Arsenal lose to Bradford but march on to the title

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So any doubts that Arsenal were slipping (with the old year having ended with a rare defeat: Arsenal 1 Liverpool 2) were set aside.    That had been only our second defeat of the season and the first home defeat.  But January proved that the team could readily bounce back.

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Here are the league results…

• 1 January 1948: Bolton 0 Arsenal 1
• 3 January 1948: Arsenal 3 Sheffield Utd 2
• 17 January 1948: Manchester Utd 1 Arsenal 1 (81942 in the crowd!)
• 31 January 1948: Arsenal 3 Preston 0

At the end of January the league table looked like this.

		Pld		W	D	L	F	A	Pts
1	Arsenal	27		17	8	2	49	17	42
2	Burnley	27		14	9	4	40	25	37
3	Preston North End	27		14	5	8	44	42	33
4	Derby County	26		12	8	6	52	34	32
5	Manchester United	27		10	11	6	56	36	31
6	Blackpool	27		12	7	8	37	26	31
7	Wolverhampton Wndrs	26		12	6	8	56	42	30
8	Manchester City	27		10	8	9	38	30	28
9	Middlesbrough	27		11	5	11	55	42	27
10	Portsmouth	27		12	3	12	45	36	27
11	Aston Villa	26		10	7	9	40	37	27
12	Sheffield United	28		11	5	12	47	50	27
13	Charlton Athletic	27		12	2	13	40	50	26
14	Everton	26		10	5	11	31	39	25
15	Huddersfield Town	26		8	8	10	38	38	24
16	Liverpool	28		8	8	12	38	49	24
17	Sunderland	28		8	7	13	39	47	23
18	Stoke City	27		8	7	12	26	39	23
19	Chelsea	27		8	6	13	35	50	22
20	Blackburn Rovers	26		7	5	14	36	52	19
21	Bolton Wanderers	28		8	3	17	30	47	19
22	Grimsby Town	27		6	3	18	30	74	15

You might like to seek out Tottenham H.

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Anyway, in between all this excitement in the leaguethere was a cup match

• 10 January 1948: Arsenal 0 Bradford 1

This was Bradford often known as Bradford Park Avenue, at the time a mid table  second division club.  It was the upset of the season.

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And it was not even a weakened team that Arsenal put out, of the type that Chapman had put out against Walsall in his last ever cup match.  The only player of limited appearances that season was one CG Male, at the end of his career.  But he got eight games in the all conquering league team.

The defeat to Bradford, shock though it was, probably helped Arsenal keep up the momentum and ensure that they really did win the league in 1947/8.

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