GREAT LITTLE SCOT'S TRIUMPH OF BRAIN
— Thomas Moult | 03/02/1935 —

A football king made history for himself yesterday — just like the other kind of king did as a matter of habit in days of old.

He was Alex James, and he scored three goals for the first time in one match since he came south six years ago — exactly as many as he scored in nearly 30 matches last season!

In one match, did we say? Why, those three goals came flashing from James's feet and head in twenty minutes!

They were gained at the expense of Sheffield Wednesday, who were so flabbergasted that although they had previously deserved their all-square position at the change-over, they ended up by being beaten hollow.

As a matter of fact, James had a monopoly of the Arsenal goal-getting until the final minute of the game, when Bastin drove in a beauty that completed the four.

The other three had been beauties too, and here is the story of them, a story told to suit the kingly theme.

JAMES THE FIRST.

During the opening half James had played his usual down-field game — and he was then as supreme in his monarchy as he became later on. But after the interval he changed his method, and for once became an attacking forward.

Moreover, he was shooting with a real marksman's sting, and soon the crowd ceased to think his efforts merely comic, for at the tenth minute he screwed in a shot from twenty-five yards away that skimmed off a defender and left the experienced Brown so nonplussed that the ball spun out of his hands, along his arms, and was in the net before he could recover.

JAMES THE SECOND.

The great little Scot was still beaming, and probably still smarting from the hurricane of shoulder pats with which his joyful colleagues overwhelmed him, when his chance came again — six minutes later.

He took it like a dashing, crashing centre forward, for Brown had only partly cleared from Beasley and Drake as they leaped in to meet Hulme's skilfully kicked corner.

James followed up and rammed the ball through before the Sheffield defenders could move a muscle.

JAMES THE THIRD.

The Arsenal lead was lessened before this one came at the half-hour mark. Sheffield had been fighting back in a dogged sort of way — something like a prize-fighter gone groggy — and Palethorpe drove in a splendid ball that Moss would doubtless have saved if he had not been recovering from a mishap.

That Wednesday goal was scored at the twenty-third minute, and the visiting forwards took such heart from it that an equaliser became imminent — as a line they were superior to the Arsenal. When Crayston was hurt and helped off the Highbury "fans" had anxious faces, but soon they were to express the utmost glee.

For Beasley placed a corner so perfectly that he never did anything half so good, and like a leaping cat — a king can look like a cat sometimes — James met it with his head and flashed it through just inside the post.

JAMES-NEARLY-THE-FOURTH.

Yes, indeed, for Alex was side by side with Bastin when the ball came across from another Beasley corner as the referee was about to blow his last whistle. Unselfishly the shot was left to Bastin, and what a shot! Brown never saw it.

If anyone had any doubts about James being Alexander the Greatest, the manner in which he changed his methods to meet the Arsenal need must have swept all those doubts away.

His triumph was really a triumph of brain, and he thoroughly outwitted Manager "Billy" Walker in the tactics by which the Wednesday defenders concentrated on the players who were to receive James's passes rather than on James himself.

Master passes they were, thrilling to see, but unfortunately the Arsenal attack was not worthy of them. Drake was sluggish, Hulme completely held by Catlin — a grand full-back — Bastin not at home though always trying to be, and Beasley by no means a Bastin at outside left

Arsenal: Moss; Male, Hapgood; Crayston, Roberts, Copping; Hulme, Bastin, Drake, James, Beasley.

Sheffield Wednesday: Brown; Nibloe, Catlin; Sharp, Millership, Burrows; Hooper, Surtees, Palethorpe, Burgess, Rimmer.