On this day - Champion moment as Herbert Chapman leads Huddersfield Town to league title

“Bravo, Town!” read the headline of the Huddersfield Examiner only six years after it dramatically declared “Town club dead”.

It would be the last trophy Herbert Chapman paraded around his native Yorkshire.

Chapman holds a unique place in English football history, having created two sides that won a hat-trick of league titles without hanging around to see either achieve it.

His first came with a club whose existence had been in doubt after World War One and who even in 1924-25 only drew average gates of 18,500.

If the previous year’s win was about as marginal as possible, the defence was wrapped up with a match to spare. Defending was, after all, Chapman’s hallmark.

With Charlie Wilson scoring his 24th goal of the season, a 1-1 draw at Notts County brought the title back to West Yorkshire.

When, a couple of weeks later, Arsenal advertised for a new manager, Chapman might have wondered why. He had already been approached and saw no need to apply. Returning early from Huddersfield’s post-season tour on June 4, his appointment was announced six days later.

There was no bitterness from the club that had rescued him as he had them, just a 200 guineas thank you. When the sides met in the 1930 FA Cup final, Chapman added to the many traditions he brought to the game – including shirt numbers, the W-M formation, then flat back fours, and Arsenal’s red shirts with white sleeves – by suggesting they emerge from the Wembley tunnel side-by-side.

Like Huddersfield, he had been looking at a life without football in 1919.

Chapman managed Leeds City at the start of World War One, but worked in a munitions factory for its last two years before returning, only to resign in December 1918. Leeds were in the midst of the illegal payments scandal which led to them folding, and his lifetime ban from football.

Second Division Town were struggling too on low gates, and owner Hilton Crowther suggested merging with City’s successors, Leeds United.

Wool merchant Joseph Barlow saved Huddersfield, who in turn rescued Chapman when the Selby coke factory he was working at was sold off in Christmas 1920. Ambrose Langley, a former team-mate of his brother Harry, offered Chapman the chance to become his assistant, and newly-promoted Huddersfield successfully argued that as the illegal payments were made while he was working in the factory, Chapman could not be to blame, and his ban was lifted. Within a month, Langley left and Chapman became secretary-manager, picking the team unlike most of his counterparts and sometimes training with them.

His first full season ended as FA Cup winners, Huddersfield finished third in the 1922-23 First Division and won their maiden title in 1923-24, with a goal average of 1.818 to Cardiff City’s 1.794.

Born in Kiverton Park near Rotherham and no more than a humdrum inside-forward in his playing days, Chapman was a revolutionary manager, one of the first to introduce diet and fitness regimes, as well as masseurs and physiotherapists.

Defenders were told to play the ball out, not hoof it as most did, while wingers were encouraged to drill it in low, not get to the byline and cross. Rather than play in midfield, centre-half Tom Wilson sat between the full-backs to mark the opposition centre-forward.

In an era of largely headless attacking, Town mastered the counter-attack, built on strong foundations. In 1924-25 they conceded 28 goals in 42 games, and never more than twice.

Chapman had only felt the need for one summer signing in 1924, winger Joey Williams, but Billy Mercer’s arrival was crucial.

The Terriers were unbeaten after 10 matches but when goalkeeper Ted Taylor broke his leg, they lost four out of five until Mercer signed from Hull City and kept 13 clean sheers in 27 games.

Chapman may have left in the summer, but not without laying firm foundations. Another ground-breaking idea was telling the reserves and youth teams to play in the same style as the seniors, and his last signing, Alex Jackson, scored 16 goals as Huddersfield became the first English team to win three consecutive titles, despite a minus goal difference away from home. Arsenal were second, five points behind.

Huddersfield were runners-up in 1927 and 1928, when they lost the first of two FA Cup finals in three years.

The 1930 FA Cup was Arsenal’s first major trophy. Chapman had said it would take five years. In 1931 they won the league, and again in 1933, 34 and 35.

Chapman died of pneumonia caught on a scouting mission in January 1934 but his footballing legacy remains to this day.

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