The great Arsenal mysteries

1.  Why Arsenal moved to Highbury

 When Arsenal were considering moving away from Highbury at the end of the 20^th century, David Dein, the vice chairman of the time, called Highbury the club’s spiritual home.  Indeed the club has been there so long it feels like the obvious place to be.   And yet Highbury has always been an odd place to find the sons of the Woolwich Gunners. 

Woolwich on the other hand was always the perfectly natural place to find the Arsenal.   But it was never an ideal place to house a professional football club: it was a difficult place to get to, and being on the river far from any bridge crossing could only attract crowds from the south.   The north side of the river might be just half a mile away, but few ever made the trek south to watch a game.

The first notion of Woolwich Arsenal moving home arose in 1910 when Henry Norris became chairman.  He was already chairman of Fulham, on taking control at Woolwich Arsenal he immediately proposed that Arsenal and Fulham should amalgamate and play at Craven Cottage.  Fulham were heavily in debt and Arsenal were bankrupt, so it seemed (to him at least) a good idea.

When the Football League said no, Norris proposed that Woolwich Arsenal and Fulham should remain separate clubs but should ground share Craven Cottage. 

Again the League said no, and so Norris started to draw up further plans; plans to take Woolwich Arsenal away from SE London at the end of the 1913 season.   Norris had sunk money into the club, and he was looking for a return on his investment and that meant a bigger stadium and bigger crowds.   In short a location that had good public transport and the ability to draw people from all points of the compass.  It left a lot of London to choose from.

In this regard Highbury was attractive: it had a tube station, known at that time as Gillespie Road by the door.  Build a football ground by the tube station and you could bring in people from all over central and north London.

But there was also one big reason against moving to this part of London – it already had a successful big football team (Tottenham Hotspur) and a little team (Leyton Orient).  Why put another major team just down the Seven Sisters Road when there was so much more of London to choose from? 

To understand the answer you need to understand Tottenham and the curious relationship between Tottenham and the Football League.

Tottenham had been elected to the football league division 2 in 1908 in place of Lincoln City.  That was at the end of the season in which Arsenal finished 14^th in the 1^st division – one place below London’s only other 1^st division club at the time – Chelsea.   In the 2^nd division Fulham came 4^th, Orient 14^th – which completed the capitals contribution to the league.

What is noticeable in all this was just how late Tottenham joined the league.   They had won the FA Cup in 1901 and yet were kept out of the League for six more years.  This is even more extraordinary when one considers that while Tottenham were still knocking at the door Orient who played not too far from Tottenham on the boundary or north and east London and who were by all standards a club of modest proportions – were elected for the start of the 1904 season – 3 years after Tottenham’s cup win and 3 years before Tottenham were elected.

Indeed even in the early 1890s when professional football in London was in total disarray and Woolwich Arsenal called a meeting of London and Home County clubs to consider setting up a Southern Football League, outside of the control of the FA, the London FA and the Football League itself, Tottenham (who were clearly one of the leading teams of the era) Tottenham only got one vote in favour of them being a member of the new League.   What did everyone have against Tottenham?

One theory is that Tottenham Hotspur was seen by footballing authorities as being run by members of the Jewish faith, and the League had a suspicion of the Jewish community – something which was commonplace in the UK at the time.  It was anti-Semitism at a time when anti-Semitism was commonplace.   But is this actually true?  One of the great problems with a view like this is that nothing much was written down.  Also just because it is possible that people thought Tottenham was connected with the Jewish faith, does not mean it was true.   One could equally say they were connected with the New World Order – just saying it does not make it so.  I admit I certainly dont know.   What I do know is that there was an extraordinary tradition even back at the end of the 19th century of voting against Tottenham.

But Tottenham did finally join the Football League in 1908.   Their strength was immediately revealed when they came second in 1909 and were promoted.  In 1910 Tottenham were London’s top team, ahead of Arsenal and Chelsea in division 1. Arsenal regained top London spot for the next two years, but then disaster struck in 1913 when Arsenal ended up bottom of the first division. 

For the Football League that had worked so hard to keep Tottenham on the fringes, this was a disaster.  The League had very much wanted professional football in London – but Tottenham was the not what they had in mind.

Arsenal had long been the London darlings of the League.  It was Arsenal that had brought professionalism to London and who had encouraged other teams to follow them into the League.   It was Woolwich Arsenal that had stood firm against the London FA who were utterly against professional football.   But twice the League had turned against Arsenal of late, refusing the amalgamation with Fulham, and the ground sharing scheme.

Now as it turned out the League needed Arsenal’s help once again – and they had no problem in asking for a favour.   The League quite simply asked Arsenal to move as close to Tottenham as possible, in order to undermine the unwelcome north London club.   No doubt paybacks were mentioned and dealings were offered.  

This was achieved by the move to the Highbury site on land owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners – St Johns College of Divinity.  It certainly can be argued that in such a way the point was made as strongly as possible – this was most certainly a Christian – not a Jewish club – but again there is only circumstantial evidence, nothing concrete.   But one way or another the League seemed to be saying Arsenal was going to be the proper face of football in north London.  The fact that the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were even consider handing this ground over for football (of all things) shows just how many strings were being pulled.

Highbury it was.But if that was all slightly odd and underhand (and in as far as there might be anti-Semitism there is was utterly appalling) it was nothing compared with the payback that Arsenal sought and got in terms of gaining promotion in 1919.