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Book: Inverting the Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics by Jonathan Wilson
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Authors: Jonathan Wilson
Tags: History, Non-Fiction
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who are looking to win games will toy with negativity. After the glorious excesses of la nuestra it came to the Argentinians; and for all the self-conscious aestheticism of the Austrians, it would just have surely have come to them had fascism not got there first. Golden ages, almost by definition, are past: gleeful naivety never lasts for ever.
The most obvious immediate effect of the change in the offside law was that, as forwards had more room in which to move, the game became stretched, and short passing began to give way to longer balls. Some sides adapted better than others, and the beginning of the 1925-26 season was marked by freakish results. Arsenal, in particular, seemed unable to settle into any pattern of consistency and, after beating Leeds United 4-1 on 26 September, they were hammered 7-0 by Newcastle United on 3 October.
Charlie Buchan, the inside-right and probably the team’s biggest star, was furious, and told Chapman he was retiring and wanted to stay in the north-east, where he had enjoyed considerable success with Sunderland. This Arsenal, he said, was a team without a plan, a team with no chance of winning anything. Chapman must have seen his life’s project begin to crumble, and Buchan’s words would have had a particular sting because, if nothing else, Chapman was a planner.
He had been born in Kiveton Park, a small colliery town between Sheffield and Worksop and, but for football, he would have followed his father into mining. He played first for Stalybridge, and then for Rochdale, then Grimsby, Swindon, Sheppey United, Worksop, Northampton Town, Notts County and, finally, Tottenham. He was a journeyman player, good enough to stay out of the pits, but little else, and if that part of his career was notable at all, it was for the pale yellow calf-skin boots he wore in the belief they made him easier for team-mates to pick out, an early indication of the inventiveness that would serve him so well as a manager.
His managerial career did not exactly begin with a fanfare. He was lying in the bath after playing in a friendly for Tottenham’s reserve side in the spring of 1907 when his team-mate Walter Bull mentioned that he had been approached to become player-manager of Northampton, but wanted to prolong his full-time playing career. Chapman said that he would be interested, Bull recommended him and Northampton, after failing to attract the former Stoke and Manchester City half-back Sam Ashworth, gave him the job.
A fan, as apparently all those who gave the matter any thought were, of the Scottish passing game, Chapman wanted his side to reproduce the ‘finesse and cunning’ he saw as integral to that conception of football. After a couple of promising early results, though, Northampton faded, and a home defeat to Norwich in November saw them fall to fifth bottom in the Southern League. That was Chapman’s first crisis, and he responded with his first grand idea, a recognition that ‘a team can attack for too long’. He began to encourage his team to drop back, his aim being less to check the opposition forwards than to draw out their defenders and so open up attacking space. By Christmas 1908, Northampton were top of the Southern League; they went on to win the title with a record ninety goals.
Chapman moved on to Leeds City in 1912 and, in the two seasons before the First World War, took them from second bottom of Division Two to fourth. He also hit upon one of his most notable innovations, instituting team-talks after watching players arguing passionately over a game of cards. The war interrupted their progress there, but just as damaging to Chapman and the club were accusations that the club had made illegal payments to players. He refused to hand over the club’s books, which led to Leeds City being expelled from the league and Chapman being banned from football for life in October 1919.
Two years later, though, while he was working for the Olympia oil and cake works in Selby,
The most obvious immediate effect of the change in the offside law was that, as forwards had more room in which to move, the game became stretched, and short passing began to give way to longer balls. Some sides adapted better than others, and the beginning of the 1925-26 season was marked by freakish results. Arsenal, in particular, seemed unable to settle into any pattern of consistency and, after beating Leeds United 4-1 on 26 September, they were hammered 7-0 by Newcastle United on 3 October.
Charlie Buchan, the inside-right and probably the team’s biggest star, was furious, and told Chapman he was retiring and wanted to stay in the north-east, where he had enjoyed considerable success with Sunderland. This Arsenal, he said, was a team without a plan, a team with no chance of winning anything. Chapman must have seen his life’s project begin to crumble, and Buchan’s words would have had a particular sting because, if nothing else, Chapman was a planner.
He had been born in Kiveton Park, a small colliery town between Sheffield and Worksop and, but for football, he would have followed his father into mining. He played first for Stalybridge, and then for Rochdale, then Grimsby, Swindon, Sheppey United, Worksop, Northampton Town, Notts County and, finally, Tottenham. He was a journeyman player, good enough to stay out of the pits, but little else, and if that part of his career was notable at all, it was for the pale yellow calf-skin boots he wore in the belief they made him easier for team-mates to pick out, an early indication of the inventiveness that would serve him so well as a manager.
His managerial career did not exactly begin with a fanfare. He was lying in the bath after playing in a friendly for Tottenham’s reserve side in the spring of 1907 when his team-mate Walter Bull mentioned that he had been approached to become player-manager of Northampton, but wanted to prolong his full-time playing career. Chapman said that he would be interested, Bull recommended him and Northampton, after failing to attract the former Stoke and Manchester City half-back Sam Ashworth, gave him the job.
A fan, as apparently all those who gave the matter any thought were, of the Scottish passing game, Chapman wanted his side to reproduce the ‘finesse and cunning’ he saw as integral to that conception of football. After a couple of promising early results, though, Northampton faded, and a home defeat to Norwich in November saw them fall to fifth bottom in the Southern League. That was Chapman’s first crisis, and he responded with his first grand idea, a recognition that ‘a team can attack for too long’. He began to encourage his team to drop back, his aim being less to check the opposition forwards than to draw out their defenders and so open up attacking space. By Christmas 1908, Northampton were top of the Southern League; they went on to win the title with a record ninety goals.
Chapman moved on to Leeds City in 1912 and, in the two seasons before the First World War, took them from second bottom of Division Two to fourth. He also hit upon one of his most notable innovations, instituting team-talks after watching players arguing passionately over a game of cards. The war interrupted their progress there, but just as damaging to Chapman and the club were accusations that the club had made illegal payments to players. He refused to hand over the club’s books, which led to Leeds City being expelled from the league and Chapman being banned from football for life in October 1919.
Two years later, though, while he was working for the Olympia oil and cake works in Selby,
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