Woolwich
Arsenal 1910 - the arrival of Hall and Norris
Last updated: December 2007
WOOLWICH
ARSENAL IN CRISIS
At the
start of the year Woolwich Arsenal’s first team was fourth from bottom in
Football League Division One. The
Reserves were doing rather better: they were second in the South Eastern
League. Charles Buchan, who would come
back to haunt Henry Norris in 1925, was in the reserves: he scored the third on
Sat 1 January 1910 in WAFC Reserves 6 West Ham Reserves 0, before getting
injured and not playing much for the rest of the season.
On Sat 22
January 1910 at Woolwich Town Hall, two meetings were held about the Woolwich
Arsenal’s future. At the first meeting
(for shareholders only) a financial statement was read setting out exactly how
bad a state the club’s finances were in.
It was followed by a meeting for all supporters (not just shareholders)
and resulted in a Voluntary Committee being set up to organise raising £1000
towards the club’s debts. George Leavey,
the club’s major creditor, was active at both meetings; and so was a Dr John
Clarke. Various events were organised: a
special film show at the Woolwich Picture Palace, specially-priced matinées at
the Theatre Royal, Woolwich, a whist-drive (these were days when football clubs
might hope to be rescued by such small events!)
On Sat 5
February 1910 Woolwich Arsenal FC were knocked out of the FA Cup by Everton,
5-0; the club would at least get the away club’s share of the £842 gate money,
but that would be the last Cup money the club would see in season 1909/10. The club was then offered some help by
Fulham FC - on Sat 19 February 1910 a friendly was played: Woolwich
Arsenal 2 Fulham 2. So the Fulham
directors knew about the trouble Woolwich Arsenal were in, and were prepared to
do a bit more than just wring their hands.
But they had reckoned without the poor support Woolwich Arsenal
had. The gate money for the game was
only £35, causing ‘Inside-Left’, writing the football news in the
Woolwich-based Kentish Independent to write a furious diatribe the
following Friday, declaring that - if that was their attitude - the people of
Woolwich didn’t deserve a good local football team. And the lousy attendance seems to have
convinced George Leavey that there was no point in pretending any longer: he
was the main mover in organising a meeting which would begin the process of
putting the club’s current limited company into voluntary liquidation under
Section 182 of the Companies (Consolidation) Act 1908. Since joining Woolwich Arsenal’s board of
directors (about three years before) Leavey had been generous beyond all
reasonable expectations to the club; but he had a business to run - a gents’ outfitters
in Woolwich High Street - and in early 1910 he’d clearly reached the maximum
amount of generosity that he could dare to indulge. Only 4000 people turned up on Sat 12 March
1910 for Woolwich Arsenal 0 Manchester United 0, which probably convinced him
even more that there was no other course for him to pursue.
The meeting
to begin the winding-up of the limited company was held in the evening of Fri
18 March 1910 at Woolwich Town Hall, and was the meeting William Hall and
possibly one other director of Fulham FC crossed town to attend, only to find
it was for shareholders only. Before he
went home again, however, Hall seems to have managed to speak to George Leavey,
and to say something that Leavey later seems to have interpreted as an offer of
more, and possibly financial, help.
Putting a company into voluntary liquidation is done by the directors of
the company itself rather than by its creditors, and gives the distressed
company more ability to dictate its own future. In Woolwich Arsenal’s case, the
situation was grim but not quite desperate yet.
The second biggest creditor, the London and Provincial Bank, Woolwich,
was not pressing for a reduction in the club’s overdraft; and other people who
were owed smaller amounts - including two players who hadn’t received their
money from benefit matches, and Chelsea FC, still owed gate money from a league
fixture at the Manor Ground - were not yet insisting on being paid. But the club was about £900 in debt with five
weeks left until the season ended and what little match-day revenue it had
dried up for four months; on the weekend of 8 and 9 March it had yet again had
no money to pay the wages; it also owed a lot of money on its grandstand, and
to the grandstand’s designer, Archibald Leitch.
