Henry Norris at the Arsenal

By Tony Attwood with acknowledgement to the work of Sally Davis.

 

In 2017 and 2018 we published a long and detailed series on Henry Norris at the Arsenal.

One of the biggest stories in the life of Sir Henry Norris at the Arsenal is the promotion of Arsenal in 1919.  That story has so many elements it is covered in a number of separate articles, and I have separated these out into a series of articles which are detailed at the end of this index.   Arsenal Independent Supporters Association have also published a book on this specific issue – which is available from AISA.org

Now here is the complete year by year account of Henry Norris at the Arsenal.  We’re adding two or three new articles a week and as you can see, it is almost complete.

The Henry Norris Files Section 1 – 1910.

Section 2 – 1911

Section 3 – 1912

Section 4 – 1913 (parts 15 to 20)

Section 5 – 1914 (parts 21 to 28)

Section 6 – 1915 (parts 29 to 35)

Section 7: – 1916 (part 36 to 43)

Section 8: 1917 (part 44 to 54

Section 9: 1918 and the end of the war (part 55 to 62)

Section 10: 1919, the reform of football, the promotion of The Arsenal (part 63 to 77)

Section 11: 1920 – the second half of the first post-war season and onward (part 78 to 86

Section 12: 1921 (part 87 to 97)

Section 13: 1922 (part 98 to 106)

Section 14: 1923 (part 107 to 109)

Section 15: 1924 (part 110 to 119)

Section 16: 1925 (part 120 to 129)

Section 16: 1926 (part 130 to 137)

Section 17: 1927 onwards (part 138 to 146)

The 1919 affair

The preliminaries

The voting and the comments before and after the election

The Second Libel

The Third Allegation

The Fourth Allegation

Did Henry Norris really beg Leslie Knighton to stay and offer him the hugest bonus ever?  And if so, why were there no new players?

The Fifth Story:

The Sixth Allegation

The Seventh Allegation

The Eighth Level – wild fantasies and desperate stories.

The final round of misinformation and unsupported statements

Knighton’s notoriously inaccurate autobiography reports his departure from Arsenal with a whole raft of statements which a review of the historical facts shows to be untrue, ranging from his “building a new team” in 1919, to the notion that he would have got Buchan at a much lower cost.  He complains also about not getting a benefit match and claims Sir Henry Norris left him £100 in his will, stating that sacking Knighton was his biggest mistake.  There is no evidence for any of this and with so many other statements in this section of his autobiography being plainly wrong, we may wonder about these.

 

Please note:

The book “Woolwich Arsenal: the club that changed football” is the only complete history of the club ever published, covering its entire lifetime from 1893 to 1915.  There are a small number of copies left available of this 234 page volume.  It is available for £14.95 with no postage charge for delivery within the UK.  Just email Tony@schools.co.uk with your details and make a payment via PayPal to the account TonyAttwoodofLondon@gmail.com or contact me and I can arrange another other method of payment.

Other articles on Henry Norris

The players at Arsenal during the Henry Norris Era

Other stories from 1910/12

The take over of Arsenal by Henry Norris

Norris as chairman

Norris and Highbury

Norris and the players

Norris and Chapman