- Arsenal are always the victims in transfer deals. If only they’d take journalists’ advice!!!
- One way the Man C 114 games case could be resolved
By Tony Attwood
Arsenal’s title championships come in groups. And in fact, if we look back through Arsenal history we can find five major groups each with their own pattern of title wins.
The first five titles came out of the Herbert Chapman era. He became manager in 1925, and sometimes brief commentaries on his time at Arsenal seem to suggest he won the title at once, but in fact that is far from true. What in fact he did was win the title in 1931 – Arsenal’s first – and despite his early passing, he laid the ground for Arsenal’s greatest run of titles the club has ever seen.
That run gave Arsenal, who had never won the league before, five league titles in eight seasons, with three managers contributing to the run, which was amazing for a club that had never once won the league before.
The five-in-eight run gave Arsenal titles in 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1938. How much longer that run might have continued had the Second World War not intervened, one can only guess.
There was of course, then hope of continued Arsenal domination after the war, but although Arsenal won the league in 1948, the “run” of victories was hardly that, for the next title came in 1953, and that was that. Two titles in five seasons was not the start of a new dynasty, for after that Arsenal stopped challenging at the top.
Indeed, when the next title came along – the first double in fact – it was a one-off in 1971. That was a magnificent season, but the hope of the start of a third run of titles did not happen. The 1971 double achievement stood there in isolation, at least in terms of league wins, and just as after 1953’s title Arsenal slipped out of the title winning habit.
But the memory lingered of the run in the 1930s and the two minor bursts since, and when Arsenal won the league in 1989 and 1991 it looked to some of us like another proper run of titles in the style of the 1930s could be on the way. For two titles in three seasons was indeed something not achieved since the 1930s. But no, this led to another wait…
And indeed when that was over, and Arsenal won the title, although it gave us a run of three wins, it was three wins in seven seasons, so great fun, but not exactly league domination. Indeed, it seemed to anyone who bothered to look as if Arsenal simply would never get back to the domination of the Chapman era.
Many reasons were put forward for this – most commonly the fact that London players enjoyed the “high life” too much and were simply not as dedicated to training as those working for clubs in the north. There was no evidence, of course, but it was something the newspapers could run with, and they certainly did.
But then Arsenal did come along with a little something that could cheer us along the way… three titles in seven seasons, in 1998, 2002 and 2004, the last being the unbeaten season, which was felt by some (myself included) to be the sign that we were now back in another golden age.
Of couse three titles in seven seasons was hardly the stuff of the 1930s but that Unbeaten Season gave us a lot of hope and yet… it came to nought for the next title as we now know was not until 2026.
Which raises two questions. One was why did it take so long, and the second was, will we have to wait this long again?
The “why so long?” is largely answered by the fact that Arsenal built and paid for a new stadium, which diverted the money that could have been spent on players. I think a growing number of people have now recognised that Wenger did a wonderful job in keeping Arsenal in the upper part of the league as he did during that spell when money was short, but there were fans who wanted and demanded more. And that type of atmosphere is what the media love of course.
And because of that negativity from some fans and virtually all of the media and because of the league’s slowness in challenging the way Manchester City were financed and thus able to win title after title, it has taken much longer than expected to build a winning team after the unbeaten champions side was taken apart.
But now ManC have been challenged, and Arsenal has won the league again, maybe lessons have been learned. It is hard to finance a new stadium and stay at the top of the league – unless of course, you have the income of an entire state behind you.
Arsenal are now talking about extending the current stadium, which will soak up money, although of course nothing like as much as building a complete new stadium. And one can only hope that the financial arrangements are such that it will not impede the manager’s ability to buy new players, as happened to Arsene Wenger after the unbeaten season. We wait, with a certain degree of anxiety, but mostly with hope that lessons havve been learned.
