100 seasons in the top division: after the cup final, Arsnal in 1927/28
By Tony Attwood
2025/26 represents the 100th consecutive season of Arsenal in the top division of English football. Arsenal joined the top league (Division One as it then was) for the 1919/20 season when football resumed after the First World War. It was then suggested, some 25 years later, as part of the promotion for the autobiography of Leslie Knighton, that Arsenal had in fact, bribed their way into the first division.
However, no evidence or details of how this was supposed to have happened have ever been presented, nor why no one noticed this for a quarter of a century. It remains a wild story, seemingly concocted by the manager who was somewhat aggrieved to have been sacked by Arsenal to make way for Chapman. The fact that this previous manager (Leslie Knighton) almost relegated Arsenal twice, including taking the club to its lowest point in the league ever, is forgotten in these “reports.”
Knighton was replaced by Herbert Chapman, who, in his first season, took Arsenal to runners-up in the first division, and in his second season, took Arsenal to their first FA Cup Final. Links to the previous episodes are given at the foot of this piece, but first, we look at 1927/28: Chapman’s third season.
At this time, clubs played 42 league games in a season, and there were just two points for a win and one for a draw. The season ran from late August to early May, and those fans who were expecting the team that had been runners-up in the last two seasons (once in the league and once in the cup), were in for a big disappointment. Arsenal lost the opening game 5-1 away to Bury.
However, we should note that before Bury’s sad demise as a league club in 2019, they had existed in the lower divisions of the Football League for many years, but in the early 20th century, they were a first division club for a while, and thus Arsenal had their first league game of 1927/28 against Bury. In terms of the results of the previous season, this was the 5th team of last season (Bury) against the 11th club in last season’s table, (and the beaten FA Cup finalists), Arsenal. And the result was Bury 5 Arsenal 1.
Given Bury’s stature at the time, the defeat for Arsenal was not a huge surprise, but the score was, not least given that apart from reaching the cup final, Arsenal had won six of their last seven league games in the previous season, scoring 20 goals in the process..
More extraordinary, none of the players in the Arsenal side were newcomers – all the players had played for Arsenal in the previous season.
Clearly, Chapman had words, although only two players were dropped, but those two really were dropped. Andy Kennedy at left back only played once more in the season for Arsenal, while Peel at outside left only made a smattering of appearances.
Indeed, the demise of Andy Kennedy gives us quite an insight into Chapman’s decisive way of handling matters. He was a player who played regularly for Arsenal under Knighton, and indeed played in the 1927 cup final, but after his two games in the autumn of 1927 he was sold to Everton for £2000.
Harry Peel did get games for Arsenal in the following season, but in 1929 he was transferred to Bradford City, for whom he played 186 games (having also previously played for Bradford PA).
After that surprise opening defeat, Arsenal did pick themselves up and scored 12 goals in the following three games, and indeed by 17 September, (rather amazingly considering that opening result) the league table read:
| Pos | Team | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Newcastle United | 6 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 21 | 9 | 10 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 6 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 17 | 11 | 9 |
| 3 | Cardiff City | 6 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 10 | 7 | 8 |
| 4 | Bury | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 8 | 8 |
But the form through the season was, it must be said, erratic, and although Chapman held the team in mid-table, the extraordinary success he had had with Huddersfield Town was not repeated, and Arsenal finished 11th in the season. There was a little success in the FA Cup as last season’s finalists did make it to the semi-final, before losing 0-1 to Blackburn Rovers in front of a very modest crowd of just 25,600.
Looking back, the key factor we can note about Arsenal in Chapman’s third season of 1927/28 was the lack of consistency in all areas except for the wonderful centre forward Jimmy Brain, who scored 25 gpoals in 39 league games, to build on the 31 league goals scored the previous season.
But the problem overall was that Arsenal conceded more goals than they scored, and it is worth looking at how Arsenal’s goals record, both in scoring and conceding, progressed over this period.
In the table below, we can see in the first row Knighton’s disastrous final season of 1924/25 (remembering the 21st and 22nd clubs were relegated), and Chapman’s immediate success in 1925/26. But what we can also see is that he was not able to build on this.
After the runner-up position in 1925/26 the club declined into mid-table obscurity in the league, The number of goals being scored constantly exceeded that achieved by Knighton in his last season of 1924/25 before utterly taking off in 1930/31 as Arsenal won the league.
But, and this is a key point, the number of goals conceded also rose dramatically, and two seasons after Knighton’s departure, Arsenal conceded almost half as many goals again as Knighton’s team let in!
Indeed even in the cup-winning team of 1930/31, Arsenal still conceded one more goal than in Knighton’s last campaign. But what Chapman had achieved by then was not just to score double the number of goals that Knighton’s team achieved in its final season, but closer to treble that number! 127 goals against 46.
That is the revolution that Chapman achieved – not that of a better team all round, but a team that scored two and a half times more goals as under the previous manager, while letting in the same number at the back.
| Season | P | W | D | L | F | A | Pos |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1924–25* | 42 | 14 | 5 | 23 | 46 | 58 | 20th |
| 1925-26 | 42 | 22 | 8 | 12 | 87 | 63 | 2nd |
| 1926–27 | 42 | 17 | 9 | 16 | 77 | 86 | 11th |
| 1927–28 | 42 | 13 | 15 | 14 | 82 | 86 | 10th |
| 1928–29 | 42 | 16 | 13 | 13 | 77 | 72 | 9th |
| 1929–30 | 42 | 14 | 11 | 17 | 78 | 66 | 14th |
| 1930-31 | 42 | 28 | 10 | 4 | 127 | 59 | 1st |
*Final season under Knighton.
Of course there was more – including Arsenal winning the FA Cup for the first time – and we’ll move on to this next time.
Previously in this series
- It’s time for us to hope history repeats itself
- The Election
- The opening season
- The first north London league derby
- Oh no, it’s all going wrong
- Slippling down the league 1921/2 (part one)
- 1921/2 (part two)
- Why Knighton goes why Chapman comes
- The arrival of Chapman, and changing reality
- Chapman’s first season
- Arsenal’s first cup final, Chapman’s second season