Arsenal: team of the century 1900-1999

How consistency and caution made Arsenal England's greatest team of the 20th century

Three outstanding managers put the Gunners above Liverpool and Manchester United in the biggest league table of all.

Guy Hodgson. The Independent, January 2000

This will have eyebrows rocketing upwards on anyone who was attracted to football for the first time in the 1990s: the English club of the last 100 years has nothing to do with Jack Rowley, Bobby Charlton, or David Beckham. Manchester United may have been the team of three decades but the 20th century title belongs elsewhere.

Boring Arsenal? Lucky Arsenal? The statistics would suggest Successful Arsenal is a more appropriate and kindly description. Liverpool may have won more championships, but in terms of consistency, of riding out the rough years, the London club that began as Dial Square on a pitch with an open sewer running by it come up smelling sweeter than anyone. "When I played for Arsenal," Ted Drake, their prolific centre-forward of the 1930s, recalled, "the saying was 'what we have we hold'." It is a sentiment underpinning a solidity which has endured for nearly all the 100 years.

Judged by their finishing positions, Arsenal's average in England's top division is 8.5, which pips Liverpool's 8.7, while Old Trafford's near monopoly of honours in recent times has merely dragged Manchester United to fourth with 10.9. Surprisingly, to anyone who has closely followed the modern trials at Goodison Park, Everton are the century's third best club with a score of 10.6.

Arsenal's place at the top of the table has plenty to do with Arsène Wenger and George Graham, who won titles in the 80s and 90s, but they themselves would bow to Herbert Chapman who, arguably, surpasses even Bob Paisley and Matt Busby as the manager of the century.

In 1925 Arsenal's chief notoriety had been achieved by their scandalous inclusion in the post-Great War First Division at the expense of Tottenham Hotspur, thus becoming the only club to be promoted for reasons other than playing merit. Even then they were an undistinguished and perpetually broke institution whose advertisement for a new secretary-manager in the Athletic News read: "Only people who will not spend big money on transfer fees need apply".

For some reason this less-than-succulent morsel attracted Chapman, who had just guided Huddersfield Town to two of their three successive championships and, after the starter of the 1930 FA Cup, his team of Alex James, Cliff Bastin, David Jack and Ted Drake etc consumed five titles in seven years.

The Marble Halls, the allure of Highbury, a repute as England's premier club all stemmed from the period made more glittering by its backcloth of the Depression and the countdown to the Second World War.

Equally importantly in terms of their position as the club of the century, Arsenal's glory days were not followed by the anti-climax of relegation and their 80 successive years in the top division edge them ahead of Liverpool, whose 18 championships are undermined by two spells in the Second Division, the latter for eight seasons between 1954 and 1962.

Manchester United (12 titles) and Everton (eight), too, have had their years in the shadows while the other members of the top 10 – Aston Villa (two), Tottenham (two), Newcastle (four), Manchester City (two), Chelsea (one) and Sunderland (three) – have interspersed their successes with occasional visits to the lower orders of the Football League.

In a system which penalises relegation (Sunderland's First Division Championship last season gave them a finishing position only of 21st, for example) these lapses prove costly although it is also interesting how success has a lingering effect. Burnley, champions in 1921 and 1960, are 27th, Portsmouth, also two titles, are 30th.

The two Sheffield clubs, with seven titles between them, are both in the top 20 which makes their current plights even less bearable and underlines why local opinion would oppose a merger. Heritage and history are never easily shared.

Further down there are names that read like fading inscriptions on tombstones. Bradford Park Avenue are 53rd, ahead of last week's FA Cup giant-killers Wrexham and Tranmere, while New Brighton, who once had a ground that incorporated a tower to rival Blackpool's tourist attraction, are 70th and Accrington Stanley 73rd. The doleful list of clubs who no longer exist includes Gateshead (57th), who were voted into oblivion in 1960 after their first application for re-election since 1937. Theirs was possibly the most unjust rejection in Football League history.

Peterborough, who replaced Gateshead, have inched only to 86th of the 99 clubs who make the 20-season qualification, but newness does not necessarily mean lowliness. Wimbledon, who were elected in 1977, are 28th and Ipswich are 25th despite not joining the League until the season before the Second World War. Both have had to overcome the built-in handicap of having to rise through four divisions.

On a decade-by-decade basis some statistics are so remarkable they look like errors. Manchester United's average position in the 90s is 1.9, which means they have been first so often the lesser years cannot even drag them down to an average of second. Astonishing, except that the figure was equalled by Liverpool in the 70s and even surpassed with 1.7 in the 80s. That is a lot of win bonuses.

