Wartime Wonder: Ted Drake

Edward Joseph Drake was the first of a breed now dying; the archetypal bustling centre-forward. He was the focal point of the ‘WM’ formation which typified 1930s football. Contemporary writers described him as “fast on his feet and fearless.”

 
Born on the 16th of August 1912 in Southampton, Drake featured as a junior for Southampton Schoolboys. In August 1928 he joined amateur club Southampton Gas Works while working as a gas-meter reader. Eight months later he moved to Winchester City.
 

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Drake missed a trial at Tottenham Hotspur through injury, a recurring theme in a disruptive playing career, but was persuaded by Southampton manager George Kay to sign his first professional contract at The Dell as a nineteen-year-old in November 1931.  

By the end of the 1931/32 season Drake had cemented his place in the starting line-up at second division Saints. He rose to prominence during the following campaign, scoring twenty goals in thirty-three appearances; a highly impressive haul for a twenty-year-old.

It was in the summer of 1933 that Drake rejected the advances of First Division Champions Arsenal and their luminary manager Herbert Chapman, however, both the Gunners and Chapman would keep a watchful eye on the young marksman. A hat-trick against Bradford on the opening day of the 33/34 season exemplified his potency at a lower level.
 
Chapman prepared meticulously, and shortly after one scouting excursion to freezing Sheffield in January 1934 was diagnosed with pneumonia. Herbert Chapman sadly passed away on January 6th 1934; the day his Arsenal team were scheduled to host Sheffield Wednesday. 50,000 flocked to Highbury. The Last Post was sounded in his memory.
 
By March Drake had scored forty-eight times in seventy-four appearances for Southampton; twenty-two of which had been plundered that season. Chapman’s flamboyant successor George Allison also admired Drake, and paid £6,500 to bring “the best centre-forward in the world” to North London.
 
Drake made his Arsenal debut on March 24th against Wolves and propelled his team-mates to the 1933-34 First Division title. However, he did not make enough appearances to qualify for a league winners’ medal.
 
In his first full term the Hampshire-born forward banished any remaining disappointment by claiming his own league winners’ medal; Arsenal’s third successive triumph. Drake’s influence was ubiquitous. He registered forty-two goals in forty-one league appearances, a tally which included three hat-tricks and four four-goal hauls. His total of forty-four goals in all competitions in 1934/35 set an Arsenal club record which still stands today.
 
Drake had ingratiated himself with those in North London and made an impact at his new home for both club and country. His Three Lions debut came in ‘The Battle of Highbury’ against Italy in November 1934. In a frantic first half Drake earned a penalty, broke the toe of Italian defender Luis Monti thanks to a robust challenge, and put England into a 3-0 lead. His International debut concluded in a 3-2 victory.
 
Over the following four years Drake featured only intermittently for his country; managing four more caps against Ireland, Wales, Hungary, and France; and scoring five more goals comprising a hat-trick against Hungary and a brace against the French. It was due to England having such a talented array of forwards, including Tommy Lawton and Dixie Dean, that Drake’s opportunities were limited.
 
Meanwhile Drake flourished in the domestic game. On December 14th 1935 he scored all seven goals in a 1-7 demolition of Aston Villa. He had scored three by half-time and six by the sixtieth minute. The referee controversially denied him a seventh goal when the ball hit the bar and bounced on the line. “Don’t be greedy, isn’t six enough?” the official remarked. Drake eventually scored a seventh in injury time to set a top flight record which remains intact.
 
Drake competed in fierce, beguiling, and ruthless fashion, but he was a deceptively versatile athlete. He also represented Hampshire County Cricket Club sixteen times between 1931 and 1936.
 
Drake added more silverware in 1936, scoring the only goal in F.A. Cup Final victory over Sheffield United in front of 93,384 at Wembley. After a rare fallow year in 1937 the Gunners returned to form in the next campaign.
 
With four games to go Arsenal and Wolves were tied at the top and the Gunners headed to Griffin Park. Drake broke two bones in his wrist and was then knocked unconscious in a collision with Brentford keeper Joe Crozier. He was stretchered off but reappeared, stitched up, to play the second half. As the full-time whistle blew on a 3-0 defeat, he was slung over the shoulder of trainer Tom Whittaker and sent to hospital. Galvanised by Drake’s courageousness, his Arsenal team-mates won three in a row and snatched the title from their Black Country rivals.
 
During World War Two, Drake served in the RAF and was mostly based in the London area, making appearances in the Wartime League for Arsenal and West Ham. In 1945, a spinal injury sustained in military training was exacerbated in a game between Arsenal and Reading. Retirement, after 139 goals in 184 games for Arsenal, was the only option.
 
Following brief coaching stints at Highbury and Hendon, Drake was appointed manager of Reading in June 1947. He led the Royals to two runners-up finishes in Division Three South at a time when only the champions gained promotion. “A modest, cheerful, and unfailingly gentle man” Drake’s managerial style seemed to represent the antithesis of his playing style.
 

Copyright Chelsea Football Club

At just thirty-nine years of age Drake took the reins at Chelsea on April 30th 1952. First, he introduced an exhaustive but rewarding training regime, then reformed the club’s recruitment policy, preferring talented hungry players on the way up to ageing ‘big-name’ players on the way out.
 
Arguably Drake’s most profound act as manager was the decision to abandon the ‘Pensioners’ tag. This nickname referred to the war veterans who resided at the local Royal Hospital Chelsea. The club badge also consisted of a drawing of a Chelsea pensioner. Drake decreed that the new crest design should include the club’s initials and a rampant lion. This image remains the basis for the club emblem today.
 
In 1954/55, Chelsea lifted their one and only first division trophy of the twentieth century. Drake had become the first man to win the title as a player and a manager. The Football League refused Chelsea the right to compete in the inaugural 1955/56 UEFA European Cup competition, and gradually the squad weakened, separated, and tensions grew. The 1960/61 season was made memorable by an ignominious F.A. Cup defeat to fourth division Crewe Alexandra. By September 1961 Drake was sacked and Tommy Docherty, originally brought in as understudy, was given the job.
 
Subsequently, he worked as a bookmaker and life insurance salesman before undertaking a six-month role as Barcelona assistant manager in 1970. Drake had made a home in London though, and between 1972 and 1985 was attached to Fulham FC, first as reserve team manager, then chief scout, and eventually club president.
 
Ted Drake passed away on May 30th 1995 in Raynes Park, Merton, London. His legacy, to a small extent, is our liberty. However, the Chelsea crest and the painting of Drake on the outer walls of Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium are enduring symbols of his gifts to English football.







Quotation References/ Citations:
"Ted Drake." Times [London, England] 1 June 1995: 23. The Times Digital Archive

The Title, Scott Murray, Bloomsbury, (2017)

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaryted-drake-1584467.html