Legend Lawton’s swansong at Brentford and Arsenal | History | News

Having played for Everton and Chelsea on both sides of the Second World War, towering England centre-forward Tommy Lawton was one of the finest centre-forwards of his generation.

Latown won two Golden Boots, won the league title at Goodison Park and scored 20 times in 19 caps for the Three Lions before surprising the footballing world when he moved down to the Third Division to play for Notts County in 1947, aged just 28.

Although his time at Meadow Lane was successful, his international appearances dried up and in 1951 he joined second-tier Brentford for a record fee of £16,000. The iconic striker played for the Bees for a season and a half, including a brief spell as the club’s player-manager, but the outspoken Lawton criticized the club for selling future West Ham and England manager Ron Greenwood and future Match of the Day host Jimmy Hill.

But this friction would lead to a high-profile swan song with Arsenal in November 1953, at the age of 34, when most footballers, according to the man himself, “are fit for the knackers’ yard”. Manager Tom Whittaker, who had already enjoyed success with veterans like Joe Mercer and Ronnie Rooke, took a punt on the old stager and he played 53 league matches for us, scoring 13 goals.

Arguably Lawton’s most historic match in an Arsenal shirt took place not in N5, but almost 2,000 miles away in Moscow. In 1954, as the Cold War reached its peak, we announced our upcoming trip to play Dynamo Moscow. The ensuing clamor for tickets in the Soviet capital rivaled that which had greeted news of Dynamo’s famous British goodwill tour almost a decade earlier, in November 1945, which Lawton had faced during his years at Chelsea.

Lawton, whose articles in newspapers and football magazines have been read around the world, was the most famous member of the Arsenal delegation which undertook the journey east in October aboard two special British European Airways Viscounts, which Lawton described as a “flying luxury hotel”, but after swapping those from Prague, the players then boarded two dilapidated planes for the onward journey.

Lawton likened it to “saying goodbye to civilization.” Due to bad weather, they landed in Minsk, 400 miles from Moscow. The travel-weary players caught up on some sleep and trained before the match at Dynamos Stadium the next day. Lawton then told reporters about the less-than-delicious chicken soup the players received during the last game against Moscow, “which turned our stomachs.”

The nimble Dynamos showed no mercy to the tired Gunners and won 5-0. In his media work, Lawton was effusive in his praise of our opponents, emphasizing that English football could learn a lot from their hosts’ mixture of breathtaking speed and crisp passing. Coach Mikhail Yakouchine – a former hockey player – encouraged his players to play with two feet as much as possible, even suggesting that learning to write clearly with both hands would create a flexible mindset.

The result was disheartening, but in our 1994 interview, winger Alex Forbes recalled the aura that surrounded Lawton. “In Moscow, the Russian fans were clamoring to get closer to Tommy. They desperately wanted to shake his hand and get his autograph. He was like a Hollywood movie star to them.”

Even at the age of 35, veteran Tommy Lawton was a star on both sides of the Iron Curtain.