The Highbury Bow – A Guest Post
May 9th, 2014 by 'holic
One of ours has been hiding his light under a bushel, it would appear. I am indebted to North Bank Ned for a piece about the events of one hundred years ago. The first season at Highbury, so similar in many ways to this season just ending. Thank you Ned for a timely and fascinating contribution.
A century ago the first season at Highbury, 1913-14, had just reached its conclusion. The ground was still called Gillespie Road and we had played as Woolwich Arsenal until formally changing our name to The Arsenal a couple of weeks before the end of the season.
The first match programme described our strip as “red shirts and white knicks.” Our change strip was white shirts and black knicks. Red and white shirts were still 20 years off, and the first yellow and blue away kit more than half a century into the future. A season ticket cost a guinea (£1.05), with a discount for shareholders — and a promise that they would be exempt from any subsequent increase in season-ticket prices. Different times.
We had started our first year at our new ground newly relegated to Division 2. We had left the Manor Ground in Plumstead having finished bottom of Division 1 in 1912-13. Eighteen points from 38 games was almost as dismal a tally as three wins. An injury crisis and an inability to buy new players because resources were being directed towards the move to a new ground were blamed for the loss of form. But London football was at a low ebb. Tottenham was the highest ranked of the capital’s teams at 17th in the First Division, one place ahead of Chelsea.
The new company we kept in Division 2 would be familiar to those who know the Football League today — the likes of Birmingham, Wolves, Blackpool and Barnsley. Only the unlikely pair of Hull City and Fulham, who gave us a 6-1 paddling at Craven Cottage and with whom we shared a chairman, Sir Henry Norris, would be with us in the Premiership a hundred years on. Now, of course, it is just Hull.
Those who would fall from grace included Bradford Park Avenue, which went into liquidation in 1974, and Glossop, formerly Glossop North End before dropping the North End to avoid confusion with the Preston club of that ilk. Glossop, which fell out of the Football League altogether after World War 1, was bankrolled by a local cotton magnate and MP, Samuel Hill Wood. In 1929, and by then ennobled and hyphenated, Sir Samuel Hill-Wood would become Arsenal’s chairman, starting the Hill-Wood boardroom dynasty.
The 1913-14 season had got off on the right foot. No transfer window then, but the club had got some business done. Wing-half George Jobey signed from Newcastle. From Sheffield United came goalkeeper Joe Lievesley and the tricky England inside forward and Test cricketer Harold “Wally” Hardinge. A second goalkeeper, James Caldwell, arrived from Everton where he had let in just 10 goals in 31 appearances.
Barely half the XI that played the final game at Plumstead lined up for the first game at Highbury. Both full backs played in both games — Joe Fidler, who would lose his place mid-season after the arrival of England international Bob Benson, and Joe Shaw, who would coach the club after World War 1. So, too, the half-back line in those days of 2-3-5 formations: right half and local boy George Melton Grant; long-serving captain and centre half Percy Sands, known as “The Tame Elephant” for his tackling on the pitch and gentle manner off it; and Scottish left half Angus McKinnon. But only one forward would be a holdover, Scottish international inside left Archie Devine.
The newcomers gave an even more distinctly northern burr to the side. Of the 26 players who turned out during the season, 15 were Scots or Geordies. Another four came from the northern shires, one from Southampton and just six from London. Only two, Grant and utility forward Charles Lewis, were Plumstead born and bred. Lewis, Hardinge and Sands would be the only southerners in the first choice XI.
The first visitors to the still unfinished Highbury, Leicester Fosse, were dispatched 2-1. A late penalty by Devine secured both points. (Note to younger ‘holics: just two points for a win in those days.) Devine had been a big-money signing (£1,000, close to a record) the season before but struggled to hold down a regular place in the side and would return to Bradford City at the end of the season.
Leicester’s inside forward Tommy Benfield scored the first goal at Highbury. Jobey gained the peculiar distinction of being the first Arsenal player to score there and the first to be carried off injured. No subs in those days.
A 2-1 win at Wolves, with goals from the 5’4” left winger Tommie Winship and fellow Geordie centre forward Stephen Stonley, was followed by 3-0 home win over Notts County. County had been relegated with us the previous season but would bounce straight back up as champions. Joe Lievesley kept the first of his 28 clean sheets in 35 appearances that season. Stonley scored a brace following Grant’s opener.
