HISTORY
Arsenal Football Club was formed as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the
Royal Arsenal in
Woolwich, south-east London, and was renamed Royal Arsenal shortly afterwards. The club was renamed again to Woolwich Arsenal after becoming a
limited company in 1893.
[8] The club became the first southern member of
the Football League in 1893, starting out in the
Second Division, and won promotion to the
First Division
in 1904. The club's relative geographic isolation resulted in lower
attendances than those of other clubs, which led to the club becoming
mired in financial problems and effectively bankrupt by 1910, when they
was taken over by businessmen
Henry Norris and William Hall. Norris sought to move the club elsewhere, and in 1913, soon after
relegation back to the Second Division, Arsenal moved to the new
Arsenal Stadium in
Highbury, North London; they dropped "Woolwich" from their name the following year. Arsenal only finished in fifth place in the second division during the
last pre-war competitive season of 1914–15, but was nevertheless elected
to rejoin the First Division when competitive football resumed in
1919–20, at the expense of local rivals
Tottenham Hotspur. Some books have reported that this election to division 1 was achieved by dubious means.
Arsenal appointed
Herbert Chapman as manager in 1925. Having already won the league twice with
Huddersfield Town in
1923–24 and
1924–25 (see
Seasons in English football),
Chapman brought Arsenal their first period of major success. His
revolutionary tactics and training, along with the signings of star
players such as
Alex James and
Cliff Bastin, laid the foundations of the club's domination of English football in the 1930s.
[12] Under his guidance Arsenal won their first major trophies – victory in the
1930 FA Cup Final preceded two League Championships, in
1930–31 and
1932–33. In addition, Chapman was behind the 1932 renaming of the local
London Underground station from "Gillespie Road" to "
Arsenal", making it the only Tube station to be named specifically after a football club.
Chapman died suddenly of
pneumonia in early 1934, leaving
Joe Shaw and
George Allison to carry on his successful work. Under their guidance, Arsenal won three more titles, in
1933–34,
1934–35 and
1937–38, and the
1936 FA Cup while also becoming known as the "
Bank of England club."
As key players retired, Arsenal had started to fade by the decade's
end, and then the intervention of the Second World War meant competitive
professional football in England was suspended.
After the war, Arsenal enjoyed a second period of success under Allison's successor
Tom Whittaker, winning the league in
1947–48 and
1952–53, and the FA Cup in
1950.
Their fortunes waned thereafter; unable to attract players of the same
calibre as they had in the 1930s, the club spent most of the 1950s and
1960s in trophyless mediocrity. Even former
England captain
Billy Wright could not bring the club any success as manager, in a stint between 1962 and 1966.
Arsenal began winning silverware again with the surprise appointment of club
physiotherapist Bertie Mee as manager in 1966. After losing two
League Cup finals, they won their first European trophy, the
1969–70 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. This was followed by an even greater triumph: their first
League and
FA Cup double in
1970–71.
[19]
This marked a premature high point of the decade; the Double-winning
side was soon broken up and the following decade was characterised by a
series of near misses, starting with Arsenal finishing as FA Cup runners
up in
1972, and First Division runners-up in
1972–73.
Terry Neill was recruited by the Arsenal board to replace
Bertie Mee on 9 July 1976 and at the age of 34 he became the youngest Arsenal manager to date. With new signings like
Malcolm Macdonald and
Pat Jennings, and a crop of talent in the side such as
Liam Brady and
Frank Stapleton, the club enjoyed their best form since the 1971 double, reaching a trio of FA Cup finals (
1978,
1979 and
1980), and losing the
1980 European Cup Winners' Cup Final on
penalties. The club's only success during this time was a last-minute 3–2 victory over Manchester United in the
1979 FA Cup Final, widely regarded as a classic.
The return of former player
George Graham as manager in 1986 brought a third period of glory. Arsenal won the League Cup in
1987, Graham's first season in charge. This was followed by a League title win in
1988–89, won with a last-minute goal in the
final game of the season against fellow title challengers
Liverpool. Graham's Arsenal won another title in
1990–91, losing only one match, won the
FA Cup and
League Cup double in 1993, and a second European trophy, the
European Cup Winners' Cup, in
1994. Graham's reputation was tarnished when he was found to have taken kickbacks from agent
Rune Hauge for signing certain players, and he was dismissed in 1995. His replacement,
Bruce Rioch, lasted for only one season, leaving the club after a dispute with the board of directors.
