Bertie Mee announces he would leave at the end of the season.
After a 6-1 defeat of West Ham two days before, Bertie Mee announced he would leave Arsenal at the end of the season. In the remainder of the season Arsenal won one, drew one and lost five in the league to finish 17th.
The Billy Wright era had ended in May 1966, his final four matches were three 0-3 defeats and a 1-0 victory. It felt like we had gone round in a circle.
It was a terrible end to a terrible period, and even in the 1-0 victory (at home against Leicester) no Arsenal player scored – it was a Rodrigues own goal. Worse the crowds for the last two games were 4,554 for a 3-0 home defeat against Leeds, and 16,435, for the Leicester match. (The Leeds game was special as there was a European match the same night, and having “been there” is now something of a badge of honour among those who were there).
To put the 4554 in context, the final match at Plumstead in 1913 as Arsenal were relegated, had a crowd of just 3000. The first match at a half built Highbury also in 1913 had a crowd of around 20,000.
Wright’s final team in 1966 was:
Furnell
Court McGill
Storey Ure Walley
Nelson Simpson Radford Eastham Armstrong
To give some idea of the chaos, Ure had played the previous match at centre forward, and Court was actually an inside left and left half.
On April 28 1970, after two defeats in cup finals Bertie Mee won his first trophy, and by then the team was:
Wilson
Storey McNab
Kelly McLintock Simpson
Armstrong Sammels Radford George Graham
Although the last few years of his management of Arsenal were awful, Bertie he did provide Arsenal earlier in his reign with five cup finals in ten years, our first Euro trophy and of course the Double. But what is sometimes forgtten is how things sank away after that.
After being being runners’ up in the league and cup finalists in 1973, his desire to run an authoritarian regime and seemed to outweigh his understanding of how to keep players happy, and in his last three years Arsenal came 10th, 16th and 17th, with the last two seasons including a real flirtation with relegation. Indeed in 1974/5 Arsenal spent some time at the bottom of the league.
In 1974/5, after two wins and a defeat in the first three games Arsenal then had a ten match run without winning a game. Seven defeats and three draws, giving us an opening start in the first 13 games of eight defeats, three draws and two wins. Relegation form.
Our regular players were Rimmer, Matthews (later replaced by Rice), Nelson (later McNab) Storey, Simpson, Kelly, Armstrong, Brady, Radford, George or Ball, Kidd. So, hardly a poor team, but this is the team that took us to the bottom.
On game 10 (a 0-2 defeat away to Leeds) we hit the bottom, and hovered in the relegation zone until game 16 – a 3-1 away win at Liverpool. A little good spell in December / January saw us achieve two wins and two draws and get up to 15th, otherwise it was all doom and gloom – but of course not relegation.
Naturally the crowds were low as well, with only 17,845 turning up to see a 1-1 draw with Birmingham in March, followed by just 16,540 being at Highbury for the 3-0 win over Newcastle. But he still stayed another year, and then seemingly had to be persuaded to call it a day.