One hunderd and twenty three years is a long time ago.An idea of just how long can perhaps best be given when we realise that 1886,the year of Arsenal birth, was also the the year in which the world's first motor car was built.Even then,the 15 young men who founded Arsenal Royal were probably well into their thirties before they actually saw a motor vehicle.
Much can happen in a century; too much to record fully here.To give our story meaning we must seek out landmarks,find moments through which it is possible to explain much in a short space of time,perhaps even in a single game.That is why we begin our story not with 1886 or even the magical Doubles of 1971,1998 and 2002,or the incredible unbeaten Premiership campaign of 2003-04,but with the FA Cup Final of 1930.The story is more precise even than that.It homes in on the two captains that day,Tom Parker and Tom Wilson,walking on to the field together.In that one innocent gesture they revealed much about the nature of inter-war football and at the heart of Arsenal's story are,essentially,the '20s and '30s.
By some chronological freak,Arsenal's world changed at the turn of the 1930s.The glories that followed can probably be traced to a dramatic few minutes against a team of Second Division nobodies at Elland Road,Leeds United,the first of the games that are the real cornerstones in the Arsenal story.
Forty-one years later,on another ground in Yorkshire,those few minutes were to be eerily re-run.If we must pick landmarks,if that is how this history should be told,then those few minutes from those two matches shine like beacons from the dusk of history.It is those two games that will be among the centre-points of our story.
Both were semi-finals.Both games had seen Arsenal,at halfi-time, 2-0 down and virtually out.Both finished 2-2.The first game eventually led to the 1930 final,the game that defined an era.It was Arsenal's first ever trophy and from it they went on the glories of the next ten years.Without that FA Cup win and the succeeding events of the 1930s,it is entirely possible theArsenal of today would be no more significant than a middle-of-the road club.
The second game was dramatic for its denouement, a last-minute Peter Storey penalty that was perhaps the second most important goal in the club’s long history.It was to lead to the 1971 FA Cup final and the Double,a feat Herbert Chapman’s team of the 1930s could never achieve.This was the second most important goal for one simple reason. Peter Storey’s penalty was not so much the moment the Double was won,but it was certainly the moment when it could have been lost.The first Double is a central,vital and highly emotional part of the Arsenal story but it is ultimately not as important as 1930.With or without the Double of 1971, Arsenal would still be Arsenal.
The ground,the club and the worldwide reputation were built by Herbert Chapman,Tom Whittaker and the teams of the 1930s.The three Doubles were the icing on an already substantial cake.
All football clubs have their peculiarities;Arsenal’s most interesting one is of location and historical accident.Football in England has long been about provincialism,but Arsenal are not a provincial club. Chapman’s efforts in the 1930s,coupled with the lack of any alternative,allowed them to become the capital’s club,at a time that corresponded with London imposing its economic and political dominance over the rest of a depressed and uncertain nation. It was this historical good fortune that was ultimately to determinethe character of Arsenal.A team supported by rich and poor but somehow,then and now,the relation.Herbert Chapman chose his time and his location well.
To be Continued................
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