The lease of the Manor Ground - though an asset it some ways - was
mortgaged to Leavey and the Bank; and some of the other assets were players -
selling them would repeat some of the club’s recent follies and not help future
crowd figures. So George Leavey was not
exaggerating when he told the meeting that the alternative to liquidation now
might be bankruptcy soon. He was able to
get his candidate appointed as the official in charge of the liquidation
proceedings: Charles Brannan, who ran an accountancy firm at 12 King Street,
Cheapside in the City of London. But
Brannan was agreed on only after Leavey had overcome objections from people who
said that appointing him was giving Leavey too much say in how the creditors
were paid. A great deal of anger and
impatience was also expressed towards Woolwich Arsenal’s manager, George
Morrell. He’d spent £1000 in one year on
players who’d turned out not to be worth it.
When Morrell made a speech justifying his actions and asking for the
kind of support (financial and otherwise) other football managers got, he was
heard out in stony silence. The club’s
transport links were discussed; much hope was pinned on the London County
Council’s tramway from London, still under construction; and on the local
railway service that had finally agreed to charge a special match-day return
fare from London to Plumstead.
Tellingly, the possibility of moving Woolwich Arsenal to a site nearer
London was also discussed - it wasn’t an idea first put forward by Henry Norris
and William Hall. Blackheath, in
South-East London, emerged as the favoured spot. However, Leavey made it plain that his
support for the club would cease if it left Woolwich.
Both
Leavey, and Inside-Left in his column in the Kentish Independent the
following Friday, were optimistic that Woolwich Arsenal’s financial problems
would be overcome. However, the
disagreements during the meeting, and the arguments that had taken place there,
set the tone for much of what followed over the next two months.
On Sun 20
March 1910, Dr John Clarke, who’d been at the meeting of 22 Jan 1910, went
visiting in Woolwich and formed a group of local men who were willing
(actually, some of them turned out to be not very willing at all) to put
themselves forward as directors of a new limited company which would buy the
assets of the old one and reach deals with its creditors. This group met on Wed 6 April and by Sat 9
April was able to make a definite offer to Charles Brannan, the
liquidator. On Mon 11 April 1910 he
accepted it, and so did George Leavey as the main creditor. But then Leavey got cold feet. On Tue 12 April he turned up to a meeting
with Clarke’s group with his solicitor in tow.
The solicitor produced a contract with a new clause in it, making the
directors of any company taking over the assets of the old Woolwich Arsenal
limited company personally responsible for paying rent, rates and taxes on the
Manor Ground. The new clause caused
uproar; and Clarke’s group of would-be directors refused to sign the
contract.
The
following morning (Wed 13 April 1910) Clarke and Leavey met again but still
couldn’t agree; and Leavey spent the rest of the day running around Woolwich
(NOT Fulham, please note) speaking to people and trying to break the deadlock. On the morning of Fri 15 April Leavey went
over to Archibald Leitch’s London office and negotiated a pay-off deal for the
money he was owed (he’d been owed it for TEN years!) And in the evening at Woolwich Town Hall
Leavey chaired yet another meeting called to get local people involved in
rescuing Woolwich Arsenal. This meeting
ended with a second body of would-be directors being formed, this time with
Leavey as its chairman and without Dr Clarke.
An rescue plan was agreed and signed, and copies were sent to the
Football Association for its approval.
It was at
this stage - mid-April - that rumours first surfaced that Woolwich Arsenal FC
was going to move to Fulham FC’s Craven Cottage ground; rumour also had Fulham
FC paying off all Woolwich Arsenal’s debts.
Inside-Left, in the Kentish Independent, thought that rumour was
very far-fetched in this case; but actually it was right. Or part of it was.
