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Brian Kidd joined Arsenal in August 1974 for £110,000 from Manchester
United as a replacement for Ray Kennedy, who had joined Liverpool.
During the striker's two seasons at Highbury The Gunners twice narrowly
avoided relegation. It is in this context of a team in transition that
makes Brian's record of thirty league goals in seventy-seven appearances
a significant achievement. Kidd's start to his North London career was
as promising as the club's start to the 1974/75 season. He scored the
only goal of a debut 1-0 win at Leicester City and followed this up one
week later with two goals in a 4-0 win against Manchester City. However,
the team's inconsistency, so characteristic of his time with Arsenal,
meant they then went ten games without a win, during which time he still
managed a creditable return of four goals.
For the remainder of the
season the side was chopped and changed with Kidd, a virtual
ever-present, having five different striking partners. Along with a 3-1
victory over eventual champions Derby County, in which he scored, the
only other bright spot was a run to the FA Cup quarter-finals. Brian
scored a hat-trick in a third round replay at York City before Arsenal
were knocked out 2-0 at home to West Ham who went on to lift the Cup.
The Londoners finished in sixteenth position with Kidd scoring
twenty-two league and cup goals in fifty appearances. The 1975/76 season
was an even bleaker affair. In fact, when Arsenal lost 0-2 at Derby
County in mid-February they looked as good as relegated. However, three
straight wins eased the tension and when Kidd scored his second
hat-trick for the club in a 6-1 win against West Ham in late march,
their place in the First Division was secured.
The Gunners finished the
season in seventeenth position, only two above relegation, with Kidd
scoring eleven goals. His final goal for Arsenal was a fitting epitaph, a
twenty-five yard shot in a 1-2 defeat against title-chasing Q.P.R. on
Easter Monday. At the end of the season Terry Neil replaced Bertie Mee
as Arsenal manager and Kidd was soon on his way to Manchester City for
£100,000, to be replaced by Newcastle's Malcom MacDonald. It remains
easy to underestimate the goalscorer's short career at Arsenal,
sandwiched as it was between Ray Kennedy and 'Supermac', but without his
goals that period of transition might have been longer and much
bleaker. (David Fensome)
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