Fans of a certain vintage will remember the Chris Whyte experiment in 1985, not a band plugged by John Peel on Radio 1, rather the brainchild of Don Howe and John Cartwright.
Whyte scored six goals in a Football Combination match against Charlton (Arsenal won 12-0), impressing reserves manager, Terry Burton.
“We’ll continue with the experiment of playing Chris Whyte in a forward role,” Howe wrote in his programme notes before the League Cup match against Hereford.
Whyte’s conversion to a striker had not gone down well with fans, Jon Spurling summing things up in his book All Guns Blazing: “Here, surely was a hideous scientific experiment gone wrong, proof that that Cartwright was indeed football’s Doctor Frankenstein.”.
Early-season defeats against Liverpool and Manchester United hinted that Arsenal were still miles away from a title challenge, but four consecutive wins in the autumn moved Howe’s team into the chasing pack behind pacesetters United, who would win their first 10 matches.
