City	42	20	12	10	79	53	1.49	52
5	Wolverhampton Wanderers	42	20	10	12	93	65	1.43	50
6	Sheffield Wednesday	42	19	10	13	77	63	1.22	48
7	Arsenal	42	18	10	14	86	77	1.12	46
8	Liverpool	42	17	10	15	71	59	1.20	44
9	Nottingham Forest	42	17	10	15	67	69	0.97	44
10	Sheffield United	42	16	12	14	58	60	0.97	44
11	Blackburn Rovers	42	15	12	15	79	71	1.11	42
12	West Ham United	42	14	12	16	73	69	1.06	40
13	Blackpool	42	13	14	15	58	64	0.91	40
14	West Bromwich Albion	42	16	7	19	71	79	0.90	39
15	Aston Villa	42	15	8	19	62	68	0.91	38
16	Fulham	42	14	10	18	50	71	0.70	38
17	Ipswich Town	42	12	11	19	59	78	0.76	35
18	Bolton Wanderers	42	15	5	22	55	75	0.73	35
19	Manchester United	42	12	10	20	67	81	0.83	34
20	Birmingham City	42	10	13	19	63	90	0.70	33
21	Manchester City	42	10	11	21	58	102	0.57	31
22	Leyton Orient	42	6	9	27	37	81	0.46	21

Tottenham fell away and failed to win the league, while local rivals Leyton Orient, whom Arsenal had played in the opening game, were relegated with Manchester City.  Man U avoided relegation by three points.

————————

• The Anniversary Files:  January to June
  
• The Anniversary Files: July to September   
• The Anniversary Files: October to December

The books…

• Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
• Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
• The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches