They expanded the top flight to more clubs. We rightfully should have been promoted as we finished 3rd in the league. The other option would have been to keep Tottenham in the top flight rather than relegating them. Instead the football league voted to randomly promote arsenal who finished sixth because the chairman of arsenal who was mayor of Fulham, an MP as well connected within the London centric football league and political circles too gave a speech influencing the board to vote for his club. Claims of bribery were made but not proven.
Don't worry, we'd have got relegated the season after when we sold all our best players for £100 or summat....
Not for that no. The same bent arsenal chairman was proven to have fraudulently stolen money from the club and fiddled his expenses. Hardly a surprise considering he was an MP really.
So…. I knew this story prior, but was amazed to read it in an Arsenal programme when I visited as a neutral once. Liverpool and Man U allegedly fixed a match to keep both northern teams in the league in days when Northern and Midlands top flight domination was being threatened by Southern upstarts. Somehow (never understood how) Chelsea were also implicated and the Arsenal chairman threatened to take them all to court over all this but then dropped his threat when his team got promoted at our expense….. which makes my blood boil every time an Arsenal fan on national radio talks about what they “deserve”. Funny how how the four teams “fixing” it around money are still pretty much doing the same now and that’s why I love Man City winding them up by winning things. The same Arsenal chairman had already moved the club from Woolwich (South of Thames and Eastern extreme) to Spurs’ backyard (North and central) allegedly because they had a certain demographic that could be expected to spend money, hence the hatred to this day from the incumbents… I think he was also on the FA board (but could be wrong).
Apparently it was known about the fixed game before the vote was done but seemingly ignored. I believe he was on FA as well and surprised no one has added he was a Tory too.