It may seem an incredibly trivial point to note that at the AGM of the Football League on 3 June 1912 William Hall applied to be a director of the League. Especially since he didn’t get elected but gained the highest number of votes of those not elected.
But there is a real point here and this moment gives us a real insight into what was happening at Arsenal in the early years after Henry Norris took over the club in 1910 and saved it from liquidation.
When Tom Houghton of Preston North End died in September, that left a place on the board of the Football League vacant, and having gained the highest number of votes of those not elected, Hall gained a place on the Football League board.
This was significant for Arsenal because he was not only the first Arsenal man to get onto the board of the Football League, and not only the first man from the south of England to do so, he was the first man to do so for many a long year.
But it is also interesting in relation to our attempts to unravel the early history of Arsenal, that it was Hall and not Norris who applied for this post – and it suggests a knowledge of how power and committees work on the part of Norris that is generally not allowed for in reports of his life.
And this should not surprise us. Norris had risen from relatively humble beginnings to be a most powerful and wealthy man: mayor of Fulham, mega-property developer, chair of Arsenal and director of Fulham… in early 20th century England one did not have such success without being either born into the right sort of family, or having an incredibly astute understanding of how power systems work. Henry Norris had the latter.
Thus it was not Norris who fought Arsenal’s position in the powerhouse of the League in the two monumental conflicts to come (the right to move to Highbury, and the election of the club to the first division) but Norris’ friend and nominee, Hall. Norris meanwhile was working on a route to making the club solvent, by preparing to move Woolwich Arsenal from Plumstead to Highbury, and having an Arsenal man as a director of the League meant that the Arsenal case for allowing the club to be moved could be heard from an Arsenal man.
And this really was important, for as the history of the club shows, Tottenham Hotspur went to great lengths to try and stop Arsenal moving to Highbury – but were of course eventually defeated by Henry Norris’ strategies and William Hall’s voice on the inside.