History

33. Arsenal's final game outside top flight

Arsenal 1914/15

Highbury hosts final game outside top flight 24 April 1915

On April 24, 1915 Arsenal Football Club played their last game to date outside of the top division of English football. Ironically, they did not know this at the time.

League football was suspended for the war after this fixture and owner Henry Norris successfully negotiated Arsenal a place in the top flight when the league was re-opened and expanded in 1919.

Nottingham Forest visited Highbury and were thrashed 7-0 by George Morrell’s side. That fixture also happened to be Morrell’s last game in charge of the Club. The matchday programme carried news of his resignation, but the Club as a whole would shut down until peacetime.

Striker Harry King scored four goals for the Gunners that day. He only spent one year with the Club but managed an incredible total of 26 goals from 37 matches that season.

Arsenal finished sixth in the table in 1915 but were promoted four years later.

The strangest thing, however, is that although they were recognised as finishing sixth, the 7-0 win took them above Birmingham City on goal average and into fifth position, but no one picked up on this fact until 1980 — an astonishing 65 years later.