Henry Norris (later to become Sir Henry and an M.P.) was already Chairman of Fulham. He had amassed a fortune from property development in south west London, was a fiercely political animal and a proud Londoner. As such it irked him to see the dominance of the north in football terms.
Fulham had gained league status in 1907 and Norris’ plan when he paid off our debts and took over as Chairman was simple enough. He would merge the clubs, using our history and status, coupled with Fulham’s location, to launch a serious assault on northern dominance.
Norris had many friends on the League Management Committee and was rather shocked when not only was this idea rejected, but they also rejected his ‘back up’ plan of allowing the two clubs to ground share at Fulham. If he was shocked by this he was positively livid when the L.M.C. also informed him that they had decided it was not in footballs’ interest to have one man in control of two clubs and he would have to choose one or the other. Norris was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, and no doubt became even more determined to have England’s premier club in London.
His first decision was to relinquish control of Fulham, and to set in motion an incredibly audacious plan for our club. There was one major trump card he had in his ‘armoury’, and that was the loyalty Woolwich Arsenal had shown to the football league in the early years, despite the pressure we had faced from the London F.A. and the hardships this had caused us. But how best to use this trump card? He knew that a popular, affluent club would have serious problems being allowed to relocate out of its district (which as we’ve seen was essential to increase the potential fan base), but what about a club losing popularity and faced with going out of business?
Over the next few years more players were sold (often for well below their expected values) and the standard of football deteriorated. Whether there was some form of collusion in this plan by the Secretary/Manager of the time (George Morrell), or he was simply dominated by Norris is unknown, but in 1912/13 we experienced such an awful season that it would be 70 years before another top flight team ended the season with worse stats (Stoke City in 1984/85). The plan had probably worked too well, and we experienced relegation for the first (and last) time in our history. Attendances were falling, as was local interest generally, and we only had £19 in the bank.
The Football League were aware of our plans to relocate, but were probably as shocked as anyone when they found out he planned to relocate to Highbury! Little in the way of planning permission was needed at the time, so Norris ignored the objections of the local residents, and being a political animal he knew how to deal with the objections of Islington council. This left one objection, which came from the clubs already established in the area. Although clubs had often moved in the past, this was not only the first time there had been objections, but also the first time that a club had attempted to move into another club’s catchments area. Despite the objections, in what was apparently an extremely heated meeting of the L.M.C. that went on until 2am, the league had no rules to deal with the proposal so Norris got his way.
Highbury had been part of the College of Divinity (now the flats behind the Clock End) and the site was initially rented on a 21-year lease for £20,000. Over the summer somewhere in the region of £100,000 was spent on the ground and on 6th September 1913 we played our first match at Highbury (a 2-1 win over Leicester Fosse). After two seasons in the second division football was abandoned for the duration of World War I with Arsenal (we officially dropped the ‘Woolwich’ in 1914) finishing 5th (our last ever Division 2 match being a 7-0 home win against Nottingham Forest).
Why what happened next is rather open to conjecture but the facts are as follows. After the Armistice of 1918 it was proposed to increase each division to 22 clubs. The norm in these situations had been to let off the clubs due to be relegated, with the addition of the teams due to be promoted making the extra numbers. However, due to Norris’ ability at ‘lobbying’ (he had by now been knighted and was an M.P.), what happened this time was rather different. On a nod the second bottom team (Chelsea) were reprieved without a vote being taken. The top two teams in the second division were then unanimously promoted. And then came the shock. Rather than getting the reprieve they expected, our new neighbours at White Hart Lane suddenly and unexpectedly found themselves the subject of a straightforward vote against us for the final place. Norris then played his trump card of service and loyalty to the league, and was followed by the much respected President of the League, John McKenna (known universally as ‘Honest’ John, he was Chairman of Liverpool and a close friend of Norris) who gave an eloquent speech supporting our proposal. The resulting vote went 18:8 in our favour and we were promoted. The arguments of loyalty, etc, were patently ridiculous in a league system, but in one master stroke Norris had not only got us promotion to the top flight, but also managed to demote our nearest geographical rivals at the same time. And as a final twist of fate, when the fixtures for the new season came out, our first match was against Newcastle United.
Under the new Secretary/Manager Leslie Knighton we again established ourselves in mid-table. Knighton was a respected and liked figure in football, and away from Arsenal was not unsuccessful, but he wasn’t able to stand up to the autocratic Norris. Norris imposed spending restrictions on him and Knighton finally resigned in 1925. He was quickly replaced by the man who had just guided Huddersfield Town to the last two League Championships – Herbert Chapman.