FILL MY STOCKING

If my parents had asked me, when I was a nipper, what would I like for Christmas, top of the list would be the Charles Buchan Football Annual. Gentlemen of my age will remember this and our grandparents would remember Buchan as a player. Buchan was born in Plumstead, London and joined Woolwich Arsenal as they were then known, in 1909. Two years later he went to Sunderland but the war seriously affected his career, only playing 6 times for England. While he was in the north-east, he played Minor County cricket for Durham. Sunderland was one of the major teams in the First Division in 1913 and judging by recent performances, this may have been their best side ever. They reached the Cup Final losing to Aston Villa, who were runners in the league that year. A record 120,081 crowd squeezed into the original Crystal Palace ground to watch this game.

Charles Buchan, a boney, angular man, was one of the league's best inside forwards, scoring 27 goals that season. Buchan was well respected as a gentleman and natural leader, who moved to Arsenal late in his career to join up with the legendry Herbert Chapman, which began a remarkable decade of league success for the London club. It was here that the famous WM formation of play was established, designed to take advantage of the relaxed offside law, which changed in the 1920s from having 3 to 2 players between an attacking player and the goal line. In the year before Sunderland's title win, 1912, Buchan had taken a boat trip to Canada, sailing on the boat which followed the Titanic. Buchan turned to journalism and commented on the BBC, publishing his Football Monthly in 1951 and inevitably, his Annual, until he died in 1960 in Monte Carlo.