The Kentish
Independent of Fri 22 April 1910 had in it a letter from George Leavey
announcing that shares in the limited company set up on 15 April would be on
sale from 23 to 30 April at £1 each. But
the printing of the share prospectus was delayed, and in fact the shares
finally went on sale between Fri 6 May and 4pm Tue 10 May 1910. Shares were £1, payable in instalments, and
£2000-worth had to be sold for this latest rescue bid to go ahead. But by the close of sale, only £1200 had been
applied for. George Leavey despaired.
On Wed 11
May 1910 an interview with Leavey appeared in a London newspaper in which he
said that he was now facing personal ruin and that he couldn’t continue to prop
up a football club, one man on his own.
He asked for another group of people (making the third so far) to come
forward - from anywhere, not just Woolwich - to try to form a new limited
company to take over Woolwich Arsenal.
And
somewhere between Tue 12 April and Wed 11 May 1910 is where William Allen,
William Hall and Henry Norris really came in.
I don’t count the friendly match they’d organised in February - I think
that match was meant to be the end of Fulham’s involvement in Woolwich
Arsenal’s troubles. But now, they came
in with a vengeance. Two questions
arise, and I haven’t any definite answers to either of them. Exactly when; and why.
When’s
rather more easy to guess at. I think
that some kind of contact went on between Woolwich Arsenal and Fulham around
mid-April and gave rise to the rumours that Inside-Left reported. I would suppose that the move came from
George Leavey, and that he approached William Hall. But the contact didn’t amount to
anything. The most obvious reason why
not is that the people at the Fulham end of the contact suggested Woolwich
Arsenal move to Craven Cottage, and Leavey wouldn’t agree. This is all speculation, however; there may
have been no contact at all before mid-May, though then there definitely was.
The big
question is why. Why would a set of men
involved with one football club, with financial commitments to that club,
wilfully involve themselves with another in an even worse position? I can’t think why; and the three men don’t
help. William Allen was not in the habit of making public statements and he
never said anything about his involvement, which in any case lasted only a
short time. William Hall was the most
eloquent in public, saying that he’d gone to the help of Woolwich Arsenal FC
out of sentiment, not wanting to see the capital’s oldest Football League
member die a death if he could prevent it.
And Henry Norris also took Hall’s ‘sentiment’ line in his writings in
defence of their intervention over the next few months. But his public statements make it very clear
that he became involved reluctantly, and expected to be able to get out of the
obligation in a year or so. After
investigating Norris for four years or so I can state that he was not a man much
given to sentimental gestures, especially this kind, which was likely to
involve large sums of money. So why he
made this particular gesture I really don’t know.
Maybe the
three Fulham directors got involved because they thought it would benefit their
own club in somehow. The plans for Woolwich
Arsenal that they formulated could be read that way. But Fulham was NOT in a position to buy up
Woolwich Arsenal FC, debts and all. The
club was heading for a loss of £722 and didn’t pay its shareholders a dividend
in 1910. Its directors may have been
looking to the future, though. Chelsea
FC had just been relegated, leaving Spurs and Woolwich Arsenal as the only
Football League Division One teams south of Birmingham. If Woolwich Arsenal were to play their
Division One games at Craven Cottage, paying rent... Or if Fulham FC could gain some financial
hold over Woolwich Arsenal who were then to go out of existence, there would be
a berth in Football League Division One going begging...
Who
knows? It all looks pretty far-fetched
to me but that’s never put anyone in football off.
