Tuesday, 9 January 2024

HERBERT CHAPMAN AND THE GUNNERS

It was an FA Cup day recently-the Third Round Proper, when the big clubs join in. One of my local clubs. Guildford City, will not be joining in, but here's a January blog from a few years ago. 

The last game ever watched by the legendry Herbert Chapman was an Arsenal 3rd XI fixture at Guildford City FC (once a local club to my place of work). It was a cold and miserable night on the 3rd January 1934. Chapman had picked up a heavy cold the previous Saturday and was advised not to travel by his doctor.

Returning from the game he went straight to bed and died on Saturday, the 6th, from pneumonia.

The Blue Plaque on his Hendon home, commemorating his death 90 years ago.

His players heard the news as they arrived at Highbury for their league match against Sheffield Wednesday. The players had a minute's silence before the game, played Wednesday, still stunned by the news and hung on for a 1-1 draw.

Arsenal, who were League Champions from 1933, lost the next three league matches but eventually caretaker manager, Joe Shaw, steadied the boat and led the Gunners to the top of the division, winning the Championship again, pipping Chapman's previous club, Huddersfield Town, into second place. In the end the Arsenal won three championships in a row.

News of Chapman's death only made the lower paragraphs of the Observer newspaper and took seconde place to a report on Stan Milton of Halifax Town who had set a record for the Third Division North by conceding 13 goals, on his debut, to Stockport County.
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