I don\u2019t really know how to write this piece. It was originally intended as a comparative look at how the populace behaved when league football in England was put on hiatus in the past, but getting at those data are more of a master\u2019s level thesis than a piece for a football blog. We see from the reactions of supporters now how important club football is in England, and worldwide, and I can imagine they\u2019re not a lot different than they were during previous times of crisis. Even with similar reactions, however, what is happening right now is unprecedented, and I think it\u2019s instructive to see how English league football was managed during World Wars 1 and 2 in comparison. Part I of this story will cover the First World War, and part II the Second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For fans of Arsenal, tracing the actions of our club through those times should also have appeal; it certainly does for me, and it enriches my image of Arsenal with deeper veins of color, sharper focus, and an abiding appreciation for the red side of North London. The First World War came at an auspicious time for The Arsenal, coming as it did directly after our move to Highbury in 1913 and immediately preceding our last promotion to the First Division when play resumed after the Armistice. We\u2019ve dined at the high table ever since that 1919-1920 season, with the little club from Middlesex always in our shadow (regardless of where they\u2019ve been on the league table).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And while that history is known and appreciated on its own, there is more to that period than just Sir Henry Norris\u2019s well-engineered plan and Archibald Leitch\u2019s beautiful stadium (I am indebted for much of the following raw information to a number of websites, linked below).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When war was declared by England on 4 August 1914 the League season was less than a month away from its traditional 1 September start. There was little discussion of cancelling the season; in fact, by then the League decided it couldn\u2019t cancel the season, with some 1,800 player contracts to honor. As the season progressed, the FA put football grounds at the disposal of the War Office (14 September); by October the League levied 2.5% against gross net receipts for a League relief fund to aid clubs moving into financial difficulty due to the War. Then player wages were under the magnifier, and the League cut maximum wages by \u00a350 to \u00a3156\/year. Don\u2019t some of these things sound familiar to what\u2019s happening now!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end the 1914-15 season was played in full before declining crowds, as the 12 million supporters who attended games in 1913-14 had their attention drawn towards the conflict in Europe and its ramifications; some 8 million attended in 1914-15. Everton was crowned champions, and after the War Spurs were relegated (and The Arsenal promoted from 5th in the Second Division, a story all Arsenal fans know and love). Sheffield United won the FA Cup, whose final on 4 May 1915 was the last professional match played until 30 August 1919. But that wasn\u2019t the end of English football during the long months and years of the War.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During early 1915 more and more able-bodied football players were enlisting, including a number from The Arsenal joining the Footballer\u2019s Battalion, sponsored by Henry Norris; it was for this sponsorship he ultimately gained his knighthood. Others had gone into munitions factories or were involved in other war work. The League met in July and, given the great battles in Europe, large numbers of English casualties, and rail travel restrictions across England, they decided to cancel the 1915-16 season. However, the issue of contracts, entertainment, and the importance of football clubs in community life brought the decision to organize 3 geographic leagues, consisting of 40 clubs, each league having a principal and a supplementary tournament. This allowed clubs to pay expenses and keep players registered under their banner. Promotion and relegation from 1914-15 to the First Division were left undecided, and would be taken up when proper League football was reinstated; the same into and out of the Second Division was<\/strong> decided, favoring Leicester Fosse and Stoke at the expense of Glossop. I wonder how instructional that might be during our own Covid Lull\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n The three \u201cWar Leagues\u201d were Lancashire, Midlands, and London. Within the London League there was further division, with the London FA organizing the London Combination, where The Arsenal were drawn with Chelsea, Clapton Orient, Fulham, and Spurs, along with Brentford, Croyden Common, Golders Green Ramblers (not really, thinking of Clive!), Crystal Palace, Millwall, QPR, Watford, and West Ham. Tottenham couldn\u2019t use White Hart Lane due to its being a dump, er, being used by the Ministry of Munitions, so they used Highbury for the duration of the War as their home turf. Match admission was 6d across the War Leagues; the games started in September, 1915, and by their end in January, 1916 over 1 million fans had attended across all three leagues. From January the supplementary leagues replaced the principal leagues, and the games continued until May, 1916.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Arsenal had come 3rd in the 22-match principal tournament, and 11th in the 14-match supplementary tournament. One of the lesser-known tragedies in the club\u2019s history occurred during the supplementary tournament, in February of 1916 (though our own North Bank Ned passed more than a glance at it in a guest piece<\/a> he wrote for \u2018Holic in June, 2015). On the 19th The Arsenal played Reading at Highbury, and the club found that right back Joe Shaw was not released from his job to play. The Arsenal player and English international Bob Benson was in the stands to watch the game; he was asked to take Shaw\u2019s place in the team, though he hadn\u2019t played in nearly a year while working at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich. While Benson made 54 appearances for the club between November 1913 and April of 1915, scoring 7 times (including 2 goals in the 7-0 drubbing of Nottingham Forest that was the final prewar Football League game at Highbury), he was clearly not match fit, and collapsed on the pitch during the second half. Taken to the