100 seasons in the top division: what happened after the 1st double?

Recently in this series

• 100 seasons in the top division – 1969/70, and building a new team
• The first double: from advancement to a Midlands disaster
• Arsenal in October 1970, the great march forward begins.
• 100 seasons in the top division: cracks appear in late 1970
• Arsenal head for the first double: January / March 1971
• Arsenal march on towards the 1971 double
• 100 seasons in the top division. Winning the Double (for the first time)

By Tony Attwood

When Arsenal won the double in 1971 they were only the fourth team ever to do so, and only the second team in modern times.  The other club was Tottenham, who in 1971 came third, 15 points behind Arsenal

The FA cup was won on 5 May when of course, the league had been won on 3 May at Tottenham with a 1-0 win.   But what on earth could Arsenal do to follow that up?

In fact Arsenal went into the 1971/2 season with pretty much the same team as the season before, and the main addition to the squad – Alan Ball – did not arrive until after Christmas.   But it was clear from long before that, that the double winners of 1970/71 were not going to win either of the main trophies in the year after the double.

True Arsenal won the opening two games of the new season, beating Chelsea 3-0 at home and Huddersfield 1-0 away.  But then disaster struck as Arsenal lost three games in a row 1-3 to Manchester United (whose ground was closed due to crowd trouble, with the match played at Liverpool’s ground) and then 0-1 to each of Sheffield United and Stoke City.  Given that the second defeat last season had not come until the tenth game, this was not a good start.

Arsenal did recover with a couple of wins at the start of September, but then in game number eight there was another defeat, this time away to Everton.   After that game the reality was clear for everyone to see.   Arsenal had played eight, won four and lost four.   Twof the defeats were at home and two were away.   This team was unlikely to repeat the glories of the season before.

Yet there were no key players missing: the team throughout the first six games was

Wilson

Rice McNab

Storey  McLintock  Simpson

Arsmstrong  Kelly  Radford   Kennedy  Graham

It was in fact, the classic lineup from the previous season – except now they were as likely to lose games as to win.#

However, there was something of a pick up after the Everton defeat as Arsenal not only won four in a row against Leicester, Southampton, Newcastle and Chelsea, but they achieved that by scoring ten and conceding just three.

Indeed, it all looked so good, except that on 22 October Arsenal lost again – the fifth league defeat in 13 games – this time 2-1 to Derby.   A 2-1 home win against a very modest Ipswich side steadied the nerves a bit on 30 October, but then it got even worse with three defeats in a row: 2-3 away to Liverpool,, 1-2 at home to Manchester City, and then an awful 5-1 away defeat to Wolverhampton.

And all that was before the north London derby, away to Tottenham.   WHL fans and the media were licking their lips with tales of how the mighty had fallen, but Arsenal did manage to get a 1-1 draw out of the game, which not only ended the losing run, but as it happened, started a new run in which Arsenal were unbeaten in the following 12 games.

Better still, the last four games of that run were successive victories in which Arsenal did not concede a single goal, while scoring nine.  Better again, crowd favourite Charlie George scored five of the goals.

But then, just as everyone thought that this was the old Arsenal (which is to say the Arsenal of the previous season) back again, March opened with not just three defeats but three defeats in which Arsenal did not score a single goal but conceded seven.

Arsenal howver were also picking up where they left off in terms of the FA Cup in a run that once again took them to the final as they beat Swindon, Reading, Derby, Orient and then Stoke City in the semi-finals.   The only note of concern was that it took three games to beat Derby and two games to beat Stoke.  But by April, Arsenal had booked their place at Wembley for the second season running.

But after a dozen consecutive league games unbeaten running from 27 November through to 19 February, Arsenal once more lost their way, with not just three consecutive defeats, but three defeats in which they didn’t score a single goal but conceded seven.

There was then some compensation with another run of nine games in the league without defeat, but no one who was there remembers the end of the season with any pleasure.  On 6 May, Arsenal lost the cup final to Leeds United 0-1.   Then, just two days later, the club was ludicrously ordered by the League to play the outstanding gams against Liverpool at home.  It ended in a goalless draw.   But that still was not the end of the season, as on 11 May the final game of the campaign ended Arsenal 0 Tottenham 2.

The team that had won the Double the previous season finished fifth in the first division, and were beaten Cup Finalists.  It wasn’t that bad, but after the Double, it felt like a real letdown.

Even worse, in the draw against Palace on April 11 Bob Wilson was injured, and for the last five games of the league season, Geoff Barnet took over in goal.  He also played in the FA Cup semi-final replay and the FA Cup final.  Bob Wilson did return, but not until the end of November 1972 and went on to play in the 1973/4 season, before finally retiring and moving into punditry.

For Arsenal, what it had been hoped would be the start of a new golden era with the league and cup double, had in fact fizzed out after that one glorious season and by 1975/6 the club was languishing near the foot of the table while going out of the League Cup and the FA Cup at the first hurdle.   The golden age had gone before we realised it was there.  We would have to wait until the end of the decade for another silver pot to lift to the skies.

The fact was that as fast as Arsenal’s star had risen at the start of the 1970s, so it faded, and Arsenal fans were in for another long wait for success.  Bertie Mee continued as manager until 1976 but couldn’t not conjure up more success, although he did come close.