Arthur John was the Englishman who gave Benfica their first taste of professional coaching. Hired in October 1929 after six seasons at Vitória de Setúbal, he arrived at a club that had never employed a foreign trainer and set about imposing method on a side used to the improvisation of the Cosme Damião era.

His two years in charge were immediately profitable. Benfica won the Campeonato de Portugal, then the country's premier national competition, in 1929-30, beating Barreirense in the final on 1 June 1930, and retained it on 28 June 1931 with a 3-0 win over Porto. Two titles from two attempts made him the club's first genuinely successful head coach.

He was also a curiosity. John doubled as the team's masseur, rubbing players down at the touchline while giving them instructions, and he was firmly against the player-manager arrangements common at the time, insisting that you either coach or play. In 1931 he crossed Lisbon to Sporting CP, and no Benfica manager would move directly to the rivals again until Jorge Jesus, 84 years later. He died in Lisbon in March 1972.