Aba452
Well-Known Member
Great post, shows how grubby Woolwich have always been and interesting to see the involvement of the 2 red arse cheeks in cheating and match fixing.Close.
They finished 5th in the 1914-15 season, the first division was being expanded to 22 but Arsenal got the vote rather than other teams. The below doesn't help to dismiss there has always been a "red cartel" :)
This is from Wiki
History of Arsenal F.C. (1886–1966) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
"The club controversially rejoined the First Division in 1919,despite having only finished sixth in 1914-15, the last season of competitive football before the First World War — although an error in the calculation of goal average meant Arsenal had actually finished fifth, an error which was corrected by the Football League in 1975.
The First Division was being expanded from 20 teams to 22, and the two new entrants were to be elected at an AGM of the Football League. On past precedent the two places would be given to the two clubs that would otherwise have been relegated, namely Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Instead one of the extra places was awarded to Chelsea and a ballot was called for the remaining place.
The candidates included 20th-placed Tottenham and, from the Second Division, Barnsley (who had finished third); Wolverhampton Wanderers, (fourth); Birmingham (fifth, later amended to sixth); Arsenal; Hull City (seventh); and Nottingham Forest (eighth).
The League voted to promote sixth-placed Arsenal, for reasons of history over merit; Norris argued that Arsenal be promoted for their "long service to league football", having been the first League club from the South. The League board agreed; Arsenal received 18 votes, Tottenham 8, Barnsley 5 and Wolves 4, with a further 6 votes shared between the other clubs.
The announcement of the vote reportedly caught all the clubs, except Arsenal, unawares and the affair is a major contributing factor to the rivalry which has fuelled the long-standing enmity between Arsenal and Tottenham. There is also an inconsistency in the argument – if "long service to league football" was the criterion for promoting Arsenal instead of Tottenham then Wolverhampton Wanderers, who finished two points ahead of Arsenal and were founder members of the Football League, would appear to have had a stronger claim. It has been alleged that this was due to backroom deals or even outright bribery by Sir Henry Norris,colluding with his friend John McKenna, the chairman of Liverpool and the Football League, who recommended Arsenal's promotion at the AGM.
No conclusive proof of wrongdoing has come to light, though other aspects of Norris's financial dealings unrelated to the promotion controversy have fuelled speculation on the matter; Norris resigned as chairman and left the club in 1929, having been found guilty by the Football Association of financial irregularities; he was found to have misused his expenses account, and to have pocketed the proceeds of the sale of the Arsenal team bus.
Regardless of the circumstances of their promotion, Arsenal have remained in the top division since 1919, and as a result hold the English record for the longest unbroken stretch of top-flight football. There appear to be no extant records of the meetings which elected Arsenal to the First Division in 1919, however the book Making the Arsenal proposes a different reason for their election in that year, arguing that match-fixing issues from the final year of football before the war (1914–15) were used by Norris as a weapon in his battle to get Arsenal promoted. He demanded that Liverpool and Manchester United (some of whose players had been found guilty of match fixing) be punished by relegation or expulsion, and threatened to organise a breakaway from the league by Midlands and southern clubs if nothing was done. To placate him the League offered Arsenal a place in the First Division."
Another interesting piece of 'istreeee is dirty dirty dirty Leeds. Originally formed in 1905 as Leeds City, they were expelled from the league for a bribery scandal and a new club voted in as Leeds utd.
Anyway #onebillymeredith!
Regards Moyes, the adage of never going back in football is there for a reason and this'll end in tears, unfortunately.