Arsenal's players and fans celebrate their 2004 League title win with an open-top bus parade.
The club's success in the late 1990s and first decade of the 21st century owed a great deal to the 1996 appointment of
Arsène Wenger
as manager. Wenger brought new tactics, a new training regime and
several foreign players who complemented the existing English talent.
Arsenal won a second League and Cup double in
1997–98 and a third in
2001–02. In addition, the club reached the final of the
1999–2000 UEFA Cup (losing on penalties to
Galatasaray), was victorious in the
2003 and
2005 FA Cups, and won the Premier League in
2003–04 without losing a single match, an achievement which earned the side the nickname "
The Invincibles". The feat came within a run of 49 league matches unbeaten from 7 May 2003 to 24 October 2004, a
national record.
Arsenal finished in either first or second place in the league in
eight of Wenger's first eleven seasons at the club, although on no
occasion was they able to retain the title. As of July 2013, they were one of only five teams, the others being Manchester United,
Blackburn Rovers,
Chelsea, and
Manchester City, to have won the Premier League since its formation in 1992. Arsenal had never progressed beyond the quarter-finals of the
Champions League until
2005–06; in that season they became the first club from London in the competition's fifty-year history to reach
the final, in which they were beaten 2–1 by
Barcelona. In July 2006, they moved into the
Emirates Stadium, after 93 years at Highbury.
Arsenal reached the final of the
2007 and
2011 League Cups, losing 2–1 to Chelsea and
Birmingham City respectively. The club had not gained a major trophy since the 2005 FA Cup until 17 May 2014, when Arsenal beat
Hull City in the
2014 FA Cup Final, coming back from a 2–0 deficit to win the match 3–2. This qualified them for the
2014 FA Community Shield
where they would play Premier League champions Manchester City. They
recorded a resounding 3–0 win in the game, winning their second trophy
in three months.
[30]
Arsenal's finishing positions since 1947 (in red). The number of teams in the top flight is shown in blue.
Crest
Arsenal's first crest from 1888
Unveiled in 1888, Royal Arsenal's first crest featured three
cannon viewed from above, pointing northwards, similar to the
coat of arms of the
Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. These can sometimes be mistaken for chimneys, but the presence of a carved lion's head and a
cascabel on each are clear indicators that they are cannon. This was dropped after the move to Highbury in 1913, only to be
reinstated in 1922, when the club adopted a crest featuring a single
cannon, pointing eastwards, with the club's nickname,
The Gunners,
inscribed alongside it; this crest only lasted until 1925, when the
cannon was reversed to point westward and its barrel slimmed down.
In 1949, the club unveiled a modernised crest featuring the same style of cannon below the club's name, set in
blackletter, and above the coat of arms of the
Metropolitan Borough of Islington and a scroll inscribed with the club's newly adopted Latin
motto,
Victoria Concordia Crescit "victory comes from harmony", coined by the club's programme editor Harry Homer. For the first time, the crest was rendered in colour, which varied
slightly over the crest's lifespan, finally becoming red, gold and
green. Because of the numerous revisions of the crest, Arsenal was
unable to
copyright
it. Although the club had managed to register the crest as a trademark,
and had fought (and eventually won) a long legal battle with a local
street trader who sold "unofficial" Arsenal merchandise,
Arsenal eventually sought a more comprehensive legal protection.
Therefore, in 2002 they introduced a new crest featuring more modern
curved lines and a simplified style, which was copyrightable. The cannon once again faces east and the club's name is written in a
sans-serif
typeface above the cannon. Green was replaced by dark blue. The new
crest was criticised by some supporters; the Arsenal Independent
Supporters' Association claimed that the club had ignored much of
Arsenal's history and tradition with such a radical modern design, and
that fans had not been properly consulted on the issue.
