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the
manager
WINTER 2011
The Manager
looks back at the career of a man who arguably made more
of an impact on the professional game than any other manager
Hall of Fame
Herbert Chapman
Professional
football has been
around for more than 125 years, so
it should come as no surprise that
there have been many innovations
and improvements brought in since
the modern game first caught the
public’s imagination. What may come
as something of a surprise, though,
is that a huge number of those
innovations were bought about (or, at
least, initially suggested) by one man...
the former Huddersfield and Arsenal
manager Herbert Chapman.
Some of Chapman’s innovations
were tactical (he popularised the
‘W M’ formation which went on
to dominate the English game for
decades, for example) but many went
deeper into the heart of the game,
influencing far more than simply how
the players interacted with the ball
on the pitch. Chapman was the first
man to introduce or suggest many
of the things which we now take for
granted, including numbered shirts,
white footballs, weather-proof pitches,
the penalty box semi-circle and even
floodlights (although his attempts to
introduce these to the professional
game were blocked by the FA).
But perhaps the most important
and far-reaching change which
Chapman brought about was that it
was he who established the manager
as the dominant presence within
any football club. Before Chapman,
the manager at every club was just
another member of what was in
effect a management committee. This
committee, which usually consisted of
the club secretary and directors as well
as the manager, oversaw everything
from player recruitment and pay to
team selection. Chapman broke that
mould by insisting that he was put in
sole charge of all matters relating to
the team, thus creating a legacy which
has lasted to this day.
A much-travelled inside-forward
in his playing career (which included
at Arsenal than he had ever had at
Huddersfield, it took Chapman a little
time to achieve success with his new
club. When success eventually came,
however, it came to stay.
Chapman’s Arsenal won their first
silverware (The FA Cup) in 1930
and went on to take the top prize,
the League Championship, in the
following season (finishing with
a then-record of 66 points). The
team went on to dominate their era,
winning the title for three years in a
row. Chapman, however, was not able
to enjoy all of this success; having
contracted pneumonia during a hectic
spell of travelling to and from football
matches (including an Arsenal third
team match against Guildford City),
he died in early 1934.
Chapman succeeded because he was
the first great ‘all-rounder’ manager.
As well as being an astute tactician,
he was also a shrewd businessman, a
builder of great teams and a supreme
motivator; it was said he could make
ordinary players into internationals
and good players into great ones.
Just as he made his mark on the
game in general, he also left some
physical reminders behind him at
Highbury in the form of the white
sleeves on the team’s red shirts (which
he believed helped the players to pick
one another out) and the team’s name
on the local London Underground
station (previously known as Gillespie
Road). Chapman’s achievements at
Arsenal were commemorated by a
“He inspired
awe and
respect rather
than fear”
arsenal striker, Cliff Bastin
a 65-game spell with Arsenal’s North
London rivals Tottenham Hotspur)
Chapman didn’t really make his mark
in the game until he was appointed
manager of Huddersfield Town in
September 1921. Despite working
under severe economic restraints,
Chapman managed Huddersfield to
FA Cup glory in 1922 and then to the
club’s first League Championship title
in the 1923-24 season (edging out
Cardiff City on goal average).
Huddersfield took the title again
in the following season (conceding
a mere 26 goals), but the ambitious
Chapman had already left, heading
south to take the reins at Arsenal.
Despite the fact that he had a
much greater budget to work with
in association with