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By Tony Attwood
Today is something of a special day: a special day that is, for people who like to celebrate the history of Arsenal and as it turns out, for me.
For today the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association (of which I’m a member) is celebrating the centenary of Hebert Chapman’s arrival at The Arsenal. This is happening at St Mary’s Church, Hendon from 3pm today – and that is the church at which Herbert Chapman is buried.
He had a long association with St Mary’s until his death in 1934 and in association with the vicar of St Mary’s and her team we are organising a celebration of his life and career. And I am rather pleased to say that I’ve been asked to make three short speeches through the afternoon, each one celebrating an aspect of Chapman’s life and his work at Arsenal.
The first talk will ask and answer the question that virtually all commentators ignore which is why on earth Chapman left the incredibly successful trophy-laden Huddersfield Town FC to come to Arsenal which in the two previous seasons, had just escaped relegation, coming 19th and 20th in the league.
After that in the second short talk, we go onto how Chapman changed the club in his early years with Arsenal, and transformed it from near-certainties for relegation to a club that started to win trophies, and in the final talk, I’ll take a look at Chapman’s years of triumph.
For everyone attending the event there will also be an exhibition of memorabilia from Chapman’s period at Arsenal.
In the meanwhile a series on the life and times of Herbert Chapman has been appearing on the Arsenal History Society site – the latest edition is here and there is an index to all the articles so far in the series also on that page.
But just in case you are not au fait with the history of Chapman, perhaps I should add that he managed Arsenal from 1925 to 1934, tragically dying part-way through the 1934/35 season.
Chapman won the league four times as manager, twice with Huddersfield and twice with Arsenal, and also won the FA Cup once with each club. The team he left behind went on to win the league in 1934/35 and then again 1935/36 giving Arsenal the prized three titles in a row – but under three different managers.
So that is the news from me, but there is a spot of fun going on elsewhere which really should be recorded before I head south, as we have been told that a group of Manchester City supporters are taking legal action against the club owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan for what is claimed to be a “discriminatory season-ticket policy” which requires fans personally to attend ten or more league games in a season to be able to qualify for the ticket for the following season.
The law firm Leigh Day claim this is against the Equality Act of 2010 in that it discriminates against people who are ill, women who are pregnant, and those with disabilities, caring responsibilities etc. The club argue that eight percent of their season ticket holders do not attend any one specific game.
As you may know ,Arsenal have a different policy, which is one that says that the ticket must be used for most games, but “using” allows season ticket holders to share a ticket by passing its use on. Also with Arsenal the rules don’t apply to disabled supporters. It would appear that since there is no Equality Act in the United Arab Emirates, the ManC club feels the laws of the UK don’t apply to it.
But the notion of Manchester City taking action themselves is rather amusing since they are still defending the 100+ legal actions brought against them by the League and already have two other legal cases against the League in progress. It says something for a club that they can have action taken against them both by the League they play in, and by their supporters at the same time.
But meanwhile, we can forget such trivia, and celebrate the life and times of the man who converted Arsenal from being relegation favourites under Knighton, to title and FA Cup winners. If you can make it, it will be good to see you – please do say hello. And if not, there will be a write-up on the Arsenal History Society site. And of course you won’t forget that it was the AISA Arsenal History Society that also campaigned for the statue of Chapman that we now have at the stadium.
You can find out more about the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association here.
We had Manchester Untidy.
Now we have Manchester Lity.