Goal hero Drake, the knockout hit
BRENTFORD 3 ARSENAL 0 DIVISION ONE. APRIL 18, 1938. GRIFFIN PARK. ATT: 34,601.
Rampaging arsenal striker Ted Drake once scored seven goals in a match at aston Villa. it was the season after he had scored 42 in the league and both of those facts explain why it took Drake a mere 108 appearances to score 100 goals for the club.
it is still a club record. Thierry Henry, by comparison, needed 181 games, ian Wright 143. Drake’s goal tally at Villa park also remains a top-flight record. This was some player.
Drake was not just fast and prolific, he was, as this photograph from 1938 at Brentford confirms, indomitable. That combination of qualities that brought Southampton- born Drake two league titles as a player, an Fa Cup winner’s medal and five England caps.
Tom Whittaker served arsenal for 37 years as player, physio, coach and manager. He chose Drake at centre forward when he compiled his all-time arsenal Xi, Whittaker recalling ‘ the pounding Ted Drake, strong, lionhearted and so deadly accurate’.
When Drake scored those seven goals at Villa, the Birmingham
Gazette reported: ‘ So the name Drake will live on in football as well as naval history. a crowd of over 60,000 cheered the arsenal leader to the echo as he left the field after his triumph.’
Drake became a national figure, his unwavering bravery a trademark. He made his England debut in the infamous ‘Battle of Highbury’ against italy in 1934, and scored the only goal in the 1936 Fa Cup final despite being injured.
Drake made hard men flinch. Stan mortensen described him as ‘absolutely fearless’, and this photograph from griffin park confirms Drake’s reputation.
He is being carried off unconscious in the first half of a vital First Division match having suffered a head wound in a goalmouth collision with Brentford keeper Joe Crozier.
it appears to be Whittaker who is carrying his dazed striker from the pitch. presumably arsenal were anxious. They needed the daring and goals of Drake to win a fifth league title in eight years.
at griffin park, there were four games to go, and arsenal and Wolves were level on points at the top. The introduction of substitutes was almost 30 years away. Having been thrown over Whittaker’s shoulder, Drake regained consciousness, had a deep cut stitched up and was sent back out for the second half.
He had a fresh bandage around his head to go with the dirty one on his left wrist. arsenal lost 3-0, while Wolves won 3-0. it looked a major moment.
it was for Drake. He was taken to the Royal northern Hospital for an X-ray and was kept in. Opponents may not have relished his physicality, but Drake was popular. newspapers recorded his progress with something approaching awe.
not all football fans, though, were so enamoured. as a columnist in the Daily Herald pointed out: ‘Let me hand a word to the Brentford supporters. Ted Drake’s robust style might not be everybody’s meat, but when a fellow, after taking a five-stitch wallop, and with his hand already in plaster, has the pluck to come out and continue to play, surely it’s bad taste, to say the least, to hoot every time he touches the ball?
‘ There was even a certain amount of cheering as Drake was carried off, unconscious and bleeding. i didn’t like it.’
The injury was bad enough for Drake to miss arsenal’s next match but he was back for the one after that, a victory over Liverpool.
On the last day of the season they had to better Wolves’ result — and they did. arsenal were champions again.
Drake joined the RaF during the Second World War but a spinal injury as a war-time ‘guest’ player in 1945 ended his career.
a good enough cricketer to play for Hampshire, Drake went into management with Reading, then Chelsea. He arrived at Stamford Bridge in June 1952 and by 1953 had changed the club badge into the rampant lion; by 1955 Chelsea were champions of England.
Drake became the first man to win the title as a player and a manager. Whittaker was right: Ted Drake was a lion.