Robert Exley
Those of you who follow my weekly #ThrowbackThursday/#FlashbackFriday pieces would note that they usually centre on this week’s upcoming opponents, however the lack of video footage for previous Arsenal away trips to Watford means that the editions for Watford will be clumped together for a home and away piece when Arsenal meet Watford at home later on this season. Therefore, in recognition of Arsenal’s upcoming fixtures with Bayern Munich, this week’s editions will centre on the history of Arsenal’s past games with German opposition.
Arsenal’s first ever visit to Deutschland came just two years before the Great War in May 1912 as Woolwich Arsenal, in a 5-0 win against Hertha Berlin. The following day, the Gunners played out a 2-2 draw with Hertha’s neighbours Victoria Berlin. Twenty seven months on, hostilities broke out between the United Kingdom and Germany, the Football season however astonishingly carried on for another nine months before ceasing in May 1915 and not resuming for another four years. During the 1914/15 season however, Arsenal lost many players to the armed forces. Crowds also declined that season, the opening game against the Hill-Wood family’s original side - Glossop North End - brought a crowd of just 7,000 to Highbury. For the return fixture at Glossop only a tenth of that figure (700!) turned out to attend, leading Sir Samuel Hill-Wood to conclude that he could no longer bankroll the club, withdrawing from the game before re-emerging at Highbury in 1929 to take over as Chairman on Sir Henry Norris’s exit.
The Great War of 1914-18 was an inconvenience to Arsenal say the least, having only recently taking on the risk of moving the club to North London. Despite this, Arsenal chairman Sir Henry Norris would frequently make speeches at Highbury and Craven Cottage (the home of his other club – Fulham), urging young men in the crowds to volunteer for the forces. Also, on the 15th December 1914 Norris in his capacity as the Mayor of Fulham would also lend the use of Fulham Town Hall for the purpose of the formation of the 17th Service Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment (otherwise known as the ‘Footballer’s Battalion’). The first Arsenal member of the battalion was assistant trainer Tom Ratcliffe, who actually survived World War One and returned to his role at Highbury after the war.
Many of the Arsenal players still had connections to the Woolwich Arsenal and withdrew their footballing services to commit themselves fully to munitions work, which obviously went into over-drive on the outbreak of world war. One such player had been Bob Benson, who took in an Arsenal game in the war time London Combination League in 1916, against Reading. Arsenal were short on players and Benson offered his services, though had considerably lost his match fitness and during the game had burst a blood vessel and died in the Highbury dressing room. At his funeral, Benson had been buried in an Arsenal shirt. This here is a list of Arsenal players who served in the first world war, including those who were killed in action.
By the end of the First World War, when football would resume Arsenal would find themselves £60,000 overdrawn (the equivalent of £3.7 million in today’s money), though would have the luck of being ‘invited’ to take up a place in an extended top tier at the expense of relegated Tottenham Hotspur, despite finishing fifth in the second tier at the end of the 1914/15 season. After the First World War ended Arsenal would return to tour Germany in May 1924, winning five and drawing one. Among the victories had been a 6-1 defeat of Preußen Berlin, a 6-3 defeat of a Dusseldorf XI and a 9-0 thumping of Köln Sportklub 99. A year later, Herbert Chapman would be appointed as Arsenal manager and lead Arsenal to the summit of English football. Chapman’s Arsenal won their first trophy in 1930, winning the FA Cup Final against Huddersfield at Wembley. The Yorkshire side however would blame a second half interruption from the German Graf Zeppelin which hovered over the stadium, breaking the flow of their attempted comeback.
Chapman would avidly champion the creation of a western European version of the Mitropa Cup – a competition which involved top Central and Eastern European sides. Chapman however would pass away in 1934 and Europe would unfortunately become embroiled in further destructive conflict five years later. Forty two of the forty four professionals on Arsenal’s books when war broke out at the start of the 1939/40 season would enlist with the armed forces on the outbreak of the Second World War (one of whom who didn’t was Cliff Bastin on account of his deafness who instead served in the ARP). Nine of whom would lose their life - the highest casualty rate suffered by any English league club.
Two high profile losses among the Arsenal staff included Centre Half Herbie Roberts (who would die as a result of contracting Erysipelas while serving as a Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers) and Bobby Daniel, older brother of early fifties star Ray Daniel. The story of Bobby Daniel and other Arsenal player war-time fatalities is covered here in an article for footballpink.net by long time Gooner magazine contributor Layth Yousif. After Allied victory in Europe in May 1945, within three months an Arsenal XI (including a guest appearance from Blackpool’s Stan Mortensen) would entertain civilians in Dusseldorf with a fixture against a British Liberation Army XI, which Arsenal would win 6-1.