On Fri
13 May 1910 the board of the new limited company (that’s the second,
Woolwich-based, group) made a public statement of what everyone seems to have
known already: that the minimum 2000 shares in Woolwich Arsenal FC had been
bought. This second group of directors
all resigned from the new limited company’s board, and sent a letter was sent
to the Football League, telling them what had happened. The ex-directors began the work of returning
share applications to the few people who had wanted to buy; Henry Norris was
later to accuse them of putting their own share applications at the head of the
queue. Between 13 May and 18 May 1910
it seems that the rumours about Woolwich Arsenal and Fulham did finally spur
some people local to Woolwich to come forward to buy shares who hadn’t done so
before, including someone who offered to buy all 2000 shares (he was never
identified). But their late applications
were turned down; it’s not clear who by but I guess the three men from Fulham
were involved by now, and it was their decision to say no. On Sat 14 May 1910 there was
confirmation in the Times that the share issue in the new limited
company would not be going ahead. And
on that day, representatives of Fulham FC approached Charles Brannan,
liquidator of the old Woolwich Arsenal limited company, with a plan to buy up
all its liabilities and assets.
Apparently the amalgamation of the two clubs wasn’t a part of this plan;
though I don’t see how Woolwich Arsenal were supposed to carry on if it was
carried out.
At this
point the Football League became involved, exercising their right to agree or
to veto any plan; I should imagine the Management Committee members were
getting alarmed at the scenario that was developing. The buying-out of one of its members by
another was unprecedented situation in its history. On the afternoon Wed 18
May 1910 a meeting was held at the Imperial Hotel, London at which
representatives of Woolwich Arsenal and Fulham FC met the Football League
Management Committee to decide Woolwich Arsenal FC’s future. Reports of this meeting say that it was Henry
Norris who had done the liaison between Fulham FC and the Football League in
setting the meeting up; so I’m sure he was there to present Fulham’s plans. But
if he WAS there, he couldn’t prevent a very unsatisfactory outcome to the
meeting from Fulham FC’s point of view.
The
Football League Management Committee refused to allow Fulham FC’s Plan A - that
Fulham FC take over Woolwich Arsenal FC outright, and Woolwich Arsenal cease to
exist. This would mean Fulham paying the
debts of Woolwich Arsenal’s original
limited company; and then taking over its assets including the Manor Ground
site. The idea might have been to
finance Plan A by selling the Manor Ground for development: after all, housing
development was what William Allen and Henry Norris were making their
considerable fortunes in.
Reports of
the meeting don’t say whether Fulham FC’s Plan B was already formulated or
whether they had to come up with something with no notice when Plan A was
thrown out. They could have just gone
home, of course, and left Woolwich Arsenal to its fate; but they didn’t. Plan B was that Fulham FC and Woolwich
Arsenal FC should ground-share at Craven Cottage. Ground-sharing was not against the FL rules,
but Plan B too was rejected, presumably because George Leavey wouldn’t agree to
it - and George Leavey was the key to any solution for Woolwich Arsenal FC, as
the Kentish Independent later noted, because he was the club’s biggest
and most active creditor.
Plan C -
the one the Football League Management Committee accepted - may not even have
been put forward by Fulham FC; it was probably cobbled together as the meeting
progressed and Fulham’s preferred solutions were refused. Plan C allowed a new board of directors for Woolwich Arsenal FC to
be formed, the third since the liquidation process began. The Football League
and George Leavey were both anxious to emphasise afterwards that Allen, Hall
and Norris would be members of this third board in their personal capacity NOT
as directors of Fulham FC although they all were directors of Fulham FC and
continued to be, and the distinction is a bit lost on me. It was clear, though,
that the feeling after the meeting was that this third board of directors to be
a temporary affair: the Football League gave them one year to float a new,
viable, limited company and make Woolwich Arsenal a going concern - in
Woolwich.
The third
board of directors (that is, Leavey plus Allen, Hall and Norris) issued a
statement after the meeting, announcing that football would continue at the
Manor Ground for another twelve months before they decided whether or not to
move the club to somewhere else.
