Month: September 2016

By Tony Attwood After the trauma of Chapman’s passing and the excitement of winning the league Arsenal played no end-of-season friendlies – and in keeping with the common approach at this time, had no pre-season games fixed up. In his autobiography George Allison comments that he had known Herbert Chapman for 25 years at the …

Read More “Arsenal in the summer 1934: Allison takes over and changes the team”

 By Tony Attwood Looking at 1933/34 most commentators become understandably fixated by two issues – the sudden and unexpected death of Herbert Chapman, and the fact that Arsenal won the league for the third time – and the second time running. But there were many other issues – not least the sudden decline in the …

Read More “1933/34 League players, and how the goals declined but the crowds went up.”

This is part of a series of articles tracing the history of Arsenal through the 1930s.  There is an index of all the articles in the series thus far at the end of this piece. By Tony Attwood The table, at the conclusion of March 1934 read: P W D L F A GA Pt …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s: April 1934. Joe Shaw wins the league for Chapman”

By Tony Attwood As the football world got used to the fact that Herbert Chapman really wasn’t leading Arsenal any more, so a certain level of reflection built up on what was happening to the club following his tragically early passing. Including the last game in December (Chapman’s final match) Arsenal had played five games …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s: March 1934. Chapman’s two teams fight for the title”

By Tony Attwood After one league defeat in 16, following the sudden death of Herbert Chapman Arsenal suffered two defeats and a draw in the league and had slipped to second.   The extraordinary rise of Derby with one defeat and one draw in the 12 games up to and including the match on New …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s – February 1934. Chapman is gone, but the club moves on.”

By Tony Attwood Arsenal had just won four games and drawn one in December and were sitting pretty at the top of the league at the start of 1934 when disaster struck.   The league table at the start of the year looked like this… P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Arsenal …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s. January 1934: The death of Chapman”

By Tony Attwood At the start of December 1933 – tragically the last full month of being active in football for Herbert Chapman – Arsenal came to the games with a record of five wins and a draw in the last six – the best form in the league.  They were also one point clear …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s. December 1933: Chapman’s last month; Arsenal triumphant”

By Tony Attwood The month opened with Tottenham top of the league and Arsenal one point behind: P W D L F A GAv Pts 1 Tottenham Hotspur 12 7 3 2 22 10 2.20 17 2 Arsenal 12 6 4 2 25 13 1.92 16 3 Huddersfield Town 12 6 3 3 33 22 …

Read More “Arsenal in the 30s: November 1933, displacing Tottenham.”