During the Second World War Highbury Stadium was commandeered by the ARP, forcing Arsenal to ground share with Tottenham for home fixtures until Football League fixtures resumed in 1946. The legacy of the Second World War on Arsenal was the extensive bomb damage which occurred to Highbury, with the North Bank stand destroyed by a German bomb in 1941. The cost of rebuilding Highbury arguably contributed to Arsenal post-war decline (for the first twenty five years after the Second World War, Arsenal won just three trophies). By 1970, Arsenal returned to trophy winning ways, with the Inter Cities Fairs Cup coming to Highbury. However, on defending the trophy in 1970/71 Arsenal would be eliminated on away goals to 1FC Koln, in what would be Arsenal’s first competitive fixture against German opposition. The Gunners won the home leg at Highbury 2-1 with goals from Peter Storey and Frank McLintock, however defeated 0-1 away.
Anyone reading this under the age of twenty five may well be surprised to learn that from the end of the Second World War up until 1989 there were actually two Germanys, as the country was partitioned between the Western side liberated from Nazi rule by Britain and the USA and the Eastern side by the Soviet Union. The Soviets wished to create a buffer zone of communist states between them and the west, thus creating what Winston Churchill referred to as the ‘Iron Curtain’ which descended across the European continent through the middle of Germany, between the east and the west. By the 1970s West Germany were becoming prominent in both club and international football, with the national side winning the 1974 World Cup on home territory and Bayern Munich completing a hat-trick of European Cup wins between 1974 and 1976, the second of which came from beating Leeds United 2-0 in 1975. East Germany however wasn’t quite as formidable on the football pitch and twenty five years on with German sides returning to prominence in the Champions League, it seems that the Eastern side of the country still lags a long way behind the west.
Also, since English clubs returned to European competition post-Heysel ban in 1990, Arsenal have qualified for European competition twenty two out of twenty five years. It may therefore come as a shock to many that between 1972 and 1978 Arsenal actually went six years without qualifying for Europe at all. Their return in September 1978 came against East German side Lokomotive Leipzig in the UEFA Cup. Terry Neill’s side won the first leg at Highbury 3-0 with goals for Alan Sunderland and two for Frank Stapleton. Two weeks later, Arsenal won by the same margin, this time with a 4-1 win in the away leg with goals from Liam Brady, Alan Sunderland and another two for Frank Stapleton.
Arsenal were to return to Eastern Germany once again thirteen months later in their 1979/80 European Cup Winners Cup campaign against FC Magdeburg, winning the first leg at Highbury 2-1, with goals from Willie Young and Alan Sunderland. In the away leg Arsenal scraped through with a 2-2 draw with goals from David Price and Liam Brady, taking the Gunners through 4-3 on aggregate. Arsenal’s last entry to European competition before the Post-Heysel ban would come in the shape of a first round elimination in 1982/83. That same year, Arsenal would sign England international Tony Woodcock returning back to England from German side 1FC Koln.
‘Woody’ would last four season at Arsenal, scoring sixty eight goals in one hundred and sixty nine games. Woodcock’s period at Arsenal oddly enough roughly coincided with the prominence of ITV comedy drama Auf Weidersehen Pet, based around a bunch of unemployed British brickies heading to Germany for work. In stark contrast to Jimmy Nail’s Oz, Woodcock would successfully adapt to Germany and even returning to the city of Cologne in 1986, playing out the remainder of his playing career with 1FC Koln and Fortuna Koln, before turning to management in the German league. Woodcock practically went native, even adopting a German accent when conducting interviews in English. His haircut these days however looks more akin to that of Robert Plant. Here is an interview with Tony in late 2013 on a piece on YouTube called ‘Insight Germany’. Woodcock remains one of the surprisingly few Brits who headed to the Bundesliga and remained for more than a year, along with Kevin Keegan, Alan McInally, Murdo McLeod, Paul Lambert and Owen Hargreaves.
After Heysel, Arsenal had to make do with prestige pre-season friendlies against top European opposition. Bayern Munich visited these shores in 1988 to compete within the Wembley International Tournament, with Arsenal hammering them 3-0 with two goals from Alan Smith and one for Lee Dixon. Arsenal however would not face German opposition in a competitive fixture for another eight years, before a man with a Germanic sounding surname would pitch up at Highbury to take up the vacated managerial hot seat in 1996.
Part two follows tomorrow.
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