Until the 1960s, a badge was worn on the playing shirt only for
high-profile matches such as FA Cup finals, usually in the form of a
monogram of the club's initials in red on a white background.
The monogram theme was developed into an
Art Deco-style
badge on which the letters A and C framed a football rather than the
letter F, the whole set within a hexagonal border. This early example of
a corporate logo, introduced as part of Herbert Chapman's rebranding of
the club in the 1930s, was used not only on Cup Final shirts but as a
design feature throughout Highbury Stadium, including above the main
entrance and inlaid in the floors. From 1967, a white cannon was regularly worn on the shirts, until
replaced by the club crest, sometimes with the addition of the nickname
"The Gunners", in the 1990s.
In the 2011–2012 season, Arsenal celebrated their 125th year
anniversary. The celebrations included a modified version of the current
crest worn on their jerseys for the season. The crest was all white,
surrounded by 15
oak leaves to the right and 15
laurel
leaves to the left. The oak leaves represent the 15 founding members of
the club who met at the Royal Oak pub. The 15 laurel leaves represent
the design detail on the six pence pieces paid by the founding fathers
to establish the club. The laurel leaves also represent strength. To
complete the crest, 1886 and 2011 are shown on either sides of the motto
"Forward" at the bottom of the crest.
Colours
Arsenal's original home colours. The team wore a similar kit (but with redcurrant socks) during the
2005–06 season.
For much of Arsenal's history, their home colours have been bright
red shirts with white sleeves and white shorts, though this has not
always been the case. The choice of red is in recognition of a
charitable donation from
Nottingham Forest, soon after Arsenal's foundation in 1886. Two of Dial Square's founding members,
Fred Beardsley and
Morris Bates,
were former Forest players who had moved to Woolwich for work. As they
put together the first team in the area, no kit could be found, so
Beardsley and Bates wrote home for help and received a set of kit and a
ball. The shirt was redcurrant, a dark shade of red, and was worn with white shorts and socks with blue and white hoops.
In 1933, Herbert Chapman, wanting his players to be more distinctly
dressed, updated the kit, adding white sleeves and changing the shade to
a brighter
pillar box
red. Two possibilities have been suggested for the origin of the white
sleeves. One story reports that Chapman noticed a supporter in the
stands wearing a red sleeveless sweater over a white shirt; another was
that he was inspired by a similar outfit worn by the cartoonist
Tom Webster, with whom Chapman played golf. Regardless of which story is true, the red and white shirts have come
to define Arsenal and the team have worn the combination ever since,
aside from two seasons. The first was 1966–67, when Arsenal wore all-red
shirts; this proved unpopular and the white sleeves returned the following
season. The second was 2005–06, the last season that Arsenal played at
Highbury, when the team wore commemorative redcurrant shirts similar to
those worn in 1913, their first season in the stadium; the club reverted
to their normal colours at the start of the next season. In the 2008–09 season, Arsenal replaced the traditional all-white sleeves with red sleeves with a broad white stripe.
Arsenal's home colours have been the inspiration for at least three other clubs. In 1909,
Sparta Prague adopted a dark red kit like the one Arsenal wore at the time; in 1938,
Hibernian adopted the design of the Arsenal shirt sleeves in their own green and white strip. In 1920,
Sporting Clube de Braga's
manager returned from a game at Highbury and changed his team's green
kit to a duplicate of Arsenal's red with white sleeves and shorts,
giving rise to the team's nickname of
Os Arsenalistas. These teams still wear those designs to this day.
For many years Arsenal's away colours were white shirts and either
black or white shorts. In the 1969–70 season, Arsenal introduced an away
kit of yellow shirts with blue shorts. This kit was worn in the
1971 FA Cup Final as Arsenal beat Liverpool to secure the
double for the first time in their history.Arsenal reached the
FA Cup final again the following year wearing the red and white home strip and were beaten by
Leeds United. Arsenal then competed in three consecutive FA Cup finals between
1978 and
1980 wearing their "lucky" yellow and blue strip, which remained the club's away strip until the release of a green and
navy away kit in 1982–83. The following season, Arsenal returned to the
yellow and blue scheme, albeit with a darker shade of blue than before.
