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Jeff Blockley joined Arsenal two months into the 1972/73 season when he
moved from Coventry City for £200, 000. The 'double' winners of 1970/71
had relinquished both of their trophies the following season and manager
Bertie Mee had one eye on the future when he signed the twenty-three
year old central defender. Unwittingly, the acquisition of the big,
traditional stopper led to unrest in a suspicious Arsenal dressing room
where he was suspected of being an imminent replacement for club captain
Frank McLintock. Although Jeff won his one and only England cap shortly
after joining the north Londoners, his stay at Highbury was generally
an unhappy one and Mee later described signing him as his greatest
mistake at the club. The centre-back made his debut for the Gunners on
the 7th October 1972 in an inauspicious 0-1 defeat away at Sheffield
United and went on to make twenty league appearances as Arsenal fought
Liverpool all the way for the championship, eventually finishing second.
If Blockley's Highbury career had started in Sheffield symbolically it
ended there also, at Hillsborough against Sunderland in the 1972/73 FA
Cup semi-final. Despite carrying an injury Jeff played against the
Wearsiders and his uncertainty paved the way for the second division
underdog's 2-1 victory.
His relationship with the club's supporters
never really recovered. In the summer of 1973 McLintock made the short
journey across London to Q.P.R. and Blockley started the 1973/74 season
as a first choice central defender. Arsenal opened with a 3-0 win over
Manchester United and three days later Jeff scored his only goal for the
Gunners in a 2-1 home defeat to Leeds United. The season, though, soon
went from bad to worse with a 0-5 thrashing at Sheffield United and a
humiliating League Cup exit at home to Tranmere Rovers. Jeff missed the
next eleven games, but came back in time for another cup embarrassment,
this time losing 0-2 to second division Aston Villa in an FA Cup fourth
round replay. Arsenal finished the season in tenth place with Jeff
making twenty-six appearances. He started the 1974/75 season on the
transfer list and out of the team. After returning to make six
consecutive appearances, during which the Londoners failed to win,
Blockley was sold to Leicester City for £100, 000, half the price
Arsenal had paid for him two years earlier. (David Fensome).
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