Arsenal were fancying an unbeaten season until they met Rams
WHEN they arrived at the Baseball Ground in late November 1947, Arsenal were beginning to believe that they could go right through a League season unbeaten.
Unlike Arsene Wenger’s team of 2003-04, however, Tom Whittaker’s Gunners came unstuck well before Christmas. And it was Derby County who ended their dreams.
Arsenal had lost their final game of 1946-47 but started the following season in rampant form, winning their first six matches.
By the time they faced the Rams, their unbeaten run stretched to 17 matches – 12 wins and five draws – and they were favourites to lift the League championship.
Yet 12 months earlier, the Gunners had been at the foot of the table.
It was only after the signing of two veterans, Fulham centre-forward Ronnie Rooke and Everton winghalf Joe Mercer, that their fortunes improved.
Mercer’s inspirational captaincy and Rooke’s 21 goals in 24 matches eventually helped Arsenal to a respectable 13th place.
The Rams had finished one place below Arsenal the previous season.
Unlike the Gunners, they suffered a poor start to 1947-48, despite having broken the British transfer record in the summer by paying £15,500 for Morton’s Scotland international inside-left, Billy Steel.
Largely unknown before winning his first cap, Steel had so impressed on his Scotland debut, in April 1947, that one month later he was playing for Great Britain against the Rest of Europe. A month after that, he was a Derby player.
Even Steel could not help the Rams to get off to a decent start, however, and their cause was not helped by an injury to Jack Stamps, scorer of two goals in the 1946 Cup Final triumph.
Derby tried Frank Broome, Angus Morrison, and even Cup Final winghalf Jim Bullions in the number nine shirt before Morrison settled into that position, although when the Rams lost 3-1 at home to Aston Villa in September, it was their third successive defeat, and after nine matches they had won only twice.
From that moment, however, Derby County were the team in form.
Starting with a 1-1 draw away to Sunderland on September 27, they went 10 games undefeated, a magnificent run which yielded 16 points – only two for a win in those days – and which concluded with the famous victory over Arsenal on November 29.
The fans’ hero against the Gunners was little winger Reg Harrison, who scored the only goal of the game in the 39th minute. But there were other heroes, of course.
In the Derby Evening Telegraph, Frank Nicklin wrote: “Derby owed their triumph as much as anything to the near-faultless wing-half play of Ward and Musson, who time and again nipped Arsenal attacks in the bud. “With Mozley and Howe holding the wings, and Leuty barring the way down the middle to Rooke, and later Lewis, Derby were able to maintain a fivepronged attack throughout. “But the most pleasing feature of the game from Derby’s point of view was the brilliant understanding and inter-changing of Carter and Steel. It brought back nostalgic memories of the Carter-Doherty days. Billy Steel’s display was far and away his best with the Rams.
“… Only a brilliant display by Swindin, the busiest man on the field, saved Arsenal from a humiliating defeat.”
Arsenal goalkeeper George Swindin was no stranger to the Baseball Ground, having guested for the Rams during the war.
It was difficult to nominate the Rams’ man of the match.
Every one was a star, even outsideleft Alan Oliver, who was playing only his eighth game in the Football League.
The attendance at the Baseball Ground that day was 35,713, the highest since the visit of Nottingham Forest for an FA Cup tie in January 1936.
For Arsenal, defeat at Derby proved only a temporary setback.
They lost another five games that season but ended it as champions, with the ever-present Rooke scoring 33 goals.
The Rams’ next game was a real thriller that produced 11 goals.
Angus Morrison scored four of them but, alas, he was on the wrong end of a 7-4 scoreline against Preston North End at Deepdale.
Derby had led 2-0 after only six minutes and the scores were level with 17 minutes to go when Tom Finney laid on three goals to complete
The most pleasing feature was the brilliant understanding of Carter and Steel. Frank Nicklin
an astonishing victory for Preston.
A run of six consecutive wins over Christmas and the New Year and another four consecutive victories at the end of the season saw the Rams finish fourth.
Arsenal, meanwhile, would have to wait more than half a century to realise their unbeaten dream.