How City Won Their First Title
And How Leaders Arsenal Faded Away In 1937
City finished 5th in the League in their 1933-34 FA Cup-winning season, 14 points behind champions Arsenal. In 1935 they finished 4th, ten points behind Arsenal, who had completed a hat-trick of titles to add to their first ever one in 1931.
In 1935 City got a new chairman, Bob Smith. In his first season in charge, the club finished 9th. It was a good portent for his 19-year chairmanship.
But in February 1936 he did pull off one masterstroke, when City paid £10,000 for the greatest player of his generation, 22-year-old forward Peter Doherty. It was £647 less than the British transfer record set by Arsenal in 1928.
It took a while for City to adjust to Doherty’s unique playing style. In September 1936 Reynolds News wrote,
‘Doherty is so bewilderingly clever that he beats not only the opposition defender, and his own colleagues, but himself as well.
A wonder player, this Doherty, but he will have to come out of the clouds to be of practical service in a side so unimaginative as Manchester City.’
Many City fans had now grown so frustrated they slow-handclapped the side for the last 15 minutes of the 0-0 draw against Chelsea at Maine Road on 26 September. According to Reynolds News, it was known as the “Clarence Clap” and had originated in London boxing before spreading to Manchester’s Belle Vue. The paper claimed this was the first time slow-handclapping had been used by a football crowd.
Arsenal were also struggling. They were in 13th, two places below City, following a 2-2 draw against Derby that day. Curiously, Arsenal's opening goal was scored by 18-year-old Dennis Compton, who made his England Test debut the following year and became a legendary cricketer (he also went on to win a League title medal with Arsenal in 1948 and an FA Cup winners medal in 1950).
But after losing on Christmas Day, City went on an unbeaten League run that included an astonishing series of results that began on Good Friday.
City were in seventh place, five points behind leaders Arsenal, when they met Liverpool at Anfield on 26 March. Doherty scored in the 5-0 win and netted again in the 2-2 home draw with Bolton the next day. On 29 March, City beat Liverpool 5-1 at Maine Road. Doherty then scored two in the 6-2 win at Brentford on 3 April, then another in the 2-1 defeat of Brentford at Maine Road on the 7th.
City were now second, one point behind leaders Arsenal but with a game in hand (2pts for a win back then, remember).
Three days later, Doherty scored the opener in the 2-0 defeat of Arsenal in front of a 75,000 Maine Road crowd.
According to Reynolds News,
'Every move was countered by a smarter one, and now that the City have got on top of the table, there's not much likelihood of their being shifted.'
After two Docherty goals sealed the 3-1 defeat of Sunderland on 14 April, City went to Preston on the 17th. Two-nil down at half time, City scored three in three minutes. Doherty got the first two, then later headed in for his hat-trick in the 5-2 win.
Eight games in 23 days. Seven wins and a draw. 23 goals for (11 by Doherty), 9 against.
A week later City took on relegation-battlers Sheffield Wednesday at Maine Road. Three goals in 12 minutes, the first two set up brilliantly by Doherty and the third another of his wonder goals, clinched a 4-2 win—and City’s first ever title.
Doherty finished the season with 30 goals in 41 League games, while helping winger Eric Brook to his record 20 League goals.
But that summer, City’s tight-knit directors acquired the remainder of the club’s unissued shares, amounting to around 30% of the total (it appears that Arsenal directors did a similar thing around this time). Chairman Bob Smith declared that the move would prevent “outside busybodies” from interfering in the club’s affairs.
But City’s first title win would prove to be the swansong of a side assembled by the previous board. That board had included a few “outside busybodies”, bringing new ideas to the club.
City were now set for a long era of decline, beginning with their relegation a year later.
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