{"id":7151,"date":"2013-11-29T22:37:09","date_gmt":"2013-11-29T22:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/old.thearsenalhistory.com\/?p=7151"},"modified":"2024-10-05T20:18:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-05T19:18:51","slug":"arsenals-imposter-manager-seeing-isnt-always-believing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thearsenalcollection.org.uk\/?p=7151","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal’s Imposter Manager – Seeing Isn’t Always Believing"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Andy Kelly and Mark Andrews
\n(@Gooner_AK<\/a>)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 (@Royal Arsenal MRA<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The eagle-eyed amongst you who have read through this season’s handbook will have noticed a minor change within the list of managers. Arsenal’s second manager has changed from George Elcoat to William Elcoat. The reason for this is constant badgering of the handbook editor, Josh James, by us. We showed conclusively that since 1986 George Elcoat has been wrongly credited with having managed Woolwich Arsenal, and also showed the date that he started and the date he was “asked to resign”.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

The background to this is story is that according to every Arsenal history written since 1986, George Elcoat was Arsenal\u2019s second manager.\u00a0From 1905\u00a0until 1952 he was only known as Mr Elcoat. Then Bernard Joy wrote \u201cForward, Arsenal!\u201d and gave him an initial so that he became G.\u00a0Elcoat. He remained this way until 1986 when the club\u2019s official centenary book was published and gave him a first name \u2013 George. Sadly, Bernard Joy and Daniel Feinstein (historian for the centenary book) are no longer with us to explain how they came about this information.<\/p>\n

They got the wrong man. We\u2019ve seen that there are a number of historical inaccuracies in Bernard Joy\u2019s book. These have been subsequently copied by other authors.\u00a0We believe that this is the case with Mr Elcoat.<\/p>\n

Arsenal\u2019s second manager was not George Elcoat, but his older brother William Robson Elcoat. William was born in Elton, Durham in 1859. He managed Arsenal between April 1898 and February 1899. And this is how we proved it.<\/p>\n

WR Elcoat was one of the original directors when Stockton FC turned professional and became a limited company in 1892. The club also played other sports, one of them being baseball. WR Elcoat was heavily involved in the baseball scene in the area. He was an umpire and chairman of the Cleveland and South Durham Baseball Association.<\/p>\n

\"Stockton
Stockton FC is incorporated<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 1895 the club had problems with the incumbent secretary who had refused to produce paperwork for the club\u2019s accountant to prepare the company accounts for the 1894-95 season. During the AGM in June 1895, the directors sacked the secretary and decided that WR Elcoat should take over the position.<\/p>\n

His name was only ever reported in the Stockton local press as WR Elcoat. From the birth, marriages and death registers we can see that only 1 birth with the surname Elcoat and the initials W R was registered before 1900. This was William Robson Elcoat who was born in Stockton in 1859. This can be verified by:<\/p>\n