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Arsenal History
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Arsenal Football Club (also known as Arsenal, The Arsenal or The Gunners) are an English professional football club based in Holloway, north London. They play in the Premier League and are one of the most successful clubs in English football. Arsenal have won thirteen First Division and Premier League titles, ten FA Cups and in 200506 became the first London club to reach the UEFA Champions League final. Arsenal are also members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs.
Arsenal were founded in 1886, in Woolwich, south-east London, but in 1913 they moved north across the city to Arsenal Stadium, Highbury. In May 2006 they left Highbury, moving to their current home, the Emirates Stadium in nearby Ashburton Grove, Holloway. Arsenal have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with neighbours Tottenham Hotspur, located four miles away in Tottenham, with whom they have contested the North London derby almost every season since 1913.
History
Arsenal were founded as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, but were renamed Royal Arsenal shortly afterwards. They renamed themselves again to Woolwich Arsenal after turning professional in 1891. The club joined the Football League in 1893, starting out in the Second Division, and won promotion to the First Division in 1904. However, the club's 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. In 1913, soon after relegation back to the Second Division, they moved across the Thames 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 1919, but nevertheless were elected to rejoin the First Division at the expense of local rivals Tottenham Hotspur, by reportedly dubious means.
In 1925, Arsenal appointed the highly successful Herbert Chapman as manager. Chapman had won the league with Huddersfield Town in 192324 and 192425, and he 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. Between 1930 and 1938, Arsenal won the First Division five times and the FA Cup twice, although Chapman did not live to see all of these achievements, as he died of pneumonia in 1934; George Allison succeeded him. In addition, Chapman was reportedly 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.
Following the suspension of English professional football during World War II, under Tom Whittaker Arsenal won the league in 194748 and 195253, and the FA Cup in 194950. However, after that their fortunes waned; 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's second successful era began with the surprise appointment of club physiotherapist Bertie Mee as manager in 1966. After losing two League Cup finals, they won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, their first European trophy, in 196970. This was followed by an even greater triumph: their first League and FA Cup double in 197071. However, the Double-winning side was soon broken up and the following decade was characterised by a series of near misses. Arsenal finished as First Division runners-up in 197273, lost three FA Cup finals (197172, 197778 and 197980) and lost the 1979-80 Cup Winners' Cup final on penalties. The club's only success during this time was an FA Cup win in 197879, with a last-minute 32 victory over Manchester United that is 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 198687, Graham's first season in charge. This was followed by a League title win in 198889, 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 199091, losing only one match, the FA Cup and League Cup double in 199293 and a second European trophy, the Cup Winners' Cup, in 199394. However, Graham's reputation was tarnished when it was revealed that he had taken kickbacks from agent Rune Hauge for signing certain players, and he was sacked in 1995. His replacement, Bruce Rioch, lasted for only one season, leaving the club after a dispute with the board of directors.
The club's success in the late 1990s and 2000s owes a great deal to the appointment of manager Arsθne Wenger in 1996. 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 199798 and a third in 200102. In addition, the club reached the final of the 199900 UEFA Cup (losing on penalties to Galatasaray), were victorious in the 200203 and 200405 FA Cups, and won the Premier League in 200304 without losing a single match, which earned the side the nickname "The Invincibles"; in all, the club went 49 league matches unbeaten, a national record.
Arsenal have finished in either first or second place in the league in eight of Wenger's eleven seasons at the club. They are one of only four teams (along with Manchester United, Blackburn Rovers and Chelsea) to have won the Premier League since its formation in 1993, although they have failed to retain the title each time they have been champions. Until recently, Arsenal had never progressed beyond the Champions League quarter-finals; in 200506 however, they reached the competition's Final, the first club from London to do so in the competition's fifty-year history, but were beaten 2-1 by FC Barcelona.
Crest
Royal Arsenal's first crest, unveiled in 1888, featured three cannon viewed from above, pointing northwards, similar to the crest of the 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 moved to Highbury in 1913, but in 1922, the club adopted their first single-cannon crest, featuring an eastward-pointing cannon, with the club's nickname, The Gunners, inscribed along side 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, the club's name set in blackletter above the cannon, and a scroll inscribed with the club's newly adopted Latin motto, Victoria Concordia Crescit (meaning "victory comes from harmony"), coined by Harry Homer, the club's programme editor. 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 were 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 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 received a critical response from 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
Colours
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 similar to burgundy, and was worn with white shorts and blue socks.
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. The origin of the white sleeves is not conclusively known, but two possible inspirations have been put forward. 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 famous 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 196667, when Arsenal wore all-red shirts; this proved unpopular and the white sleeves returned the following season. The second was 200506, the last season that Arsenal played at Highbury, when the team wore one-year commemorative redcurrant shirts similar to those worn in 1913, their first season in the stadium. The club reverted to their traditional colours at the start of the 200607 season.
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 the 1930s, Sporting Clube de Braga's coach returned from a game at Highbury and changed his team's green kit into 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 these designs to this day.
Arsenal's away colours are traditionally yellow and blue, although they wore a green and navy away kit between 1982 and 1984. Since the early 1990s and the advent of the lucrative replica kit market, the away colours have been changed regularly; the general rule currently is that they are changed every season with the outgoing away kit becoming the third choice kit for the following season. Generally, the away colours in this period have been either two-tone blue designs, or variations on the traditional yellow and blue, such as the metallic gold and navy strip used in the 200102 season. The away colours for 200506 and 200607 are yellow and dark grey; this is an exception to the one-season rule to compensate for the short lifetime of the 2005-06 redcurrant commemorative home kit. For 200708, Arsenal will have a new away kit, dedicated to Herbert Chapman but the colours are yet to be announced.
