The Forgotten Pioneers of Football: Herbert Chapman

Huddersfield Town

Huddersfield offered the assistant manager's job to Chapman after he had been made redundant at the oil works in Selby. They backed him in his efforts to overturn his lifetime ban and he was successfully reinstated after it was highlighted that Chapman had not been at the club during the alleged incidents of foul play.

Within one month of being made assistant manager, Chapman was appointed as manager and his first season in charge brought the FA Cup to Huddersfield for the first time in their history.

Huddersfield’s new manager started to take more control at the club and ensured that the reserve teams played in the same style as the first team in order to allow for a smooth transition when moving up from the reserves.

He now had every player at the club utilising the new tactics he had honed at previous managerial positions, and with the added improvements by Chapman to the scouting department, the right players were being found that slotted into his system perfectly.

With his new squad now playing just how he wanted them to, he led Huddersfield to their first ever league title, with the club going on to successfully defending their title the following season.

With his belief that a successful team is built around a strong defence, Huddersfield won their second title without conceding more than two goals in every match—a feat that had not been achieved by a title winning team before.

Arsenal

After an advert in the newspaper advertising the vacant manager's position at Arsenal, Chapman gave up the opportunity to lead Huddersfield to a third straight title victory—something which had never been achieved up until that point—instead, choosing the bigger crowds and higher wages at Arsenal.

In 1925, the offside law was modified to allow just one defender between the attacker and the goalkeeper instead of needing two defenders to remain onside.

This led to several teams revamping the old 2-3-5 formation with one of the three midfielders brought back in to the heart of defence to create a back line of three. Two attackers were dropped back to help the other two midfielders and the 3-4-3 formation was born.

Under the management of Chapman, the revitalised Arsenal team reached their first ever FA Cup final in 1927, losing 1-0 to Cardiff City thanks to a goalkeeping error.

After the sacking of one of Arsenal's directors due to a wage cap violation scandal, Chapman began to take more control of the club’s business as a whole—due to the appointment of a more submissive director—and was now in place to take the club in his preferred direction.

For most of his managerial career, Chapman was well known for finding young talented players and he signed a great deal of English internationals before they made it big.

He was seen as a very astute and clever man when it came to negotiating for a player’s fee and one of his co-workers retold his memory of one such negotiation:

“We arrived at the hotel half-an-hour early. Chapman immediately went into the lounge bar. He called the waiter, placed two pound notes in his hand and said: 'George, this is Mr. Wall, my assistant. He will drink whisky and dry ginger. I will drink gin and tonic. We shall be joined by guests. They will drink whatever they like. See that our guests are given double of everything, but Mr Wall's whisky and dry ginger will contain no whisky, and my gin and tonic will contain no gin.”

Chapman had managed to reduce the £13,000 asking price—double the record transfer fee at that time—bringing the final fee down to £10,000.

With the club moving in the direction Chapman had wanted and the right players picked by him and playing to his revolutionary tactics, he led Arsenal to their first ever trophy when they won the FA Cup in 1930.

Arsenal went on to win their first ever league title in the 1930-31 season, single-handedly down to the incredible work of Herbert Chapman. They still hold the club record for most goals scored in a title-winning season with 127.

The fast flowing counter-attacking football centred on a strong defensive unit that had been championed by Chapman was now hitting perfection and he laid the foundations for Arsenal to become the dominant team in England for the next 10 seasons.

Unfortunately, Herbert Chapman would not get to witness his hard work at Arsenal as he died from pneumonia in 1934.

His Arsenal team went on to win back to back Football League titles soon after his passing and his legacy is still alive today in so many different areas of the beautiful game.

The Premier League has it's fair share of first class keepers with second class defenders in front of them. Click here to cast your vote on who you believe is the league's best underfire shotstopper from the list of nominees.

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