Part 5 - The Greatest Team In The World

Herbert Chapman had delivered us our first trophy within five years as promised, but that was only the beginning. The team he had created was embarking on a quite remarkable decade of success that would only be curtailed by World War II.

If 1929/30 had been a success, it paled into insignificance compared to what followed. 1930/31 started well enough with a 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday in the Charity Shield (which we were also to win in 1931, 1933, 1934 and 1938), but what was to follow staggered the football community. The rest of the division had no idea how to cope with our football. Home or away made no difference to this team (we ended the season with 28 wins, 10 draws and 4 defeats equally shared home and away). Goals flowed (including a nine and a couple of sevens) The season started with 2 away wins, both by the score line of 4-1. By the end of the season the title had been won with a new record points total of 66 (a record that wouldn't be beaten until 1970 (under 2 points for a win)). Our goal difference was a quite remarkable +68, and the 127 goals we scored eclipsed the previous record by 20, and stands as a record for champions to this day. How proud must Jack Humble, now a director, have been watching the Champions win the last game 5-0 at Highbury? Maybe he thought back to his long walk down from Co. Durham all those years earlier to look for work, and how the club he'd helped formed had flourished? Whatever his thoughts, the fact was the northern stranglehold had been broken and the title had finally come to London.

In the summer the North Bank (or Laundry End as it was known then) had been increased to the size it remained until the changes brought about due to the Taylor Report (the roof was added in 1935). There does appear to have been one casualty in the building of the terrace. Local residents were encouraged to bring rubble and rubbish to be used as landfill. Unfortunately a coal merchant backed his horse and cart too close and they fell in, the horse being so badly hurt it had to be destroyed where it lay. A horseshoe was found amongst the rubble removed when the current North Bank Stand was built.

1932 saw the magnificent West Stand replacing the gabled stand of the old 'popular terrace' (which, in memory of an earlier stand was known as the Spion Kop). This stand, which cost £45,000 and was opened on the 14th December by the then Prince of Wales, set new standards both in stadium design and also in luxury and comfort. When it was joined by it's sister stand to the east Highbury was the most luxurious and magnificent stadium in the football world. A magnificent stadium would have meant little, however, without the magnificent team that played in it.

Compared to the previous two years 1931/32 could appear on the surface to have been a failure with no trophies, but it was almost the most glorious year of the decade. No team had made a serious assault on the double since the previous century, but by March the impossible was looking distinctively possible. Unfortunately three draws followed by two defeats allowed Everton to take the initiative in the league (they ended beating us by two points), and we would lose the F.A.Cup Final 1-2 in controversial circumstances. With Arsenal comfortably leading 1-0 Newcastle attacked down the wing. The ball went out of play behind the goal line before being crossed. Various photographs show the distance the ball was out could be measured in feet rather than inches, and our defence stopped. Their centre forward didn't stop, though, and headed the cross into an unguarded net. Much to every ones amazement the referee signalled for a goal. Arsenals protests were waved away and Newcastle went on to score again and lift the cup.

1932/33 saw an Arsenal team, fired by the injustice they still felt, win back the title in magnificent style, scoring 118 goals. Against Liverpool in March, we took to the field for the first time with white sleeves added to our red kit. The reason for this major change was quite simple, but an indication of the way Chapman was always looking for ways to improve. On entering the ground one morning his eye was caught by a groundsman working at the other side of the ground, who was wearing a red tank top over a white shirt. It struck Chapman how well he stood out against the stand, and it occurred to him that white sleeves would make it easier for our players to pick each other out. Thus was born one of the most famous kits in the world. Around this time Chapman was amazed to read a story in one of his morning papers, which began with the line "There is no truth in the rumour that Alex James is to leave Highbury". The story discussed how much the man would be worth if he was up for sale. Later that day all three of the London evening papers were running stories about James leaving, and by the morning it had spread to the nationals. In fact the non-story took a week to die out, which must have amused the great publicist who liked nothing better than seeing the clubs name in print. Indeed, when one reporter phoning him to check on a story, began by apologising for disturbing him at home on a Sunday, Chapman replied, "It's my job to talk about Arsenal. Ring me any day, any time. All I ask is that you spell Arsenal right!"

The Championship was retained in 1933/34, and again in 1934/35, but Chapman would not see his club repeat the hat trick of Championships he had set Huddersfield on the road to a decade earlier. Ignoring doctors advise to rest after catching a heavy cold, it turned to pneumonia and two weeks before his 56th birthday, on the 6th of January 1934, he succumbed to the illness and passed away. The following paragraph is copied from a programme for a reserve fixture at Highbury a week later:

A heavy blow of paralysing intensity has fallen upon the club with the coming of the New Year. Last Saturday, before many even knew that he was ill, our wonderful manager, Herbert Chapman, passed away. Everyone who knew him feels that there has been taken from this life, someone who can never be replaced. Mr. Chapman was working until the last. On the Monday, New Year's Day, he was watching the match between Bury and Notts County at Gigg Lane. There, perhaps, he caught the beginnings of the chill which grew to such tragic proportions. Thence he went to Sheffield to see Arsenal's opponents of the following Saturday playing against Birmingham. He returned to London with a heavy cold but he was not deterred from going to Guildford on Wednesday to see the Mid-Week League match. On Friday evening there was a terrible relapse and at three o'clock on the Saturday morning he was taken away.

Mr. Joe Shaw was asked to take over team affairs for the rest of the season, and in the summer a board member, Mr George Allison, was asked to take over. He was a wise choice, and his connections with the club stretched back to reporting on them as a cub reporter in Woolwich.

Although in the middle of a hat trick of Championships the team was beginning to age and Allison wasn't shy with the cheque book, the first post Chapman signing being Ted Drake, the Southampton centre forward. He was one of 7 Arsenal players chosen in the England team that defeated newly crowned World Champions Italy 3-2 in November of 1934, in a game later dubbed 'The Battle of Highbury'. So brutal was the game that most of the Arsenal players did no training in the following week, having to receive intensive treatment for various injuries instead.

A year later Drake would play the game for which he is best remembered. On the 14th December 1935 Arsenal travelled to Villa Park for a league match. James and Hulme were out injured, and Drake himself played despite cartilage problems, which meant his knee had to be heavily strapped. Add to that the fact that Aston Villa were in the middle of a spending spree that dwarfed anything previously seen in football, and no one could have predicted what was to follow. In a near perfect display of power and accuracy, Drake scored a remarkable 7 goals from 9 shots. Of the two that didn't bulge the net, one was magnificently saved, and the other hit the bar and bounced down on the line. He had already scored 6 times by then, and on claiming the goal was told by the referee it may have gone in but he was being greedy!

Two more trophies followed (the FA Cup in 1936 and the Championship in 1938) and by the time war broke out, the club that entered the decade without a trophy to its name was known the world over.

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