Arsenal's shirts have been sponsored since 1982, when the club agreed a deal with JVC, which lasted until 1999. Since then, the club shirts have advertised SEGA Dreamcast (19992002), O2 (200206) and current sponsors Emirates (from 2006 until at least 2014). The shirts themselves have been manufactured by Nike since 1994; before that Umbro (until 1986) and Adidas (198694) were responsible for clothing the team.
Stadiums
For the majority of their time in south-east London, Arsenal played at the Manor Ground in Plumstead, a three-year period at the nearby Invicta Ground between 1890 and 1893 excepted. The Manor Ground was initially just a field, but the club installed stands and terracing in time for their first Football League match in September 1893. They played there for the next twenty years, until the move to north London in 1913.
Arsenal Stadium, widely referred to as Highbury, was Arsenal'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. In the 1930s, the entire stadium was given a massive overhaul, with new Art Deco East and West stands constructed, and roofs added to the North Bank and Clock End terraces. At its peak, Highbury could hold over 60,000 spectators, and had a capacity of 57,000 until the early 1990s. The Taylor Report and Premier League regulations forced Arsenal to convert Highbury into an all-seater in time for the 199394 season, reducing the capacity to 38,419 seated spectators.[21] This capacity had to be reduced further during Champions League matches to accommodate additional advertising hoardings, so much so that for two seasons (199899 and 199900) 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 whose owners objected to expansion. These limitations have prevented the club from maximising the revenue that their domestic form could have brought in recent seasons. After considering various options, Arsenal decided in 1999 to build a new 60,000-seater stadium at Ashburton Grove (since renamed the Emirates Stadium), about 500 metres south-west of Highbury. The project was initially delayed by red tape and rising costs, but construction was completed in July 2006, in time for the start of the 200607 season. The stadium is named after its sponsors, the airline company Emirates, with whom the club signed the largest sponsorship deal in English football history, worth approximately £100 million; however some fans refer to the ground as Ashburton Grove, or the Grove, as they do not agree with corporate sponsorship of stadium names. The stadium will be officially known as Emirates Stadium until at least 2012, and the airline will be the club's shirt sponsor until the end of the 201314 season.
Supporters
Arsenal have a large and generally loyal fanbase, with virtually all home matches selling out; in 2005-06 Arsenal had the sixth-highest average attendance for an English club (38,184, which was 99.4% of available capacity), and the fourth-highest all-time average attendance. Arsenal fans often refer to themselves as "Gooners", the name being derived from the team's nickname, "The Gunners". The club's location, adjoining both wealthy areas such as Canonbury and Barnsbury, mixed areas such as Islington, Holloway and Highbury, and largely working class areas such as Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington has meant that Arsenal's supporters have come from across the usual class divides. Additionally, Arsenal have the highest proportion (7.7%) of non-white attending supporters of any club in English football, according to a 2002 report.
Like all major English football clubs, Arsenal have a number of domestic supporters' clubs, including the Official Arsenal Football Supporters Club, which is affiliated with the club, and the Arsenal Independent Supporters' Association, which maintains an independent line. The club's supporters also publish fanzines such as The Gooner, Highbury High, Gunflash and the less cerebral Up The Arse!. In addition to the usual English football chants, Arsenal's 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.
In recent times, a supporter's attachment to a football club has become less dependent on geography, and Arsenal now have many fans not just from London but all over England and the world. While there have always been small pockets of supporters abroad, Arsenal's support base has widened considerably with the advent of satellite television, and there are now significant supporters' clubs worldwide. 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, the third largest in the world.
Arsenal's longest-running and deepest rivalry is with their nearest major neighbours, Tottenham Hotspur, with matches between the two being referred to as North London derbies. Matches against other London sides, such as Chelsea and West Ham United are also derbies, but the rivalry is not as intense as that between Arsenal and Tottenham. In addition, Arsenal and Manchester United have had a strong on-pitch rivalry since the late 1980s, which has intensified in recent years when both clubs have been competing for the Premier League title.
Ownership
Arsenal's parent company, Arsenal Holdings plc, operates as a non-quoted public limited company. Arsenal's ownership is considerably different from that of other football clubs. Only 62,219 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 infrequently on PLUS, a specialist market. As of March 27, 2007, Arsenal's market capitalisation value is £415.3m, and the club made a pre-tax profit of £15.9m in the year ending May 31, 2006.
Arsenal's board of directors hold the majority of the club's shares, controlling just over 45% of share capital. Currently, the club's largest shareholders are Danny Fiszman (a London diamond dealer) and Nina Bracewell-Smith (wife of the grandson of former chairman Sir Bracewell Smith), who hold 24.1%[32] and 15.9% respectively. Former vice-chairman David Dein holds 14.6% and fellow director Richard Carr has 4.4%, while club chairman Peter Hill-Wood owns less than 1%.
In recent years, with other major English clubs such as Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United all having been taken over by foreign investors, Arsenal have been identified as a target for a buyout. The American sports tycoon Stan Kroenke currently owns or controls 7,007 shares or 12.19% of the club, the bulk of which he bought from Granada Ventures (a subsidiary of ITV plc) in April 2007. Previously, in September 2006 an unknown investor had bought 713 shares (1.15% of the club) and in March 2007 another unknown investor bought 659 (1.06%) leading to press speculation that these purchases may have been made by or on behalf of Kroenke, as part of a bid to takeover the club entirely
source: wikipedia.org
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