dressing room he died in the arms of trainer George Hardy; it was later determined Benson had died of a burst blood vessel. The Arsenal took care of their own, even then: in May, 1916 they held a testimonial match against a Rest of London XI, providing his widow the proceeds. It was said Bob was buried in his Arsenal jersey; may he rest in peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The War Leagues continued in the same basic format again in 1916-17, though the \u201cseason\u201d was enlarged to 40 games and the principal London Combination was played between 2 September 1916 and 28 April 1917. At the season\u2019s halfway point The Arsenal had won and lost in equal measure, drawing 4; the rest of the season saw us lose only 3, and draw 5: we ended up in 5th place. We were 1-2-1 against Spurs, but they ended up in 4th above us. Even then they celebrated their 4th place trophy, coming out with a commemorative film based on D.W. Griffith\u2019s \u201cBirth of a Nation\u201d called \u201cBirth of a Superclub\u201d. Four copies were printed, one sold, and the all were consigned to the dustbin of history. No supplementary London Combination was played that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By the start of the War League season in September 1917 not much had changed in the setup, but the Third Battle of Ypres had cost 440,000 British casualties and America had joined the War. The London Combination reduced to 10 teams from 14, each club playing 36 games. Fifth place was ours again, and again just behind Spurs. During the season the crowds, which had averaged about 5,000 per match, slowly dropped to 3,500 per match at Highbury, despite a win against Brentford on 1 December; the 0-2 loss to Palace at Highbury on 8 December was our sixth loss from 15 games. For the season we won one more than we lost, drawing 5. In May, Herbert Chapman was the official manager that led Leeds City against Stoke in a 2-leg final played between the winners of the Midland and Lancashire league sections, which Leeds won 2-1 on aggregate. As he was managing a munitions factory at the same time, that team was led by one of their directors to victory at Elland Road. Seven years later Chapman would take over the reins at The Arsenal and revolutionize the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The final War League season of 1918-19 looked much the same as the previous three seasons, coming after a Summer of massive British war casualties, though this time under the cloud of potential German victory. The London Combination again played 36 games with 10 teams, with The Arsenal improving to a 20 win season; losing 11 and drawing 5 cost them first place in the league behind Brentford. A loss at Brentford on matchday 30, though followed by a 5-game win streak (including a victory \u201caway\u201d at Tottenham, at Highbury), combined with a draw at Clapton Orient on the final match day and we fell five points short of the title. But the biggest day of the season was at Highbury on November 16, five days after the Armistice. Amidst the continuing celebrations and relief The Arsenal lost 1-3 to Fulham; however, Britain losing more than 1 million men dead and more than 2 million men wounded must have put the loss in perspective (though it led to a sequence of one victory through Christmas for the club).<\/p>\n\n\n\n After peace was declared on November 11 the League decided not to start a regular season, giving players time to return from the War, their jobs at factories or on farms, etc. Instead, they carried on with the War Leagues. The FA came close to fielding a shortened cup competition, but dropped the idea as unfair to the larger group of teams that hadn\u2019t been playing during the War. And when the Football League was resumed in September of 1919 the Southern Division (including The Arsenal and other, smaller London clubs) was folded in to the Football League, creating 3 divisions of the professional game. The Arsenal began to be referred to simply as \u201cArsenal\u201d, and joined the First Division at the expense of Tottenham (ha ha!). Arsenal has stayed in England\u2019s top flight since. The London Combination continued to be played as a reserve league until the advent of the Premier League brought final changes to it. It was abandoned when the Elite Player Performance Plan was introduced in 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To sum up, some of the same concerns raised, by both the supporters and the government, about whether or not to play football in England during the War have been raised during this time of Covid-19. One of the major differences is the populace affected: at War, those enlisted were away, suffered abroad, and returned home or were honored by poppies in the fields of Flanders. With Covid-19, everyone is at risk, everyone is potentially affected home or away, and stopping the season short seems the only choice. However, as with Sir Henry and his magic, and as with the Football League making the relegation\/promotion decision after four years at War, it\u2019s very possible that the final results of this season won\u2019t be known for quite some while. And, when they\u2019re known, they may not be what many fans (particularly of Liverpool or of the relegated teams) are hoping for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In part II<\/a>, I will explore the other great hiatus of English football, which occurred during World War 2. Perhaps other lessons can be learned, and other information shared that will put our Lull in the Time of Covid-19 into perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am indebted to the following websites and authors for their research, from which I culled the information to write this piece:<\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.englishfootballleaguetables.co.uk\/Blog\/ww1.html<\/a> I don\u2019t really know how to write this piece. It was originally intended as a comparative look at how the populace behaved when league football in England was put on hiatus in the past, but getting at those data are more of a master\u2019s level thesis than a piece for a football blog. We see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,3,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=677"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
http:\/\/www.thepeoplehistory.com\/soccerhistory.html<\/a>
www.rsssf.com<\/a>
https:\/\/spartacus-educational.com\/Farsenal.htm<\/a>
https:\/\/www.arsenal.com\/historic\/players\/bob-benson<\/a>
http:\/\/blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"