HERBERT CHAPMAN

'Herbert Chapman' (January 19, 1878 – January 6, 1934) was an English football player and manager. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential managers in English football history.

Contents

Playing career

Managerial career

Northampton Town

Leeds City

Huddersfield Town

Arsenal

England

Legacy

Footnotes

External links

Playing career

Chapman was born in Kiveton Park, Sheffield.^[1] He spent his formative years living in South Terrace, Wales Bar. His father was a coal miner, but the young Herbert was bright enough to win a place at Sheffield Technical College, where he studied engineering. Chapman played football as well, first as an amateur for a number of clubs, including Stalybridge Rovers, Rochdale, Grimsby Town, Swindon Town, Sheppey United and Worksop Town. He turned professional at Northampton Town in 1901, and had spells at Sheffield United and Notts County, before moving to Tottenham Hotspur, where he scored eleven goals in their 1905-06 Southern League campaign. His playing career was relatively inauspicious; each time he moved to a new club, he often took up an engineering job in the same town as his new club.
His brother, Harry Chapman, was also a footballer, and was much more successful as a player, playing for the Sheffield Wednesday side of the 1900s that won two league championships and an FA Cup. He also had a brief managerial career, being in charge of Hull City for a season, but died at the age of 37 in 1916.

Managerial career

Northampton Town

Chapman returned to Northampton as player-manager in 1907. Northampton were bottom of the Southern League when he joined, but he led the club to a title in 1908-09 and they were in the top four for each of the three seasons after that.

Leeds City

In 1912 he joined Leeds City as secretary-manager. He successfully lobbied for the side's re-admission to the Football League, and only just missed out on promotion to the First Division in 1914. However, during World War I Leeds were involved in a series of financial irregularities, involving payments to 'guest' players during wartime matches, that resulted in the dissolution of the club in 1919 and several club officials being banned from football for life. Chapman escaped a ban after appealing, claiming he had not been in direct control of the club at the time, having quit to take charge of a munitions factory as part of the war effort.

Huddersfield Town

Chapman spent a brief spell as manager of a coking plant in Selby, and was unemployed for short while before returning to football. He joined Huddersfield Town in September 1920 as club secretary alongside manager Ambrose Langley, an old colleague of his brother Harry. Chapman became full manager the following March. Between 1920 and 1925, Chapman led the most successful period in Huddersfield's history, winning the 1921-22 FA Cup, and the First Division title in 1923-24 and 1924-25. After his departure for Arsenal, the team he had formed went on to win the 1925-26 championship as well, an unprecedented "three in a row".

Arsenal

Chapman was tempted by Arsenal's chairman Henry Norris to join the north London club in the summer of 1925. At Arsenal, Chapman implemented a new strategy, originally suggested by player Charlie Buchan, that ruthlessly exploited a June 1925 change to the offside law. The change had reduced the number of opposition players that an attacker needed between himself and the goal-line from three to two. Buchan's idea was to move the centre half from a roaming position in midfield to a "stopper" position in defence. With one forward brought back into midfield, this changed the usual formation from 2-3-5 to 3-3-4, or a "WM", so called after the shape it formed spelled out the letters. This meant the offside trap was no longer the responsibility of the two full-backs, but the single central defender, while the full backs were pushed wider to cover the wings.
Although Arsenal did finish second in 1925-26, Arsenal spent the rest of the Twenties in mid-table; they did reach the 1927 FA Cup final, their first, but Arsenal lost 1-0 to Cardiff City after a freak error by goalkeeper Dan Lewis. However, Chapman persevered and by the early Thirties, Arsenal became one of the most fearsome attacking sides in English football. He combined his revolutionary change in tactics with signing some of the biggest stars, including Cliff Bastin, David Jack, Alex James and Eddie Hapgood.
Success finally came to Chapman's Arsenal with the 1929-30 FA Cup, beating his old side, Huddersfield Town. This laid down the foundations for a decade in which Arsenal would be the dominant team; Arsenal picked up a First Division title in 1930-31, scoring a club record 127 goals, becoming the first team from the south of England to win the League. Two years later they followed it up with the 1932-33 title, this time scoring 118 League goals.
Chapman died suddenly in January 1934, at the age of 55. Reportedly, he had attended a reserves' match on a wet and windy day while nursing a heavy cold, against his doctor's advice; the cold worsened and soon became pneumonia, and Chapman quickly succumbed. By then, he had made Arsenal the undisputed best in England, and the team went on to win the 1933-34 and 1934-35 title. Arsenal were the second side to win three League titles in a row after Huddersfield Town, and no team was to repeat the feat until Liverpool between 1982 and 1984.

England

In 1933, Chapman became the first professional manager in charge of England for the first international against Italy in Rome. He did not have any input into the selection process, the team being determined by the FA's International Selection Committee. The result was a 1-1 draw.

Legacy

He was one of the first football managers in the modern sense of the word, taking full charge of the team, rather than letting board members pick the side. As well as his tactical innovations, Chapman was also a pioneer of physical fitness in football - he instituted a strict training regime and the use of physiotherapists.
His innovative ideas spread beyond the training pitch; he was an early advocate of floodlights, white footballs and numbered shirts among many others, as well as reputedly being the driving force behind the renaming of London Underground's Gillespie Road station to Arsenal. He also changed Arsenal's kit from all-red, used by a great many football clubs, to red with white sleeves, before a match against Liverpool on March 4 1933; the same kit design survives to this day. The tradition of both teams walking out together at the FA Cup Final was started in 1930, due to Herbert Chapman's involvement with both clubs and has continued since.
In 2003 Chapman was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in recognition of his impact as a manager. A blue plaque commemorating Chapman was unveiled in March 2005, at 6 Haslemere Avenue, Hendon, where he lived from 1926 until his death. Chapman was the first footballer or football manager to be commemorated in this way.
In tribute to his achievements at the club, a bronze bust of Chapman by Jacob Epstein stands in the entrance of the halls of Arsenal's home ground, Emirates Stadium, having previously resided inside the marble halls of the East Stand of Arsenal Stadium, Highbury until its closure in 2006. He is the only former Arsenal manager to have been honoured this way. A replica of this bust has been commissioned by Arsenal Football Club for Huddersfield Town's centenary in 2008. He is buried at Hendon Parish Church, north London. For the season 2007/2008, Arsenal will wear a new away kit, dedicated to Chapman. The kit will be launched on July 5th.

Footnotes

1. According to 1881 Census records. Reference: Herbert Chapman 1878-1934 Hobbs, Chris

External links

★ Biography at Leeds United history site

★ Biography (includes Herbert Chapman's obituary in ''The Times'')

★ English Heritage information about Chapman's blue plaque

★ Herbert Chapman profile on Arsenal-land

★ Herbert Chapman statistics at Leeds City from wafll.com

★ New Arsenal Away Kit for Herbert Chapman