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Alex James
| Category: | Male Player |
| Year Inducted: | 2005 |
Profile by Robert Galvin, the author of The Football Hall of Fame, the official book of the National Football Museum Hall of Fame:
Owner of the most famous baggy shorts in football, Alex James did more than any other player to make Arsenal great during the 1930s.
The statistics tell the story: before James arrived at Highbury in 1929, the club had won nothing despite a heavy investment in the transfer market; over the ensuing seven years Arsenal won four championship titles and reached three FA Cup Finals.
‘It is impossible to underestimate James' contribution to the successful Arsenal side of the 1930s,' the official club history states. ‘He was simply the key man.'
From his deep-lying inside-forward position, James was the creative hub of the team, collecting the ball from defenders, then spraying passes to either of the Arsenal wingers, Joe Hulme or Cliff Bastin. The official history of the Football Association described him as ‘a little midfield genius'.
James was signed for a fee of £8,750 from Preston North End, the club he joined after leaving his native Scotland. It was huge sum at the time; Preston saw it as good business. Herbert Chapman, the Arsenal manager, was convinced, rightly, that he had a bargain.
During his time at Deepdale, a newspaper cartoonist drew him wearing oversized shorts in a caricature, probably to accentuate his short stature. James played up to the image. ‘They keep my knees warm,' he said. As a boy growing up in Preston, Tom Finney idolised James from the terraces. ‘I began wearing ridiculously baggy shorts as well,' Finney said.
James hated to waste energy. His motto was: ‘Let the ball do the work.' Others could do the chasing. Managers tolerated it all because of his exceptional ability. Ever the pragmatist, Chapman allowed James a lie-in until noon on match-days, a freedom denied other players; a blind-eye was also turned to his late-night partying.
James was one of the first footballers to realise than his name carried commercial value, and he made a determined effort to cash in on his fame. A well-paid job at a department store and a ghosted newspaper column soon supplemented his Arsenal wage – and funded a lifestyle that brought him into the company of actors and musicians.
The Scot added to his reputation in 1928 as one of the ‘Wembley Wizards' who humiliated England 5-1 at Wembley. Two years later he helped Arsenal win the FA Cup for the first time. The Times reported: ‘The skill and bold tactics of James that turned the scale in favour of his side.'
Other clubs soon adopted the Arsenal method but, lacking a creative talent equal in ability to James, none could consistently match the Gunners.
‘No-one like him ever kicked a ball,' George Allison, who succeeded Chapman as Arsenal manager said. ‘He simply left the opposition looking on his departing figure with amazement.' It was Allison who made James captain for the FA Cup Final in 1936, when Arsenal beat Sheffield United 1-0.
When he retired the following May, the remnants of the side originally built by Chapman had only one more title left in them. The golden era – the era of Alex James – was over.