There have been a great many ambassadors for the beautiful game, with some of them changing football for the better and leaving behind a legacy that is still present in the modern era. Some are championed on the world stage, but others are forgotten and disappear with little mention.
Herbert Chapman
Born in Yorkshire in 1878, Chapman was a post-war footballer who never made any great impact on the sport as a player. Despite signing for 11 different clubs; he managed very few first team appearances between 1895 and 1909.
He spent his first six years playing as an amateur, which meant he was limited to only signing for teams in places he could find work. He spent time in the lower leagues and saw interest from many clubs due to his strength as a player and robustness as a professional.
He signed his first professional contract for Northampton Town in 1901 and became their top scorer with 14 goals in 22 appearances in his first season. A great FA Cup display against Sheffield United led to them approaching Chapman. He agreed to the move but only if he could return to amateur status in order to utilise his engineering qualifications.
He struggled to hold down a place at United and was sold for £300 to Notts County in 1903, where he signed on as a professional again but made a disappointing seven appearances in two years.
After a £70 transfer to Tottenham in 1905, Chapman struggled to make an impact, scoring 14 goals in two seasons and failing to hold down a regular place in the team. At this point, he felt it was time to retire and take up a full-time career as an engineer.
This decision was short-lived as he was offered to rejoin Northampton Town as a player and as their manager. The move would prove to be the right one as he went on to become a very successful manager, influencing football in such a way that his ideas are still commonplace in the modern game today.
The Legacy
The game at the start of the 19th century usually involved board members picking and choosing the team and its tactics. Chapman was considered one of the very first managers—similar to the modern version—who picked his own team and implemented his own tactics.
He was a manager who believed in physical fitness and was one of the very first to introduce diet and fitness regimes, bringing in masseurs and physiotherapists to increase the well-being and stamina of his players.
He introduced weekly team meetings, and encouraged communication involving tactics and bonding sessions that included golf.
A massive supporter of continental football, Chapman would regularly encourage special games against European teams, taking his club on tours of Europe during the summer. He was also one of the very first managers to consider buying black and foreign players to bring to England.
He had championed the idea of a European club competition some 20 years before the first European club competition was brought into effect.
After attending a game in Belgium in 1930, he pioneered the use of floodlights in England. Chapman had a major influence on the building of Highbury during its construction and made sure floodlights were erected—despite only being allowed for use during training games.
He oversaw construction and planning of the Highbury stadium in many areas, including the placement of the clock in the Clock End stand and the design of the scoreboard and turnstiles.
It is also claimed he was involved in the renaming of the local tube station from Gillespie Road to Arsenal—which is still the only tube station to be named after a football club.
Chapman also came up with the hoops on the socks of the Arsenal kit to aid players to find teammates, and he brightened the shade of red and added white sleeves to make a bolder and more striking football kit.
The 1930 FA Cup final witnessed a first when both teams came out side by side, due to the involvement of Chapman. This tradition is still present today.
Tactics
Football during Herbert Chapman’s era was considered incredibly unorganised. Teams rarely employed tactics during games. He was disappointed when his team completely dominated a game but still lost heavily.
Chapman would comment that no team made any attempt to organise a victory and he remarked that there was an incredibly small amount of communication amongst teammates.
He began to create a tactical framework that asked for a higher work rate from his players and a more organised squad that some had commented looked more like a machine than a team.
Football at the time used just two defenders, three midfielders, and five forwards. Chapman required that his midfielders dropped farther back to allow space for his forwards to play without congestion.
His defenders were now required to play the ball out from the back and on the floor to the midfielders instead of the commonplace approach of hoofing it up the pitch to the opponent’s penalty area, hoping to find a teammate.
His framework created a much stronger defensive unit that played football on the ground. He wanted a quick counter-attacking system that relied on quick wingers who cut inside from the wing, a fast, short passing game and balls to the feet of the strikers instead of over the top.
Chapman had said that an opposing team was at its most vulnerable just after an attack had broken down. This is when they had most of their players in an opponent’s half and were out of position.
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