Comment in
the press was all agreed that the saga of Woolwich Arsenal and Fulham was by no
means over yet. (In fact, it was.) Athletic News - which always had the
ear of the Football League Management Committee - told its readers that
football watchers in Woolwich had been given one season to get used to their
club’s departure or demise. Most of the
speculation in the papers over the next few days was about whether the
directors of Fulham FC who were now also directors of Woolwich Arsenal FC would
allow the Woolwich club to die and then manoeuvre Fulham into their place in
Football League Division One. A writer
in West London and Fulham Times said that Chelsea FC were likely to
oppose any future merger of Fulham FC and Woolwich Arsenal FC; and that Chelsea
would be backed up by Bolton Wanderers, Hull City and Derby County from the top
of Football League Division Two, who would all consider that they had a better
right to any vacancy in Division One that might be created if Woolwich Arsenal
FC ceased to play football.
George
Leavey might have been pleased with the outcome of the meeting but he was
probably the only one; I bet Allen, Hall and Norris were annoyed at being left
holding a baby belonging to someone else.
Looking over what happened between 1910 and 1913, my own opinion is that
it wasn’t a very satisfactory outcome for Woolwich Arsenal either.
The
Football League wanted Woolwich Arsenal’s finances sorted out by the date of
its AGM, 13 June 1910, so there was no time to hang about cursing. Between Wed 18 May and Fri 27 May 1910
the latest board of directors sent a circular to those few people who’d applied
for shares in the new limited company, asking them not to withdraw their
applications but to help the latest rescue effort. They offered special terms: anyone who’d
applied for five or more shares under the second board of would-be directors
was asked to buy three now, with William Hall and Henry Norris guaranteeing to
buy them back at their current price if, in due course, they opted to move
Woolwich Arsenal FC’s headquarters away from Plumstead.
And after
the meeting 18 May 1910 but possibly not until 1911 the local fund-raising
committee received an assurance that the new directors of Woolwich Arsenal
wouldn’t consider moving the club for TWO years (that is, the end of season
1911/12, not the one year agreed at the meeting. Perhaps William Allen could already see that
he, Hall and Norris were not going to escape from Woolwich Arsenal any time
soon, perhaps they ALL could; but Allen seems to have known better when to
quit; I think he was also the biggest Fulham fan of the three. Maybe it was agreed between them, maybe he
made the decision on his own, but around Sat 21 May 1910 Allen withdrew
from the third board of directors. He
never took any more part in the running of Woolwich Arsenal FC, becoming - in
the years around World War 1 - the financial mainstay of Fulham FC
instead. Reporting this, Athletic
News said that replacements would join the board in due course; presumably
meaning men from Woolwich. But none did;
possibly no local men came forward but even if some had, Henry Norris in
particular might not have wanted them on board the rescue ship because they’d
almost certainly fight any attempt to move Woolwich Arsenal or close it down.
More and
more of the burden of Woolwich Arsenal FC was falling on William Hall and Henry
Norris. A document listing shares bought
in the new limited company between Sat 21 May and Thur 26 May 1910 was
prepared by Norris’ solicitors Rodgers, Gilbert and Rodgers, not the club’s
solicitor. Hall and Norris had both
bought 240 shares (worth £240) and George Leavey had bought 100. There were no other shareholders of any
importance. Between Mon 6 and Mon 13
June 1910 the management of Woolwich Arsenal FC on a daily basis began,
Hall and Norris confirming George Morrell in his job as club manager, ending
speculation that he’d be sacked and Fulham’s Phil Kelso sent in instead. All the ground staff were also confirmed in
their jobs; one, Alexander Rae, was still with Arsenal in the Chapman years, in
charge of match-day hospitality. The Kentish
Independent told its readers that promises had been made to strengthen the
team; these promises weren’t kept.
There was
aggravation after aggravation. By 10
June 1910 Archibald Leitch had changed his mind about the deal Leavey had
negotiated with him and sent in a bill for the full amount he was owed by the
old limited company. This was perhaps
more a headache for Charles Brannan, as liquidator, than for Hall and Norris,
as it meant that a deal with Leitch would have to be hammered out before any
other creditors got anything. His demand
for payment in full was never an issue for the club again and in later years
Leitch appeared as a shareholder in Woolwich Arsenal FC. It seems that a deal was hammered out with
him, perhaps with shares in lieu of money as payment. Then the fund-raising committee in Woolwich
decided to wait upon events rather than hand over to Hall and Norris the money
they’d raised so far; however they did apply for several hundred shares in Hall
and Norris’ limited company.
