- Oh what a wonderful evening: and thank you Arsenal, thank you Mr Dunford
- Are Tottenham Hotspur really a big club? An Untold enquiry.
By Tony Attwood
As you might have noticed I am currently writing a series of articles about Herbert Champman’s life, building up to the 100th anniversary of Champman coming to Arsenal this summer. As part of this a new episode leading up to Chapman overthrowing his lifetime ban from football in order to become first Huddersfield’s and then Arsenal’s manager has ben published: Chapman banned from football for life, but football goes on. There’s a complete index to the series available from that link so you can read from the start if you so wish.
But Chapman’s ban from football for life for nothing other than having been in the wrong place at the wrong time seems to be typical of the way football was run, and perhaps is still run, and indeed how commentators reflect on football. In fact we still have a situation in which both journalists and managers know that if they criticise Arsenal for being out of order in some way, the media will instantly seize upon this and blow it out of all proportions. And they certainly seem to love that power.
In fact this process goes back a very long way for this is exactly what happened to Herbert Chapman at Leeds City FC. The League demanded to see all the financial documents of the club; a demand which clearly was out of all proportion to the investigation going on. The club said no, as many of the documents were confidential and the League could not guarantee that these papers wouldn’t find their way in the newspapers. So the League immediately banned Chapman from football, for life, even though he knew nothing of, and was not involved in the case.
Within a matter of weeks a new club (Leeds United) was formed, playing on Leeds City’s old ground, and effectively taking over from Leeds City. Then when Huddersfield Town came along and offered Chapman a job as their manager, his lifetime ban was instantly overthrown. It’s all a bit weird. (You can read the latest episode here, where there is also an index to the whole “100 Years Since Chapman Joined Arsenal” series.)
But this approach of taking a situation, drawing a conclusion and publicising it, without any regard to the evidence is still going on. Take Lewis-Skelly’s “football antics”, as Declan Rice called them. They were there to benefit Arsenal and entertain those of us in the ground. A way of saying “We are not going to be messed around any more.”
Arsenal have been on the receiving end of innuendo since quite legitimately moving from Plumstead to Highbury with the suggestion that at heart Arsenal are not right, they are not gentlemen, they do things that they shouldn’t do, even if those things were done over 100 years ago.
It is all nonsense, as was the fact that following my recent Radio 5 programme about “North London Forever” we had people phoning into the BBC saying the song was irrelevant since Arsenal was and so is, a south London club. Not only is that carrying a grievance for a ludicrous amount of time, Arsenal were about to go out of business if they had stayed in Plumstead. So the view seems to be it is better for a club to go out of business than to move to a new ground 12 miles away from the old ground.
It’s hardly Arsenal’s fault that Tottenham have only won the league twice since then while Arsnal have won it 13 times.
Of course what I guess these people would really like would have been for Arsenal to go out of business, because they are fed up with Arsenal being the top London club both in terms of league position and trophies won. Arsenal like all clubs are also a business which needs finance to survive, and that is why they moved grounds from Plumstead to Highbury. And they did that thanks to the foresight and financing know-how of Sir Henry Norris.
These put-downs of Arsenal (as in “not a North London team” because over 100 years ago the club moved from Plumstead to Highbury) beset football. It was a bit like the situation in which Arsenal are constantly criticised for being too soft and then, when they have a player sent off respond by putting in an excellent 10-man defensive display and are accursed of being too aggressive.
This point is continued in the next article later today…
Are we singled out because we became known as the Bank of England club where we could purchase any player we required in the 30’s and won the league many times . This is exactly what Blackburn Rovers did just before or at the start of the Premier League and what the OIL club have been doing recently , maybe we were the first and the media won’t let go .
As I always mention to anyone who brings up the nonsense of where Arsenal are from, Arsenal have been in North London since 1913, so well over a hundred years.
Meanwhile, Middlesex (where Tottenham was situated) did not become part of London until 1965. So Arsenal were in North London over 50 years before the Spuds and thus Arsenal were the first there…..and Spurs have never even won the league whilst actually in North London!