Herbert Chapman 14: He reforms Leeds City and is banned from football for life

By Tony Attwood

100 Years since Herbert Chapman Joined the Arsenal

• 1: Taking over from failure
• 2: Approaching a 100th anniversary at Arsenal of mega-importance.
• 3: The Arsenal that Knighton left behind
• 4: Knighton is removed
• 5:  A  new manager
• 6: What happened to Chapman at Leeds?
• 7: Success at Huddersfield, and concern at Arsenal
• 8. Why did Chapman leave successful Huddersfield
• 9: Arsenal wait for the right moment
• 10: Why Knighton had to go
• 11: Chapman – the man who moved from club to club
• 12: what made him such an amazing manager
• 13: the man of revolutions in an era of no rights

The picture of Herbert Chapman that comes to us through history is of a man who was endlessly looking for ways to improve football, not just by getting the best players, but also by thinking how those players could achieve more through the evolution, or indeed the revolution, of tactics.   Thus he searched for players who were as open minded to new ideas as he was.

This was in great contrast to Leslie Knighton who preceded Chapman as manager at Arsenal, and whose prime idea seemed to be to buy new players to play the game in the standard way, only better than those he already had.  Except he wasn’t very good at that approach.   As a result Arsenal’s position in the league gradually declined, until in each of Knighton’s last two seasons, Arsenal only just missed relegation.

The fact was the managers who could see the game in new ways were however hard to come by..

So it is easy to see why a manager as reform-orientated as Chapman would have been attracted by moving from Northampton Town – a very moderate-sized club that shared its ground with the county cricket club, and played in the second division of the Southern League, to Leeds City – a club which served a much larger population and played in the football-obsessed north in the Football League.  For Leeds was indeed a club which upon its foundation had immediately been granted a place in the second division of the Football League because of the potential size of its crowds.  And indeed from the very start the club gained crowds of between 10,000 and 15,000, with the potential for many more, this being the fifth largest conurbation in England.  In fact the potential for the club being based in such a large city, and with no other League club in the immediate vicinity was enormous and obvious.

And although Chapman’s time at Leeds City was short and ultimately disastrous (although through no fault of his own), it was an experience that must have taught him a lot – not least in terms of understanding the sort of club owner he was dealing with.

Leeds City was founded with the intention of moving straight into the second division of the Football League, not least because of the size of the urban area from which it could draw its support.  Indeed Leeds entered the league immediately upon the club’s foundation, as the Football League sought to strengthen its dominance in the north of the country.  And the Football League must have felt very secure in its position as the Southern League which included semi-professional teams, rarely challenged the Football League in the one competition in which they fought each other: the FA Cup.

Thus Leeds City was formed in 1904 and entered the league in 1905.  In 1912 Herbert Chapman was appointed manager upon leaving Tottenham, and he took the club up to the edge of promotion, finishing fourth in the second division.   However, during the war years, when football of course did not take place, a dispute arose between the club and the Football League over the financial arrangements of the club, including the way in which directors were putting money into the club, and how it was being spent.

This issue was not resolved, for when, during the war, the League demanded to see a complete set of records of the club’s financial transactions the club’s directors refused, claiming that the documents in question were confidential and under the rules governing limited companies (which Leeds City FC was) the directors had a duty of confidentiality not to hand over such documents.   The Football League had no way of contesting this, but their approach was that they were supreme in all things, and so when the war was concluded they took the simple expedient of expelling Leeds City FC from the League. At this point early in the 1919/20 season, Leeds had won four, drawn two and lost two.

And the reason that this affects our story of Herby Chapman is that he had not only been Leeds City’s manager before the war he had also worked for Leeds City during the war on an unpaid basis, while also engaging on work helpful to the nation in its war effort.   During this spell, he won a number of unofficial trophies as the clubs continued to play as amateur teams.

In expelling Leeds from the League, the League administrators were undoubtedly acting in a heavy-handed manner in order to show the FA that they could handle their own affairs,  although it was clear that the FA was making it clear that action should be taken.  However, doubts were raised about whether the FA or the League actually had the right to demand the confidential financial documents that they required.  Leeds City’s directors most certainly thought they did not and that their duties as directors of a limited company superseded the demands of the League.

But there was probably no doubt in the mind of the directors of Leeds City that the Football League might well not stand up on their side in a fight against the FA, whose juristiction the Football League accepted over all non-league matters.

So Leeds City’s final position is recorded as 15th in the second division, in a season in which Arsenal finished fifth in the same league  Then upon the conclusion of the war, (and before the hearings that had Leeds thrown out of the League), the League decided to expand its two divisions, and you may recall that Arsenal were among a number of clubs that applied for one of the two additional places available in the first division.

Chelsea who had been relegated at the end of the 1914/15 season from the first division as a result of match fixing episode involving Liverpool and Manchester United, were re-instated in that division, without a vote being taken.

The second place in the expanded first division then went to Arsenal, with each club in the league having a vote.   This was seen to be for several reasons: primarily because of Arsenal’s dogged support for the Football League, being one of very few clubs from the south to have stood up to the Southern League and instead given their support to the Football League.  We might also note that Woolwich Arsenal had always been in the Football League not the Southern League until 1907.

It was also noted that Arsenal had a new, large stadium, were attracting decent crowds, and was an easy ground to get to.

But to move back to Leeds City, the hearings over the Leeds City case took place at the start of the 1919/20 season, the first campaign after the First World War, while Leeds were already playing second division games at the start of that season.  Then as soon as the hearings over the financial issues at Leeds were complete, the club was expelled from the League.  Port Vale were elected into the league and took over both the results of Leeds City and their points and indeed their fixture list.  It was the last time a club was expelled from the League until Bury in 2019.

