Fred Pagnam: One reason why Knighton’s testimony should be ignored

 

 

By Tony Attwood

This article was updated in the light of evidence and questions raised in the comments made at the end.  The comments have been left in place so that the questions raised can still be seen by anyone who would like to do further investigation.


 

The name Fred Pagnam hardly rings loud around the history of Arsenal, and yet he played a most influential part in helping us unravel the history of the club.

Fred was born on September 4, 1891, in Lancashire, and played initially for Blackpool Wednesday and Southport Central.  His move into the big time came in 1914 with a transfer to Liverpool, going on to become Liverpool’s top scorer that season with 26 (including we may note in passing, and without any bias, four against Tottenham Hotspur).

Fred was thus at the club when the match fixing scandal of 1915 occurred, which resulted in Chelsea being one from bottom in the final league table, and thus due for relegation.

Various sources state clearly that Fred Pagnam “refused to take part in the conspiracy and even threatened to score a goal to ruin the prearranged result” and reports that Fred testified against his own team mates – which obviously did nothing for his long term future at Liverpool.  Although there are many claims that this was a betting scam it is also true that the fixing of certain results did have an impact on promotion and relegation.

As subsequent research has shown, this was by no means the first incident in which it was alleged that Liverpool had been involved in match fixing, and there are more details of the first such incident which we turned up as part of our full history of Arsenal during this era at Arsenal relegated amidst allegations of match fixing.

Two other articles deal with subsequent developments

The Football League met in the summer of 1919 ready for the return of the league after the war, and by general agreement, Chelsea were spared and stayed up, although Liverpool and Man U (the other team involved in the match fixing) were given no punishment whatsoever, because of the time that had passed, because of a desire not to punish clubs but only players, and of course out of respect for the many players who had served their country with honour during the war.

Pagnam was still at Liverpool when football resumed, but transferred to Arsenal in October 1919, making his debut on October 25.  The following season he went on to become the top scorer, but in the 1920/1 season he was sold to Cardiff City.

And it is these transfers that make Fred such an interesting character for our study of Arsenal in the early 20th century, and the approach to football of Lt Col Sir Henry Norris who was chairman at the time.

Fred was transferred to Arsenal for £1500, and left Arsenal for Cardiff for £3000.  He played 53 times and scored 27 goals.

Now we must remember that Leslie Knighton, the manager at Arsenal at the time, was quite clear in his autobiography, which has been quoted here at such length, that Sir Henry refused to pay anything over £1000 for a player.   And yet here was the club buying a player, improving him, selling him for a profit.

There is no doubt that Arsenal were in financial difficulties, because they had suffered extensively in the first world war – and indeed had only moved to the newly built Arsenal Stadium in Highbury in 1913.   Sir Henry had put some of his personal fortune on the line in securing that lease and in getting the stadium built, and although wealthy his wealth was not infinite.

But the issues around the £1000 max story don’t add up (you may recall our earlier coverage of the claim by Knighton that he was so desperate that he signed up a relative of the club doctor and had him playing for the team.  It turns out that the player in question was a player of stature and significance who played for the Football League in a representative match).

Pagnam only stayed one season and Cardiff, and moved on to Watford of the 3rd Division South in December 1921.

To complete the story of Fred, he was a regular scorer for Watford, and then became their manager for three years, before going on to coach Galatasaray, the Turkey national team, as well as in Holland.  He worked for several Dutch clubs, and in one report is said to have married a Dutch lady and only returned to the UK at the outbreak of war in 1939.  However the issue of this marriage is particularly questionable – see the correspondence below.

So what we have here is another Knighton story that really doesn’t fit.  Fred Pagnam was an interesting and good quality player, but Knighton skips over him in the book because he doesn’t quite fit the facts.  Knighton presents us with himself as a manager who has nothing going for him, working for an insane chairman, whereas the whole story of Fred Pagman shows clear management, no arbitrary limit and a good sense of when to sell a player at over the price he was worth.

And of course Fred Pagnam should always be remembered as the man who stood up to the match fixers – a man who clearly knew what was right even when everyone around him did not.

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Leslie Knighton – stories and news on the man who preceded Chapman

9 Replies to “Fred Pagnam: One reason why Knighton’s testimony should be ignored”

  1. I have never been convinced of the story of the pills for the West Ham match as recorded by Knighton simply because there is no other mention of it. An event of that nature would surely spawn many comments by others. This as led me to wonder about other information about the Knighton years.
    I am grateful to you for confirming my suspicions. I had also noted that my book of ‘history – myths’ says very little about Sir Henry Norris other then he coughed up a lot of money and in so doing saved Arsenal from bankruptcy and gave us Highbury.
    I think a statue of Sir Henry should be outside the Stadium, for with out his contribution to Arsenal there would probably be no Arsenal.
    I still would not support that other club, I love football too much for that!

  2. @Colario,
    I agree with you that Norris should be “statued”. None of us living today knew him and what he did for our Club, in its infancy, can only be read in books and probably not by many.
    The fact that he gave us Highbury is alone worth a fitting tangible memorial to him at the Emirates.

  3. I am Fred Pagnam’s daughter and am interested to read that my father had married a Dutch lady. I know of no such wedding. In fact, his first wife died well before the war and he and his first wife had 2 sons ( both now dead. He married my mother in 1944and I was born a year later.

  4. Brenda,

    As ever with this site check wiki first, the writer does, the error may have first appeared in your father’s wiki entry.

  5. I just did some searching at a search engine called duck duck go, and turned up a page at LFCHistory

    http://www.lfchistory.net/Players/Player/Profile/784

    > He also had a spell in charge of the Turkish national team in 1931 and coached in the Netherlands for eight years. His coaching overseas ended when he had to escape the Nazis with his Dutch wife in 1940.

    The above is at the end of the article. His name also generated a hit with respect to a book written about Managers of Galatasary, but the snippet of the book presented doesn’t mention his name.

    Maybe this helps?

  6. Your page talks about some person making a series of unsourced updates to various content, and being warned to stop doing so or be blocked.

    Is there some connection between this person and lfchistory?

    I know nothing about the person who was making the edits, or the pagnam family. It might be a good idea to investigate where lfchistory got their information.

  7. Gord

    I’m more inclined to believe Brenda when she says her mother wasn’t Dutch.

  8. To clarify on the issue of the Dutch lady, I did indeed pick the story up from within the internet. My apologies if it caused distress to the family.

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