In 1935 after three relentless seasons of hard work, Arsenal at their arguably greatest won their only League Treble to date in the top-flight of English football, becoming the second side to achieve the feat after Huddersfield Town ten years earlier.
1932/33 season
Top goal scorer: Cliff Bastin 33 goals
Table: Arsenal 1st 58 points Aston Villa 2nd 54 points
After 14 games Arsenal had only lost one match, drawing two and winning 11. The one defeat came at Highbury 1-2 to West Bromwich Albion by surprise. The best matches of the run included a 7-1 demolition of Wolves at Molineux-v David Jack hat-trick and Jack Lambert two goals. Alongside that a 6-1 win at home to Sunderland in September with Joe Hulme firing up a hat-trick The most flabbergasting of victories being an 8-2 rollover of Leicester City, Hulme netted another hat-trick while Ernest Coleman and Cliff Bastin scored two each.
From November up to New Year the Gunners won seven of their next ten matches, losing twice – 5-3 away to Aston Villa, a home 1-2 defeat to Leeds United and a 0-0 draw with Leeds. This series of results saw Arsenal annihilate Sheffield United 9-2, Jack Lambert grabbed five goals and Cliff Bastin scored a hat-trick.
Arsenal got off to a poor new Year losing their first two league matches by the same score 2-3 to Sheffield Wednesday and Sunderland both away from home.
Towards the end of January Arsenal got back to winning ways in late January beating Manchester City 2-1 with Bastin netting twice.
February witnessed Arsenal go undefeated, however that run of four games only saw Arsenal win twice drawing the other three on the trot, 1-1 twice with Everton up at Goodison Park and at home to Blackpool, followed by a 2-2 stalemate against Derby. The last match of the month witnessed an epic 8-0 thrashing of Blackburn Rovers, electric Ernest Coleman picked up another hat-trick and Cliff Bastin and Hulme were at it again with two strikes each.
The Gunners failed to find victory in March losing three out of four games and picking up only a point in a 1-1 draw with Leicester City at Filbert Street thanks to a finish from the “Wee Wizard” as he was known as Alex James.
From the first of April 1933 Arsenal won five games on the trot seeing two standout victories from the latter part of the season, a 5-0 annihilation of Aston Villa with Jack Lambert scoring twice and James Jack and Ray Bowden all chipping in with the others, and a 4-2 win over Sheffield Wednesday with Lambert grabbing a further two goals to his tally chart.
The Gunners secured their second title in three years (after also winning their first ever title in 1930/31), in their final three games after beating London rivals Chelsea 3-1, drawing 2-2 with Huddersfield and losing dramatically on the final day of campaign to Sheffield United away 1-3.
1933/34 season
Top goal scorer: Cliff Bastin: 15 goals
Table: 1st 59 points, Huddersfield 2nd 56 points
Arsenals start to the season proved to be trickier than the start of the previous league campaign, in their first seven games they won only twice, drawing 1-1 three times to Birmingham City, Manchester City and in the North London derby with Tottenham thanks to a William Felton penalty as well as losing on the other occasions.
The Gunners ventured on an eleven-game unbeaten streak from late September to Boxing Day. Drawing only once at Highbury to Portsmouth 1-1 again. This run of fixtures saw Arsenal pick up their biggest thrashing of the season, after a 6-0 victory over Middlesborough at home with only 28,293 fans in attendance, Ralp Birkett and David Jack both fired two goals into the back of the net each.
After this successful patch of games Arsenal failed to win their next five games from the final match in December to first game of February. To start off with they drew 0-0 at St Andrews against Birmingham City, 1-1 at home to Sheffield Wednesday securing a point due to Jimmy Dunne, before losing three consecutive matches, 1-2 to Manchester City, 1-3 to Tottenham meaning The Gunners hadn’t won either of their North London Derby’s that season and finally 1-2 to Everton at home.
Following this horrific show Arsenal would only be defeated two times in the final 17 games of the season.
After losing to Everton at the start of February they would go onto win their further three games of the month, 2-0 away to Middlesbrough seeing Ralph Birkett and Bowden securing the two points (which was how many you won for a game back then). The Gunners then scraped past Blackburn Rovers 2-1 with goals being scored by Pat Beasley and Bastin, topping off the month narrowly beating Newcastle United after a nearly five-hour coach journey up to St. James Park.
