Untold Arsenal » The Arsenal Stadium Mystery: 70th anniversary

As far as I know there have only been two books which are not primarily about Arsenal but which make Arsenal a central part of their story: Fever Pitch and The Arsenal Stadium Mystery.

(There are of course other novels that mention Arsenal in passing, but I’m speaking here of stories where Arsenal FC is fundamental to the plot).

Both Fever Pitch and Arsenal Stadium Mystery were huge hits, both becoming movies, both being translated into various other languages. And indeed both were by writers who had success – Fever Pitch launching Nick Hornby’s career, Arsenal Stadium Mystery coming in the middle of a long career as an established writer. It makes you wonder why there have only been two.

Fever Pitch it still very much with us, the movie is on TV, Hornby is still writing and appearing in the media. But what to make of The Arsenal Stadium Mystery 70 years after its publication, just as it has been republished by GCR Books, as the launch of their series of reprints of classic Arsenal volumes?

Reading a novel from 70 years ago is always a shock if you are not used to it. The language is the same, but the style and approach are different. To readers used to today’s fiction the pace can seem erratic, the conversations stilted – and the description of a game of football is like something from another world. When we watch the movie of the film somehow allowances are made – maybe it is the monochrome approach and the clothing styles which reminds us minute by minute that this is of a different era. But with a book in a modern edition, the look and feel of the medium is 21st century. What’s inside is not – and it can be a bit of a surprise.

I say that not to put you off buying the book – far from it – but as a warning as to what to expect when you open the novel up and start reading.

By the time he wrote this novel Leonard Gribble was well into what would become a 160 book career, many of the titles featuring (as Arsenal Stadium Mystery does) the cases of Anthony Slade of Scotland Yard. And it is where he is writing about Slade and his efforts to solve the crime that the book flies along. It is just at the start where we read the opening descriptions that the difference in style is most noticeable.

But en route there is George Allison, one of the most important (real-life) characters in the history of the club (who also appeared in the movie), and cameo roles from the players. And this is one of the key reasons for an Arsenal supporter to read this book. Allison is as fundamental to the Arsenal story as any man, and yet is often forgotten behind Norris and Chapman. In the Arsenal Stadium Mystery he gets centre stage.

When Allison started as a football journalist he was one of the few London writers who would agree to travel to Kent to cover Woolwich Arsenal games, and so in the early years of the 20th century he wrote match reports of the games in various styles, under a variety of pseudonyms, for the London papers. By 1910 he had become “Gunners Mate” – the editor of the matchday programme, working for Henry Norris, and writing, in the programme, some of the most vitriolic reports on the players’ abilities ever seen in an official publication. When Herbert Chapman (of eternal memory) died, Allison took over as manager even though he had never been a professional player – his association with the club thus stretching over five decades.

Just as Allison had a remarkable life – and was perfectly willing to become part of the novel and the film – so has the book itself taken on an interesting existence. In 1950 it was reproduced as “The Arsenal Stadium Mystery – a replay” with the players from 1939 being replaced by players of 1950. When it was published in Italy during the second world war it was re-written from an Italian angle, focusing on an Italian club.

But in this edition from GCR Books we are back with the original in all its glory. It is a murder mystery of the classic type – a player from an amateur team dies on the pitch while playing a friendly against Arsenal, who were at that time at the height of their first round of glory – with five league wins and two cups in eight years.

It’s an easy read, and it’s fun. If you buy this book you are buying a classic piece of pre-war detective fiction. You are also buying a significant part of Arsenal history.

The Arsenal Stadium Mystery by Leonard Gribble published by GCR Books. To order a copy, click on the GCR Books logo on the right of this page just below “Recent Comments” or click here

Tony Attwood

The novel, Making the Arsenal, by Tony Attwood is being published in the autumn.