The
attitudes they were meeting in the local people prompted Henry Norris to write
on his and Hall’s behalf in the Kentish Independent of Fri 10 June
1910. Once again, though he had not
been the prime mover in the rescue of Woolwich Arsenal by the men of Fulham, he
did take it upon himself to be the rescuers’ main spokesman, becoming -
inevitably - the man the public knew, at whom they could direct the flak. His letter said that so many of the
applicants for the shares in the new limited company had demanded their money
back when Allen, Hall and Norris had taken it over, that only 520 shares in it
were going to be owned by people living in Woolwich and Plumstead; all the rest
would be owned by Hall, Norris and Leavey.
Norris’ tone was angry and hurt - he said that the effort to save the
local football team deserved more local support. But he was uncompromising, too: he stated
that the club MUST become self-supporting, that he and Hall would not dip into
their own pockets to keep it solvent.
(That is, they would not act as Leavey had so often done.) Norris ended by calling his local critics’ bluff:
he invited them to come forward, before 17 June 1910, and take over the club
themselves if they thought they could do any better. Nobody did, of course! They just wrote angry letters of complaint
about the whole business, published in the Kentish Independent over the
next week or two; though the correspondents showed quite as much ill-feeling
towards each other as hostility towards Hall and Norris; in Woolwich, everybody
was blaming everybody else for their inability to rescue Woolwich Arsenal
without outside help.
Plans for
season 1910/11 were being held up by the length of time it was taking to sort
out the old limited company’s debts. On Mon
27 June 1910 Athletic News was noting that Woolwich Arsenal hadn’t
yet been able to sign a full squad of players.
Pre-season training began in the first week of August. By early July Hall and Henry Norris
could delay no longer in hiring a trainer. The club had been without one since
early May, saving the wages he would have been paid but again, jeopardising
plans for next season. Between Fri 8
and Fri 15 July 1910 they appointed George Hardy, previously trainer at
Newcastle United; he stayed with the club until 1927, when the events that led
to his abrupt departure contributed to the downfall of Henry Norris at the
hands of the Football Association.
The next
two weeks were dominated by preparations for the statutory meeting required by
the Companies Acts to formally allow a new limited company to take over the
debts and assets of a company in liquidation.
On Wed 13 July 1910 the new limited company, Woolwich Arsenal
Football and Athletic Company Limited (which still exists) issued a financial
statement showing that its ride was going to be rough; it was already £700 in
debt, paying the players’ close season wages. At 3pm Mon 25 July 1910
the statutory meeting was held, at the Mortar Hotel, Woolwich. It was chaired by George Leavey, as chairman
of the new limited company. Henry Norris
was only a director at this stage. But
his own solicitor, Arthur Gilbert, was at the meeting acting as company
secretary.
The main
purpose of the meeting was to approve a draft agreement between the new limited
company and the liquidator, in which the assets of the original one would be
transferred to the new one, for a price.
The new directors got the draft altered, and relieved some of the
financial pressures on themselves as the major shareholders: the price the new
company had to pay the old one was reduced from £3850 plus 400 shares (worth
£400), to £3050 and 200 (£200). The new
limited company then agreed to discharge the old one’s liabilities, including
what was owed to George Leavey (£1800, part of which was a second mortgage on
the Manor Ground), and also a debt of £232 (I don’t know what for) owed to
Archibald Gray. Nothing seems to have
been agreed about the debt to Leitch.
The financial statement presented to the meeting showed 1282 shares had
allotted in the new limited company, including 788 £1 shares fully paid up.