Stonley’s 13 goals would be sufficient to make him our leading goal scorer in the league. The team managed only 54 league goals in 38 games. Inside forward “Little Jack” Flanagan, who was only an inch taller than Winship, with 12 league goals, was and the only other Arsenal player to get into double figures. Both scored fewer than half the goals of the league’s top scorers, Hull’s Stevens and Notts County’ Peart, both with 28 goals.
Then came a goalless draw at home to Hull followed by two 1-0 defeats, the first away to Barnsley, the second at home to Bury, the first team to win in the league at Highbury. Caldwell kept goal in place of the injured Lievesley in all three games, his only three appearances in his one season for the club before being sold to Reading.
Lievesley’s return sparked run of four games without loss — a 2-1 win at Huddersfield, a 3-0 home win against Lincoln City, a 1-1 at Blackpool and a 3-2 victory at Highbury over Nottingham Forest with outside right Jackie Rutherford, newly arrived from Newcastle and who as a 41-year old in 1926 would set a long-standing record for being the oldest player to represent Arsenal in a senior match, scoring twice on his debut. But that was all brought to a resounding halt by the 6-1 thumping at Craven Cottage, the heaviest defeat of the season and our heaviest loss against Fulham to this day.
Another Devine penalty secured a 1-1 draw at Grimsby before the first 1-0 to the Arsenal at Highbury thanks to a Flanagan goal against Birmingham City. That was followed by another away draw, 1-1 at Bristol City, in which England international right back Bob Benson, who would tragically collapse die during a wartime fixture against Reading in 1916, made his debut after moving from Sheffield United.
A Benson penalty secured a 1-0 home win over Leeds City in the next game, but that was followed by a loss by the same score at Clapton (now Leyton) Orient, with centre forward, Donald Slade, bought from Lincoln City, making his debut. No one managed to beat Orient on their own turf all season.
That choppy phase produced just two wins in five games in November and early December. Yet we were still fifth in the table, three points behind leaders Notts County.
A 2-0 home victory over Glossop (Stonley and Devine) started a run of four successive wins at year’s end. Bradford Park Avenue was beaten back-to-back away and home on Christmas and Boxing Days, with 30,000 turning up for the Highbury game on Dec 26. The double was done over Leicester Fosse the next day. Yes, three games in three days. Charles Bell scored a brace against Leicester in his one and only appearance for the club. He had come in for Stonley, who had hit the only hat trick of the season two days earlier at Bradford. Stonley and Flanagan were the only members of the team not to play in all three games. No red zones in those days, either.
The year ended with everything to play for in a title race that was wide open. We were third but level on 28 points with leaders Hull City and Notts County. Goal difference then was more goal ratio as it was calculated by goals for divided by goals against. A point below us was Herbert Chapman-managed Leeds City, themselves just a point ahead of Bradford Park Avenue in fifth.
New Year’s Day brought a 1-0 loss in a top of the table clash at Notts County. That triggered a wobbly run with only five wins in 14 games stretching into Easter. A 3-1 home win over Wolves two days later was followed by a 2-0 loss in the FA Cup at First Division Bradford City, a team we have yet to overcome in any cup competition on their ground.
Back in the league, a 2-1 win at Hull, with Flanagan scoring both, and a 1-0 home win over Barnsley (Rutherford) briefly took us joint top. But they were followed by a 1-1 draw at Bury, with Stonley scoring of the first time in eight games, a 1-0 home defeat by Huddersfield, Devine’s last game for the club and Stonley’s for six weeks, and a 5-2 licking at Lincoln City, which was the final game for the club for a little-used inside right called Billy Spittle.
Despite that, we were still joint second in mid-February with Bradford Park Avenue. Home wins over Blackpool and Fulham were interspersed with a draw at Nottingham Forest but followed by a loss at Birmingham City on the last Saturday in March. At that point, we were eight points off the lead with seven games to play but had three games in hand on leaders Notts County, and one on Bradford Park Avenue.
However, a home draw with Bristol City, with Stonley returning to the side but Jobey playing his last game before being sold to Bradford, a loss at Stockport County (the first time we are called ‘The Arsenal” in the match programme) and a draw at Leeds City, pretty much did for the title. By Good Friday, we were still third but Notts County was uncatchable at the top on 52 points with two left to play.
