The curious story of 1968/9; the first run of six wins in 13 years.

Tony Attwood

11 January 1969: Arsenal 2 Sheffield W 0. 6 consecutive wins, one goal conceded. First six in a row in the league since March/April 1956

Triumphs in football rarely, if ever, happen out of nothing. When Arsenal won the league and cup double in 1971 it is true that they had not won a domestic trophy since winning the league in 1953, but that simple fact hides the build up that led to 1971.

In terms of cups and finals, that build up consisted of

2 March 1968: Leeds 1 Arsenal 0 (League Cup final)
15 March 1969: Swindon 3 Arsenal 1 (League Cup final)
22 April 1970: Anderlecht 3 Arsenal 1 (Fairs cup final 1^st leg)
28 April 1970: Arsenal 3 Anderlecht 0 (Fairs cup final 2^nd leg)

Curiously there was no similar build up in the First Division as this record of Arsenal under Bertie Mee shows:

	League position	FA Cup exit round	League Cup exit round
1966/7	7	5 (Birmingham)	3 (WHU)
1967/8	9	5 (Birmingham)	Final
1968/9	4	5 (WBA)	Final
1969/70	12	3 (Blackpool)	3 (Everton)

But what this hides is one other small fact. Nothing that would give us a trophy, but a sign of the changing times.

For what the figures above show us is that Mee could focus. 1969/70 was a terrible season in the league (12^th) the FA Cup (exit in first round played) and League Cup (exit in second round played) but we won a European Trophy.

And it was this ability to focus that led to this other achievement, for on 11 January 1969 we had the result Arsenal 2 Sheffield W 0. That made it six consecutive wins, one goal conceded. First six in a row in the league since March/April 1956.

The six wins came after a very poor run, which in turn came after a very good opening run. Here’s how it went:

September 14 1968: Arsenal 1 Stoke 0 completes seven wins and two draws in the opening nine games. The table made encouraging reading…

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GA	Pts
1	Arsenal	9	7	2	0	17	6	2.83	16
2	Leeds United	8	6	2	0	17	7	2.43	14
3	Chelsea	9	5	3	1	19	8	2.38	13
4	West Ham United	9	5	3	1	19	9	2.11	13
5	Liverpool	9	5	2	2	13	7	1.86	12
6	Everton	9	4	3	2	14	7	2.00	11
7	Sheffield Wednesday	9	4	3	2	13	11	1.18	11
8	Sunderland	9	3	4	2	13	11	1.18	10
9	Manchester United	9	3	2	4	12	16	0.75	8
10	West Bromwich Albion	9	3	2	4	15	22	0.68	8

23 November 1968 Arsenal 0 Chelsea 1. That made it two wins, five draws, three defeats in games 10 to 19. A less satisfactory table, but still not that bad…

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GA	Pts
1	Liverpool	20	13	4	3	39	13	3.00	30
2	Leeds United	19	12	5	2	28	16	1.75	29
3	Everton	20	11	6	3	41	18	2.28	28
4	Arsenal	19	9	7	3	22	12	1.83	25
5	West Ham United	20	8	8	4	40	23	1.74	24
6	Chelsea	20	9	6	5	35	21	1.67	24
7	Tottenham Hotspur	20	8	7	5	38	29	1.31	23
8	Burnley	20	10	3	7	29	34	0.85	23
9	West Bromwich Albion	20	8	5	7	30	36	0.83	21
10	Sheffield Wednesday	19	6	8	5	23	23	1.00	20

11 January 1969 Arsenal 2 Sheffield Wednesday 0 made games 20 to 25 a run of six consecutive wins

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GA	Pts
1	Liverpool	27	18	5	4	46	15	3.07	41
2	Leeds United	25	16	7	2	42	21	2.00	39
3	Arsenal	25	15	7	3	34	13	2.62	37
4	Everton	26	15	7	4	56	24	2.33	37
5	Chelsea	26	11	8	7	47	32	1.47	30
6	West Ham United	26	9	11	6	47	32	1.47	29
7	Sheffield Wednesday	26	9	10	7	32	28	1.14	28
8	Southampton	28	9	9	10	34	38	0.90	27
9	Burnley	27	11	5	11	34	53	0.64	27
10	West Bromwich Albion	26	10	6	10	39	44	0.89	26

18 February 1969: Arsenal 0 Ipswich 2 made it two defeats, one draw, one win in the last four games, as Arsenal slipped to fourth. Worse on 15 March 1969 Arsenal lost in the league cup final to Swindon.

8 April 1969. Arsenal played three games in four days over Easter, the last of which (Leicester 0 Arsenal 0) resulted in games 30 to 37 of the season giving: four wins, three draws. We pulled back a little

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GA	Pts
1	Leeds United	36	24	10	2	60	24	2.50	58
2	Liverpool	36	23	8	5	56	21	2.67	54
3	Arsenal	37	20	12	5	49	20	2.45	52
4	Everton	35	19	11	5	69	31	2.23	49
5	Chelsea	39	18	9	12	69	51	1.35	45
6	West Ham United	37	13	16	8	63	43	1.47	42
7	Southampton	39	15	12	12	53	46	1.15	42
8	Tottenham Hotspur	37	11	16	10	56	49	1.14	38
9	Manchester United	39	13	12	14	52	49	1.06	38
10	Burnley	39	14	9	16	52	78	0.67	37

Although Arsenal were six points behind the leaders in an era of two points for a win and one for a draw, Arsenal might still have harboured thoughts of a runners’ up spot. But games 38 to 42 delivered three defeats and two wins. A disappointing end to the season gave us Everton 1 Arsenal 0 on 29 April 1969.

The season drifted on for another couple of weeks with clubs playing catch up through matches postponed for the weather and cup requirements, but when it was finally produced in mid-May the final table showed

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	GA	Pts
1	Leeds United	42	27	13	2	66	26	2.54	67
2	Liverpool	42	25	11	6	63	24	2.62	61
3	Everton	42	21	15	6	77	36	2.14	57
4	Arsenal	42	22	12	8	56	27	2.07	56
5	Chelsea	42	20	10	12	73	53	1.38	50
6	Tottenham Hotspur	42	14	17	11	61	51	1.20	45
7	Southampton	42	16	13	13	57	48	1.19	45
8	West Ham United	42	13	18	11	66	50	1.32	44
9	Newcastle United	42	15	14	13	61	55	1.11	44
10	West Bromwich Albion	42	16	11	15	64	67	0.95	43

It was indeed a most curious season – but it was showing that Mee was building a team that could put sequences together. However when the team was disrupted or lost its self-belief, it floundered, and indeed I believe this season held the secret of what happened to Arsenal with their decline after the double, with the club coming 16^th and 17^th in the league in Mee’s last two seasons.

There’s one other factor. The double season was built on a settle team, and Mee was already finding that. Wilson, Storey and McNab all played 42 laegue games while David Court played 40. Top scorer was John Radford with 15, second was Bobby Gould with ten.

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