When
Nike took over from
Adidas
as Arsenal's kit provider in 1994, Arsenal's away colours were again
changed to two-tone blue shirts and shorts. Since the advent of the
lucrative replica kit market, the away kits have been changed regularly,
with Arsenal usually releasing both away and third choice kits. During
this period the designs have been either all blue designs, or variations
on the traditional yellow and blue, such as the metallic gold and navy
strip used in the 2001–02 season, the yellow and dark grey used from
2005 to 2007, and the yellow and maroon of 2010 to 2013. As of 2009, the away kit is changed every season, and the outgoing away
kit becomes the third-choice kit if a new home kit is being introduced
in the same year.
Kit manufacturers and shirt sponsors
Arsenal's shirts have been made by manufacturers including
Bukta (from the 1930s until the early 1970s),
Umbro (from the 1970s until 1986),
Adidas (1986–1994),
Nike (1994–2014), and
Puma (from 2014). Like those of most other major football clubs, Arsenal's shirts have
featured sponsors' logos since the 1980s; sponsors include
JVC (1982–1999),
Sega (1999–2002),
O2 (2002–2006), and
Emirates (from 2006).
Stadiums
For most of their time in south-east London, Arsenal played at the
Manor Ground in
Plumstead, apart from a three-year period at the nearby
Invicta Ground between 1890 and 1893. The Manor Ground was initially just a field, until the club installed stands and
terracing
for their first Football League match in September 1893. They played
their home games there for the next twenty years (with two exceptions in
the 1894–95 season), until the move to north London in 1913.
Widely referred to as Highbury,
Arsenal Stadium was the club's home from September 1913 until May 2006. The original stadium was designed by the renowned football architect
Archibald Leitch,
and had a design common to many football grounds in the UK at the time,
with a single covered stand and three open-air banks of terracing.The entire stadium was given a massive overhaul in the 1930s: new
Art Deco
West and East stands were constructed, opening in 1932 and 1936
respectively, and a roof was added to the North Bank terrace, which was
bombed during the Second World War and not restored until 1954.
Highbury could hold more than 60,000 spectators at its peak, and had a capacity of 57,000 until the early 1990s. The
Taylor Report
and Premier League regulations obliged Arsenal to convert Highbury to
an all-seater stadium in time for the 1993–94 season, thus reducing the
capacity to 38,419 seated spectators. This capacity had to be reduced further during
Champions League
matches to accommodate additional advertising boards, so much so that
for two seasons, from 1998 to 2000, Arsenal played Champions League home
matches at
Wembley, which could house more than 70,000 spectators.
Expansion of Highbury was restricted because the East Stand had been designated as a Grade II
listed building and the other three stands were close to residential properties. These limitations prevented the club from maximising matchday revenue
during the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century, putting them in
danger of being left behind in the football boom of that time. After considering various options, in 2000 Arsenal proposed building a
new 60,361-capacity stadium at Ashburton Grove, since named the
Emirates Stadium, about 500 metres south-west of Highbury. The project was initially delayed by red tape and rising costs,and construction was completed in July 2006, in time for the start of the 2006–07 season.The stadium was named after its sponsors, the airline company
Emirates, with whom the club signed the largest sponsorship deal in English football history, worth around £100 million; some fans referred to the ground as Ashburton Grove, or the Grove, as
they did not agree with corporate sponsorship of stadium names. The stadium will be officially known as Emirates Stadium until at least
2028, and the airline will be the club's shirt sponsor until the end of
the 2018–19 season. From the start of the 2010–11 season on, the stands of the stadium have
been officially known as North Bank, East Stand, West Stand and Clock
end.
Arsenal's players train at the
Shenley Training Centre in Hertfordshire, a purpose-built facility which opened in 1999. Before that the club used facilities on a nearby site owned by the
University College of London Students' Union. Until 1961 they had trained at Highbury. Arsenal's
Academy under-18 teams play their home matches at Shenley, while the
reserves play their games at
Meadow Park which is also the home of
Boreham Wood F.C..
