By Far The Tightest Title Winners: Huddersfield Town, Cardiff and the 0.024 Margin (1923–1924)

When the great Herbert Chapman won his first top tier title as a manager in 1923-24 with Huddersfield Town it could not have been much closer.

In fact, for all the excitement of the dramatic late Michael ‘it’s up for grabs now’ Thomas and Aguerooohhh moments, the English top tier title has technically never been closer.

Huddersfield Town and Cardiff City both finished on 57 points. Huddersfield had scored 60 goals and conceded 33, while Cardiff had managed 61 and let in 34.

In modern times, Cardiff would have won the title on goals scored, as the two sides were tied on a goal difference of plus 27. However, in 1924 such things were decided by goal average – goals scored divided by those conceded. This method not only created fans with an unwanted maths challenge to keep track of their team’s place in the table, it also favoured sides that conceded less goals.

In this instance Huddersfield triumphed with a goal average of 1.818 compared to 1.794 for Cardiff. You know it’s close when you need a second decimal place to decide the winner.

Cardiff played their part in making it exciting. They only had to win at Birmingham City on the last day of the season to triumph, but missed a penalty and could only draw 0-0.

This left the door open for Huddersfield, but they still had work to do. They needed to win 3-0 or by a four-goal margin to take the title. Two goals by George Cook and one by George Brown – incredibly two of only five goalscorers for Huddersfield in the league all season - put them 3-0 up.

Huddersfield held on to clinch the first of three consecutive titles. Cardiff missed out on the chance to become the first – and still never achieved – Welsh team to win the title.

Arsenal, somewhat against type for a George Graham side, ultimately won by virtue of having scored more goals than Liverpool. Had goal average still been in place, Arsenal would have lost the title

Television of course now captures each twist and turn of such last day title deciders. Before that, fans relied on radios to provide news of key goals in the other games. But Huddersfield’s dramatic win pre-dates even the first radio commentary. It is unclear exactly how quickly fans and players were aware of what was going on at St Andrews, given news was relayed to Chapman via someone on the telephone.

While the margin of Huddersfield’s win – a 0.024 difference in goal average – is the closest in top tier history, they struggle to match Arsenal for last day excitement given the Gunners have won titles by both goal average and goals scored.

In 1953, Preston had set up a dramatic last day by beating Arsenal in their penultimate game of the season. Both sides won their final games to leave the two sides with identical won 21, drawn 12 and lost nine records. Arsenal though edged the title by almost a full 0.1 worth of goal average, reward for having scored just shy of 100 goals that season.

Yet this is not Arsenal’s most dramatic win, given their last day shootout for the title with Liverpool in 1989. Arsenal’s 2-0 win at Anfield again meant the two sides ended with symmetrical records. Thomas’ iconic late second though also tied the two teams on a plus 37 goal difference – which by this stage had replaced goal average as the deciding mechanism.

Arsenal, somewhat against type for a George Graham side, ultimately won by virtue of having scored more goals than Liverpool.

Had goal average still been in place, Arsenal would have lost the title by a relatively large 0.3 margin.

Arsenal then could be thankful that English football scrapped goal average as a deciding factor in 1976, surprisingly late given FIFA had already adopted it at the 1970 World Cup.

The same, however, cannot be said for Heart of Midlothian.

The Edinburgh side lost the title to Kilmarnock in 1964-65 on goal average, after both sides finished on 50 points. Hearts missed out by an agonising 0.04 margin on goal average, but would have won the title with a goal difference some 12 better than Kilmarnock.

Goal difference was in play by the time Hearts were going to head-to-head with Celtic for the title in 1986. Come the last day all Hearts had to do was go to Dundee and avoid defeat – something they had managed to avoid over 27 league games since the end of September. Hearts though lost. Celtic won. And the goal difference swung from two goals in Hearts favour to Celtic being three goals better off.

And as irony fans have doubtless guessed already, Hearts would have won the title by a 0.02 margin had goal average still been used.

For all the excitement of the dramatic late Michael ‘it’s up for grabs now’ Thomas and Aguerooohhh moments, the English top tier title has technically never been closer

But it is not only the method of deciding titles which has also moved on over the years. So too has ensuring the deciding games are played at the same time, which had not always been the case amid fixture congestion because of postponements and replays in cup runs.

Derby County, for example, finished a point above not just one, but three chasing teams in winning the 1972 title. However, they only discovered their fate a week after they had wrapped up their season and gone on holiday. Both Liverpool and Leeds United failed to win games which would have clinched the title.

By contrast Queens Park Rangers were kept hanging for 10 days in 1976 before Liverpool this time did hold their nerve to cruelly prevent the Loftus Road playmakers from a first title.

How We Ranked Them

We have five categories of greatness from our five-star All-Time Greats category at the top to our one-star Blinkered Greats category at the bottom. While it probably takes any suspense out of how we are going to rank Chapman’s achievements at Arsenal, we ranked this football pioneer top of the shop *****All Time Greats

Listen To The Podcast

We were joined for by Phil Craig for the first of a two-parter on Herbert Chapman to look at how he began to revolutionise the role of a football manager at Huddersfield Town.

League titles are mostly settled by points, goal difference or goal average. But in 2015-16 Oxford United won League Two by simply being the best team. This side, with the likes of Kemar Roofe, Chris Maguire and John Lundstrom, were by far the most stylish Oxford side ever, finished with the best goal difference in the league, knocked Premier League Swansea out of the FA Cup and even made it to Wembley for the Johnstone's Paint Trophy final. This prompted manager Michael Appleton to argue Oxford were the best team in the league. While technically Northampton Town did finish slightly, erm, well 13 points above Oxford to win the league, Oxford fans will still argue Appleton was right.