We still had a game in hand on Bradford Park Avenue who had three left to play. But we were now three points behind and only two clear of Leeds City and Bristol City. The run-in regained momentum with a 4-0 win in the return fixture against Stockport, with Rutherford, Benson and Flanagan (2) scoring, but a point was dropped in a 2-2 at home to Clapton. Flanagan again scored twice in the final game in which the team turned out as Woolwich Arsenal.
The Arsenal beat Grimsby 2-0 at home in the penultimate game of the season, with Flanagan getting his fifth goal in three games. But Park Avenue were in good form, winning two out of three, despite suffering a shock away defeat at bottom-of-the table Nottingham Forest. Leeds stuttered with two draws. Bristol City fell away, taking a single point from their last possible six.
That left the race for promotion as runner-up going down to the wire on the last Saturday of the season. Thee clubs were in contention, us, Bradford Park Avenue and Leeds City though Leeds needed a win and both us and Park Avenue to lose to finish second on goal average.
We had closed the gap on Bradford Park Avenue by winning our game in hand on the Thursday before the final weekend. That left us needing to better Bradford Park Avenue’s final result or, if both teams won, to win by at least three greater than Park Avenue achieved.
In the event, the Yorkshire side took a comfortable 4-1 home victory off Blackpool while we never looked like turning the 2-0 win at Glossop into the 6-0 we would have needed. Slade, in his last game before being sold to Fulham, scored the first. Stonley who would go to Brentford in the summer could not add to his tally. Somewhat pointedly given the lack of goals up front all season (was it ever thus?) our final goal of the season was an own goal.
Our attempt to go straight back-up to the first division had come up the proverbial “little bit short.” The following season, 1914-15 we were shorter still, finishing fifth. League football was then suspended because of World War 1. When play resumed in 1919-20, we were elected in circumstances that do not bear close examination to an expanded First Division at the expense of Tottenham who had finished bottom of the old First Division in 1914-15.
The proper world order was restored and we have remained in the top flight ever since.
1913-14 Division 2 Final Table
1. Notts County P38 W23 D7 L6 GF77 GA 36 Pts 53
2. Bradford Park Avenue P38, W23 D3 L12 GF71 GA47 Pts 49
3. Woolwich Arsenal P38 W20 D9 L9 GF54 GA38 Pts 49
38 Responses to “The Highbury Bow – A Guest Post”
Top of the shop.
Drink please.
well done, ned. an interesting bit of history. putting one over on tottenham, as it ever was 🙂
That was almost as long as a Wind post after he’s been back-drinking a few weeks’ worth of drinks 😉
Nice one Ned, the monks outdone themselves with that one, a tipple of your chosing on the bar sir.
Excellent reporting Ned, an interesting summary of the first season at the new gaff. My late grandfather went to that very first game at Highbury. It cost him 6 pence ( 2.5 new pence) to get in. He recalled the penalty very well. Devine placed the ball on the spot and slowly walked back towards the half way line before turning round, running full pelt towards the goal and blasting the ball into the net – no carefully placed side foots into the net in those days 🙂
It sounds almost like you were there, NBN. Were you?? 😉
Huzzahs to you and to Uply’s late grandfather.
1913-14?
This guy’s almost as old as Holic! 🙂
And 3rd at the end of the season? Trophy-esque.
My grandfather was at that game too! Amazing that after this season the world was plunged into a conflict like no other before or since and many of the men in that crowd would never see a game again.
When we remember our history it is remarkable to think of the many millions who shuffled through the Highbury turnstiles following our great club. We have a history to be proud of and thanks to NBN for relaying an important part of it
Well done NBN. Great to have these eyewitness reports. 😛
BMBD
TTG last drinks – thanks for the book tip, which looks interesting – added to my Kindle wishlist.
Great news about Kos.
Augier rumour – maybe take a look at him tomorrow evening.
Re. the above history, 6d to go on the terraces, huh? I bet they were complaining about the prices though.
Maybe take a look at Aurier too 🙂
And a huzzah for Ttg’s grandfather too. 🙂
I used to laugh at these stories about how awful a situation the Tiny Totts have gotten themselves into but these days my only real reaction is pity.
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/27340728
Initial reaction, I mean. Then I break out into laughter and I can’t stop. 😀
Fine account Ned. Pint on the bar.
Terrific research, Ned.
Glass of water for the monks. To share, of course. 😉
Excellent recall, Ned, it was as if I was there by your side. And who’s to say I wasn’t, in some previous life?