March saw Arsenal get off to the same fashion as the previous month with the greatest defeat of the season seeing the Gunners calved to pieces 1-4 by Leicester City away. Arsenal quickly turned results around for the rest of the month picking up six points out of six from wins against Aston Villa, Wolves and Derby County just about 1-0 all mercy to James’s scoring in front of nearly 70,000 spectators at Highbury.
This undefeated run of three games was extended to six come April after three more victories versus Derby County, Huddersfield Town and Liverpool in a marginal 2-3 win. On April 18th The Gunners streak came to an end after an ant-climatic 0-1 beating at Fratton Park to Portsmouth.
In May with the League double rounded up Arsenal with masterful ease put Sheffield United to bed 2-0 with two vital strikes from new striker from Southampton Ted Drake.
1934/35 season
Table: Arsenal1st 58 points, Sunderland 2nd 54 points
Top goal scorer: Ted Drake 44 goals (a club record for the most goals scored in a season)
Arsenal won three of their first five matches of the season which included a dramatic 3-3 draw on the opening day of the season to Portsmouth and 8-1 bulldozing of Liverpool witnessing Drake clinch four goals, the first of his four 4-goal hauls of the season.
The Gunners then lost their first match of the season in mid September to Blackburn Rovers 0-2, struggling to rebound five days later drawing 0-0 with Sheffield Wednesday.
Throughout October Arsenal went all but one game defeated losing 1-2 to Sunderland, one game earlier Tottenham were trounced 5-1 at Highbury in front over 70,000 fans witnessing Drake become the first Arsenal player in history to grab a hat-trick against The Gunners greatest arch enemy.
From November through to three days before Christmas Arsenal suffered from the jaws of defeat only once, being beaten fair and square 1-2 by Aston Villa at home. This parade of games witnessed The Gunners grab another eight-goal affair against Leicester City in December, with hat-tricks both for Drake and Hulme and two strikes from Bastin. Wolves were also torn to shreds 7-0 thanks to four goals from Drake again and a hat-trick for Ralp Birkett.
From Christmas day up to early February Arsenal were defeated twice in an eight-game run which saw them run back to Highbury with 11 points out of a potential 16. This period of the season saw The Gunners secure two 3-0 wins against West Brom and Leeds and a vital 4-1 victory against Sheffield Wednesday which saw James hit a hat-trick.
In Arsenals remaining 14 fixtures of the season from mid February to May Arsenal were overturned impressively in only one instance losing 0-1 in their last match versus Derby County.
March proved to be spectacular for Arsenal on and off the pitch. The first league encounter of the month at White Hart Lane against Tottenham saw The Gunners run riot sweeping Spurs off their feet 6-0, Drake and Alfred Kirchen scored twice with Bastin and Peter Dougall helping out with the walk in the park. Three days later Highbury saw a record attendance of 73,295 fans turn up to watch a 0-0 draw between the Gunners and Sunderland who were both going at it for the Championship.
In April Arsenal won every single game with one match standing out from the rest at home to Middlesbrough. Drake fought for his final four goal haul of the season and Tim Rogers found the back of the net twice.
By the final match of the season Arsenal had wrapped up the Treble, before losing out on the Quadruple the following campaign to Sunderland in 1936 by 11 points finishing sixth in the First Division table.
The 1930’s was definitely Arsenal’s Golden Era, with 5 of the last 9 titles won before war broke out in 1939….
Liam Harding
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Arsenal would have kicked on further if WW2 hadn’t started.
There is no doubt the 1930’s was Arsenal golden era.
Had learned since, leading up to Christmas historically was never our most productive period.
It is clear Chapman like the legendary Frenchman change the football landscape with his new brand of football, the counter attacking style.
But it showed back then in those days, Arsenal was never a one man team as Cliff Bastin and Hulme were never goal shy themselves as Drake run havoc in the opposition box.
One other interesting thing have take note of, Arsenal regularly had crowd exceeding the seventy thousand mark, though a great deal I assumed were standing back then, but proper long term planning could have secured adequate space for a proper world class stadium at Highbury, that would have eliminated the pain of relocating to now what we call the Emirates Stadium.