Lancashire has been predominant since the war as the old county boundaries have encompassed the team of the decade on each occasion, Manchester United taking the honours in the 40s (despite failing to win a championship), 50s and 90s, Liverpool in the 70s and 80s and Everton in the 60s. The north-east had its heyday at the turn of the century and Herbert Chapman's teams dominated the inter-war years.

But the tables also chronicle the accelerating trend of strength being drawn to the bright lights of the big cities. In the 50s Burnley, Blackpool, Bolton and Preston finished in the top 10 while even as recently as the 80s the most successful dozen included Norwich and Luton.

The rich variety those clubs brought is slowly dying thanks to the concentration of television money and playing resources towards a dwindling number. The seven most successful clubs of the 90s are arguably also the richest and there is no reason to believe that the team of the next decade will come from outside their ranks.

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20th Century Decade-by-decade League tables

Tom Chipchase found the decade-by-decade stats for us

Article

Stats by decade

Overall stats

1900-1910 1 Newcastle 4.2 2 Villa 5.7 3 Everton 6.3 4 Sheff Wed 6.5 5 Sunderland 6.8 6 Sheff Utd 6.8 7 Liverpool 9.5 8 Blackburn 9.9 9 Man City 11.8 10 Bury 11.9 11 Forest 12.1 12 Notts Cty 13.8

1910-1919 1 Sunderland 5.3 2 Villa 5.7 3 Blackburn 7.0 4 Everton 9.0 5 Oldham 9.5 6 W. Brom 9.5 7 Newcastle 9.8 8 Sheff Wed 10.2 9 Man Utd 10.3 10 Bradford 10.5 11 Man City 10.5 12 Bolton 10.5 (6 seasons due to WWI)

1920-1929 1 Huddersfld 6.7 2 Sunderland 7.0 3 Liverpool 7.1 4 Villa 7.3 5 Bolton 7.7 6 Newcastle 8.0 7 Sheff Utd 11.7 8 Blackburn 11.9 9 Man City 12.1 10 Arsenal 12.2 11 Everton 12.8 12 Cardiff 13.8

1930-1939 1 Arsenal 2.3 2 Derby 7.0 3 Sunderland 8.6 4 Huddersfield 9.4 5 Portsmouth 11.1 6 Everton 11.7 7 Man City 11.7 8 Boro 12.0 9 Liverpool 13.0 10 Villa 13.6 11 Chelsea 13.8 12 Wolves 13.9 (9 seasons due to WWII)

1940-1950 1 Man Utd 2.5 2 Wolves 4.0 3 Portsmouth 5.5 4 Arsenal 6.2 5 Derby 8.0 6 Liverpool 8.0 7 Villa 9.0 8 Blackpool 9.2 9 Sunderland 10.0 10 Stoke 12.2 11 Burnley 13.0 12 Middlesbrough 13.8 (4 seasons due to WWII)

1950-1959 1 Man Utd 4.0 2 Wolves 4.9 3 Arsenal 6.8 4 Burnley 7.5 5 Blackpool 7.6 6 Spurs 8.9 7 W. Brom 8.9 8 Bolton 9.2 9 Preston 10.2 10 Newcastle 11.7 11 Chelsea 13.8 12 Villa 13.9

1960-1969 1 Everton 4.3 2 Spurs 5.1 3 Man Utd 7.0 4 Liverpool 8.0 5 Burnley 8.9 6 Chelsea 9.4 7 Arsenal 9.5 8 W. Brom 11.0 9 Sheff Wed 11.3 10 Forest 12.4 11 W. Ham 12.4 12 Leicester 12.7

1970-1979 1 Liverpool 1.9 2 Leeds 5.7 3 Arsenal 7.5 4 Ipswich 7.9 5 Derby 9.2 6 Man City 9.4 7 Everton 10.3 8 Man Utd 10.8 9 Wolves 12.4 10 Spurs 12.8 11 Coventry 14.2 12 Stoke 16.0

1980-1989 1 Liverpool 1.7 2 Arsenal 5.3 3 Everton 5.9 4 Man Utd 6.3 5 Spurs 6.4 6 Forest 6.7 7 Soton 9.0 8 Villa 11.8 9 Coventry 14.2 10 W. Ham 14.5 11 Norwich 14.9 12 Luton 15.5

1990-1999 1 Man Utd 1.9 2 Arsenal 4.5 3 Liverpool 4.8 4 Leeds 6.6 5 Villa 9.1 6 Chelsea 9.3 7 Spurs 10.5 8 Wimbledon 11.3 9 Sheff Wed 12.3 10 Everton 13.0 11 W. Ham 14.1 12 Coventry 14.7