Arsenal signed Eddie Hapgood, a left-back from the non-leagues, in 1927, and these are the enormous footsteps Cohen Bramall now finds himself stepping in.

Hapgood cost Herbert Chapman £950 when he purchased him from Kettering Town while Bramall will cost Arsenal £40,000 at least (although when you adjust for inflation, Hapgood cost £53,833 in today’s money).

The defender spent 17 years at Arsenal making 393 league appearances and winning five League titles, two FA Cups and 30 international caps. For 10 years, between 1929 and 1939, Eddie played 32 or more games each season having forced his way in to the first team two years after arriving.

England and Arsenal captain Eddie Hapgood before a friendly fixture at Highbury Stadium between the England team and a 'Rest of Europe' side, 26th November 1938. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
England and Arsenal captain Eddie Hapgood before a friendly fixture at Highbury Stadium between the England team and a ‘Rest of Europe’ side, 26th November 1938. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Had the war not intervened it could have been even better for Hapgood who was still only 30 in 1939, but by 1945 he had cut ties with the club.

On the back of his autobiography, Hapgood is quoted, “There was a feeling, that, once you put on an Arsenal shirt, nothing could go wrong, that your team was better than all the others.


“’Arsenal atmosphere’ it was called by those on the outside, but we knew it was team spirit, an indefinable something which carried us to the heights, kept us there, and which won us games that, by all the laws and rights, we should have lost.”

Over to you, Cohen…