Title deciders
The Lane on a Monday night
The first Double was decided twice in a week: once at Wembley, and first of all at the home of Arsenal's oldest rivals, in red with white sleeves.
1970–71 · Doubles & Finals · 6 minute read
The worst possible venue
Fixture lists have a sense of humour. Arsenal's final league match of 1970–71 was away at Tottenham Hotspur, on Monday 3 May, and it was the match that would decide the title. A win would make Arsenal champions. A goalless draw would also do it, on goal average. Any score draw would hand the league to Leeds United. Tottenham, who had completed the century's first Double ten years earlier, had every reason to make sure nobody else joined them. Contemporary accounts describe crowds locked outside White Hart Lane long before kick-off; tens of thousands of people wanted to be there, and the ground could not hold them all.
Red under floodlights
Arsenal wore their familiar red with white sleeves, the design Herbert Chapman had introduced in the 1930s. By 1971 it was already a uniform with history inside it, and Bertie Mee's team wore it like a working garment rather than a costume. This was a side built on organisation, effort and a fierce collective spirit: Frank McLintock's leadership, Bob Wilson's bravery, George Graham's craft, and a young forward line that would not stop running.
Kennedy, three minutes from time
The match was tight, nervous and goalless until the closing minutes. Then George Armstrong crossed and Ray Kennedy rose to head the ball into the net. Even then the drama was not over, because a Tottenham equaliser would have handed the title to Leeds. Arsenal held on through the final minutes. When the whistle went, they were league champions on the ground of their neighbours, which is the kind of detail supporters do not forget.
Five days later
The following Saturday Arsenal beat Liverpool in the FA Cup final, this time in yellow, with Charlie George's famous winner in extra time. The Double was complete. But the order matters: the red shirt won the league first. In a sense the 1970–71 season belongs to two shirts, and the red one carried the longer, harder half of the work, forty-two league matches of it.
A shirt without decoration
Look closely at a shirt from this season and you notice how little there is. No sponsor, no maker's logo on the chest in the modern sense, no trim beyond the white sleeves and collar. Its authority comes entirely from shape and colour. That restraint is part of why later anniversary designs keep returning to this era: it reminds people what Arsenal looks like before anything else is added.