£868 had so far been received as payment for the 1282 shares. In addition, William Hall and Henry Norris
had handed over to the new company a loan of £369/19/4; I take it this is their
own money, the first of a great deal they were both to loan the club over the
next fifteen years, most of it unsecured loans.
If it IS their own money, they were doing exactly what George Leavey had
done over the last few years, despite saying that they wouldn’t. They’d probably realised there was no other
way to keep the club going.
A quick
blast of money-speak: unsecured loans are loans given without security -
obviously; the giver of the loan does not take anything as surety that the debt
will be paid back. When you get a
mortgage you have to give the building society your house as security: if you
don’t pay its loan, it takes the house off you.
If a company goes bankrupt its secured loans are higher up the queue
than its unsecured ones when it comes to creditors being paid - now you can see
why George Leavey was so frantic about getting the old company’s debts paid in
full. Banks don’t lend money without
security, at least not to the ordinary borrower in the street; I think that
tells you everything, doesn’t it?
So far so
good. The major purpose of the meeting was achieved. However, a lesser purpose - showing an open,
positive and inclusive face to the natives...well, maybe the new directors
didn’t even see this as important.
Knowing Henry Norris I wouldn’t have thought he did. They certainly didn’t act as though it
was. The meeting was described as
“turbulent” by the Kentish Independent and as marked by “Considerable
animation” by West London and Fulham Times; which seem to have been an
under-statement. There were only 20
people in the body of the hall, but they certainly managed to stir things up on
behalf of opinion in Woolwich. Dr John
Clarke, who’d led the first attempt to form a limited company, asked some very
awkward questions about why the latest set of directors seemed so anxious to
exclude from buying shares those local people who had been willing to invest in
the club before they took over. Someone
else accused Fulham FC of sending its directors to the meeting which began
Woolwich Arsenal’s voluntary liquidation with the intent of getting their hands
on the club’s assets via loans to George Leavey. It was while William Hall was trying to refute
this accusation that it came out that he had tried to attend the meeting but
had been turned away as it was for shareholders only.
George
Leavey in his turn had to deny accusations that William Hall and Henry Norris
had been involved in the share issue that had failed, ensuring that fail it
duly did; he stated that that effort had been undertaken solely by Woolwich
people. And Henry Norris was asked
straight out whether he intended to move Woolwich Arsenal FC away from
Woolwich. He told his questioner that
the club wouldn’t be moved away if it got sufficient support to pay its way
where it was. It was a truthful response
and one that put the burden of keeping the club in the area back where it
belonged: with the people of Woolwich and Plumstead. But the way he seems to have said it did not
inspire the locals with confidence.
The
exchanges over exactly when the men from Fulham had got actively involved with
Woolwich Arsenal FC got very angry indeed: Henry Norris and Arthur Gilbert both
clashed with Dr Clarke. Various
directors (un-named in the press reports) also tried to stop the ongoing
inquisition by declaring it extraneous to the purpose of the meeting. I think it might have been better if they’d
sat tight and let the bitterness run its course; but that was never Henry
Norris’ way and I presume his chosen solicitor would be the same. The report in the Kentish Independent
said the new board had given a very clear indication that they wouldn’t be
taking much account of local concerns when making their decisions; and all in
all it was the worst possible public beginning to the regime of Hall and Norris
at Woolwich Arsenal. However, Woolwich
Arsenal FC was still a functioning football club when season 1910/11 got
started. And John Humble had bought
shares in the new limited company; by November 1910 he was a director again,
and remained so until he fell, with Norris, in August 1927.
At the end
of 1910, the new directors of Woolwich Arsenal FC made another attempt to sell
shares in the club. But I’ve put that
tale in the next file: 1910-13, THE END OF THE DAY AT WOOLWICH.
IF YOU WANT
TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE SOURCES OF ALL THIS INFORMATION, SEND ME AN EMAIL AND
I’LL SEND YOU THE SOURCES FILE.
Copyright Sally Davis October 2007
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