Öskar
1-1 tomorrow? Some kind of anti-climax anyway. I hope some of the young gunners get to fire a shot in anger … Eisfeld, Zelalem, Hayden eg.
Öskar
Well said Ned. Quite a story to be told.
Another tipple on the bar for you.
Not sure what to make of Sunday. Meaningless game but might be good to play the usual spine of the team to keep game sharp. But then we risk injury and the wrath of the Witch doctors. 😉
good story that one had to laugh at the injury crisis ………………hope all are well I have not called for a drink in a long time………….one week away from lifting a trophy one hopes
Good stuff, Ned. Another drink for the monks on the bar from me.
COYG
Thank you, all, and to the ‘Guvnor for his indulgence in posting. Double respect now for what he turns out week in, week out.
Thank you, too, for the grandparental memories, Upply and TTG. That handing down of the flame from generation to generation is one of the things that gives this club its great tradition. Oil money can’t buy that.
Given what the balls were like in those days, Upply, I am not surprised to learn that Devine took a long run up with his penalty.
Trev, don’t get the monks too accustomed to the high life!
Ned,
“Given what the balls were like in those days, Upply, I am not surprised to learn that Devine took a long run up with his penalty”
There’s definitely a bit of “ooh er, matron” about that. 😉
The Arsenal Gent is on fine form again – over on Arseblog if there’s anyone left who doesn’t know. 😉
Excellent article many thanks to the author.
Apparently – no sign of any youngsters at training this morning.
According to Physioroom.com we have dropped to 2nd in the injury table.
Ramsey and Gibbs are due back tomorrow – Gnabry and Wilshere are possibles depending on late tests.
A Ramsey Hip/Thigh Injury. 11th May 14
A Oxlade-Chamberlain Groin/Pelvis Injury no return date
K Gibbs Ankle/Foot Injury 11th May 14
S Gnabry Knee Injury 11th May 14. Late Fit Test
R Miyaichi Hamstring Injury no return date
J Wilshere Ankle/Foot Injury 11th May 14 Late Fit Test
T Walcott ACL Knee Injury no return date
Strangely enough the treatment room seems to be full of all the young’uns ………….
Trev,
It looks very likely that the Ox will miss the Final and unless Jack plays most of tomorrow’s game the best he can hope for is a place on the bench at Wembley. Gibbs is in a similar position. I would not risk Ramsey tomorrow especially with Duaby back and Kallstrom available
It’s sad for players without medals to miss an occasion like this
Trev, you’ve been getting a lot of press over on the Tuesday Club podcast. When are you scheduled for your debut presser?
Just what was the “Tuesday Club” back in the day, anyway?
BMBD
Lonestar, the Tuesday Club was a number of players who used to go out drinking after training on tuesdays in the late eighties. They always trained at Highbury on Tuesdays (in those days midweek matches were very uncommon unless you were in european tournaments) and after that a number of players used to go on pub crawls.
Lonestar – i understand that back in the day, the Tuesday club was the name given to Adams, Bould, Merson et al’s afternoon, evening and sometimes all night bender after training in the absence of a midweek game.
Lonestar,
Do you mean that brief mention just before the end of the edition about three weeks ago – or have I missed some more.
Do you have a url if so ?
Cheers.
@28, 29
I note the words “Lars” and “bender” appear in consecutive posts. Is there some sort of subliminal telepathy going on here re our summer activity ? 😉
Oh … Probably in trouble with “””””””cba””””””” again now. 😉
Heh @ 31. I hope the leg is progressing and you are now more “Hopalong Cassidy” than Long John Silver.
It’s quite amazing tomorrow that if they have any sense the Totts and United will be looking to avoid the bullet that is a Europa League place . Sadly for the Totts they are in pole position and even they are unlikely to be bad enough to lose at home to Villa.
Finishing in the Europa is a poisoned chalice that can destroy your next season, note how Liverpool have blossomed without it
Any canary hunters out there?
As for the Europa League dilemma, I know of a lot better ways to spend my late Thursday nights than returning home on a lane from Moldova, Bulgaria or Azerbaijan.
ttg: what has been largely forgotten is that starting from next season, the winner of the Thursday League will be given a Champions League place so I think we may see a few clubs taking it far more seriously from now on. Not that that decreases the toll it takes on the team in the league, mind, but it may well be Spurs’ best chance of getting into the CL.
Treacle, they are also running a fantasy about Monaco. You are free to believe whatever you want.
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