Wikipedia reports that, “On 17 October 1919, an auction was held at the Metropole Hotel in Leeds, where the playing staff was auctioned off along with other assets of the [Leeds City] club. The 16 members of the playing squad were bought by nine clubs for a total of £9,250,” (although we may note in passing, none of these players went to Arsenal.)

So Leeds City were thrown out of the League, although the case against Leeds City was never proven as (it appears from what documentation is available on this case) the League was not able to provide evidence that it did have the right to see confidential financial files.  Indeed as the official records of the League show, its rules were then changed so that in the future this could happen – if they faced a similar dispute.

And so as a result of all this, Herbert Chapman lost his job as manager at Leeds City since the club simply no longer existed.   Although we should also note there was never any claim made or any evidence presented, that he had any knowledge of what the directors were doing.  He simply lost his job because Leeds City no longer existed.

But that was not enough for the League.  They wanted to show that anyone associated with Leeds City was guilty by association.  The rather pathetic claim of the day appears to have been, “But you must have known.”

There was then a further point that was used against Chapman, and that was that in the era of the maximum salary Chapman had signed contracts for players with wages that exceeded the maximum wage.  Chapman claimed it was a technical accounting error, and there is evidence that he told his directors about the error and asked them to correct the contracts before the enquiry occurred, but this was not done. 

During the subsequent hearing, the fact that Chapman had seemingly asked the directors to correct the error was ignored.  The League found against Leeds City who were ejected from the League and against Chapman and banned him from football for life.

All this happened after the end of the 1914/15 season which was played despite the outbreak of war and Leeds City finished a disappointing 15th in the second division, while Arsenal finished fifth.  The league tables published initially had Arsenal sixth on goal average, which was an error, later corrected.  But it does seem rather strange that this one goal average calculation could be wrong, and yet occurred when the issue of a club coming fifth was to be of such importance given Arsenal’s application to be admitted to the first division once again upon its expansion.

Goal average which was calculated by dividing the number of goals scored by the number of goals conceded was used by the league from 1888 to 1976, (77 seasons, leaving aside the war time leagues) and yet this was the only time there was ever a “mistake” made.  But this mistake was the only one that related to a club applying for an extra place in the League.   If that was just a coincidence that this one mistake happened this time, it was one hell of a coinicdence.

But back to Chapman.  Football was shut down at the end of the 1914/15 season, with the entire season being played while the nation was at war.  Players left to do their patriotic duty.  Leeds City continued to play winning the Midland Division of the Football League in 1916/17 and 1917/18.  Chapman had virtually no engagement with the club and focussed on his war work, upon his return to industry.

But Chapman did do one important thing as he pulled away from football to focus on industrial work supporting his country’s need for weaponry – he suggested that his assistant manager prior to the outbreak of war – George Cripps – should take over the managing of the football club, which in common with other clubs became an amateur side, basically providing some “normal” entertainment for a Saturday afternoon while Joseph Connor, who was secretary of the West Riding FA took over the running of the club.

However, the return to normal work after the war was over, brought with it a problem at Leeds City, and it was a problem many organisations faced.  While some had left their peace-time work to work on the war effort, as Chapman had done, others (sometimes assistants sometimes older people) took over the running of football clubs (now playing amateur games).  These people simply had to keep the clubs running, as best they could, with whoever was available.

Chapman’s situation at this time was similar to that of many others in all walks of life.  He returned to Leeds City, but was told he was now to return to his previous role as a lowly assistant, not as manager, as the man who had been running the club in the war years would be staying in charge as manager.  The dispute within the club of who was going to do what then seems to have turned nasty, and the previous assistant manager George Cripps, then demanded the role of full-time manager with the threat that he would reveal details of some illicit payments to players he claimed had happened before the war.

This issue was made even harder to resolve since the wartime regulations on what players might receive had been drawn up very hastily and were not clear.  Besides which a lot of records were missing, which was hardly surprising given that a world war had just taken place.  However from such evidence as has survived, it seems that some dubious wartime payments had been made, and as both admin staff and players now jostled for their new post-war roles and salaries, there were clearly some threats made along the lines of “give me what I want, or I’ll tell the authorities what you were doing during the war”.

Such was the strength of feeling that the club was called into a meeting with the President of the League and told to produce all the documents demanded by the league.  The senior directors of the club said no.

Now we do have to remember that what we had on both sides of the argument were businessmen who in normal life were used to having their own way in board meetings and the like – and now here they were, one group with the League and/or FA and the other with the club.  No one it seems would back down on anything.

The club refused to hand over documents because it said they were subject to confidentiality agreements.  There was a stalemate, and then the League acted and removed Leeds City from the League and Port Vale given their place.  Leeds City, overnight, ceased to eixst. But we should perhaps also note that at the heart of the problem was the maximum wage in peace time and the no-salary deal for wartime, and the way clubs got around both by paying “expenses”.  But in the end, Leeds City were ejected from the league, although not for this financial matter which no one wanted to tackle for fear of what else might be unearthed, but the technical point of failing to produce documents – something of course which Chapman could not affect in any way.

The net result of this affair was twofold.  First Chapman was out of work, and second he was banned from football for life by the FA, and so needed a job outside of the game.  And all this when, it seems, he had no real idea of what was going on with the club financially and was just carrying on doing his job.

The series continues….