Supporters
Arsenal fans often refer to themselves as "Gooners", the name derived
from the team's nickname, "The Gunners". The fanbase is large and
generally loyal, and virtually all home matches sell out; in 2007–08
Arsenal had the second-highest average League attendance for an English
club (60,070, which was 99.5% of available capacity), and as of 2006, the fourth-highest all-time average attendance. Arsenal have the seventh highest
average attendance of European football clubs only behind
Borussia Dortmund,
FC Barcelona,
Manchester United,
Real Madrid,
Bayern Munich, and
Schalke.
[65][66][67][68] The club's location, adjoining wealthy areas such as
Canonbury and
Barnsbury, mixed areas such as
Islington,
Holloway,
Highbury, and the adjacent
London Borough of Camden, and largely working-class areas such as
Finsbury Park and
Stoke Newington, has meant that Arsenal's supporters have come from a variety of social classes.
Like all major English football clubs, Arsenal have a number of
domestic supporters' clubs, including the Arsenal Football Supporters'
Club, which works closely with the club, and the Arsenal Independent
Supporters' Association, which maintains a more independent line. The
Arsenal Supporters' Trust promotes greater participation in ownership of the club by fans. The club's supporters also publish
fanzines such as
The Gooner,
Gunflash and the satirical
Up The Arse!. In addition to the usual English
football chants, supporters sing "One-Nil to the Arsenal" (to the tune of "
Go West")
and "Boring, Boring Arsenal", which used to be a common taunt from
opposition fans but is now sung ironically by Arsenal supporters when
the team is playing well.
There have always been Arsenal supporters outside of London, and
since the advent of satellite television, a supporter's attachment to a
football club has become less dependent on geography. Consequently,
Arsenal have a significant number of fans from beyond London and all
over the world; in 2007, 24 UK, 37 Irish and 49 other overseas
supporters clubs were affiliated with the club. A 2005 report by Granada Ventures, which at the time owned a 9.9% stake
in the club, estimated Arsenal's global fanbase at 27 million.
Arsenal's longest-running and deepest rivalry is with their nearest major neighbours,
Tottenham Hotspur; matches between the two are referred to as
North London derbies. Other rivalries within London include those with
Chelsea,
Fulham and
West Ham United.
In addition, Arsenal and Manchester United developed a strong on-pitch
rivalry in the late 1980s, which intensified in recent years when both
clubs were competing for the Premier League title – so much so that a 2003
online poll by the
Football Fans Census listed Manchester United as Arsenal's biggest rivals, followed by Tottenham and Chelsea. A 2008 poll listed the Tottenham rivalry as more important.
Ownership and finances
Arsenal's parent company, Arsenal Holdings plc, operates as a
non-quoted public limited company, whose ownership is considerably different from that of other football clubs. Only 62,217 shares in Arsenal have been issued, and they are not traded on a public exchange such as the
FTSE or
AIM; instead, they are traded relatively infrequently on the
ICAP Securities and Derivatives Exchange, a specialist market. On 6 November 2014, a single share in Arsenal had a
mid price of £1,450,000, which set the club's
market capitalisation value at approximately £902.2m. The club made a pre-tax
operating profit (excluding player transfers) of £62.7m in the year ending 31 May 2009, from a turnover of £313.3m.
The largest shareholder on the Arsenal board is American sports tycoon
Stan Kroenke, who launched a bid for the club in 2007, and in November 2009 increased his holding to 18,594 shares (29.9%).
A rival bid to Kroenke's came from Red & White Securities, which is co-owned by Russian billionaire
Alisher Usmanov and Iranian London-based financier
Farhad Moshiri.Red & White launched its bid in August 2007, buying the stake held by former Arsenal vice-chairman
David Dein, and as of February 2009 owned 15,555 shares (25.0%) in the club. This led to press speculation of a bidding war between Kroenke and Usmanov. However, Kroenke agreed not to purchase more than 29.9% of the club until at least September 2009, while the rest of the board have first option on each other's shares until October 2012.
As of October 2011, Kroenke owns 41,574 shares (66.82%) and Red & White Securities own 18,261 shares (29.35%). Under company law Kroenke, as majority shareholder, is obliged to make an offer for the remaining shares in the club.
Ivan Gazidis has been the club's Chief Executive since 2009.