Arsenal Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Holloway, London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups. Arsenal holds the record for the longest uninterrupted period in the English top flight and would be placed first in an aggregated league of the entire 20th century.[2Sony VAIO PCG-3B1M Battery
It is the second side to complete an English top flight season unbeaten (in the 2003–04 season), and the only one to do it across 38 matches.
Arsenal was founded in 1886 in Woolwich and in 1893 became the first club from the south of England to join the Football League. In 1913, it moved north across the city to Arsenal Stadium in Highbury. Sony VAIO PCG-3C1T Battery
In the 1930s the club won five League Championship titles and two FA Cups. After a lean period in the post-war years it won theLeague and FA Cup Double, in the 1970–71 season, and in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century won two more Doubles and reached the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final. Arsenal has a long-standing rivalry with neighbours Tottenham Hotspur, with whom it contests the North London derby. Sony VAIO PCG-3D1M Battery
Arsenal is the fourth most valuable association football club in the world as of 2012, valued at $1.3 billion.
Arsenal Football Club started out as Dial Square in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south-east London, and was renamed Royal Arsenal shortly afterwards.[4] The club was renamed again to Woolwich Arsenal after becoming a limited company in 1893.[5] Sony VAIO PCG-3G2M Battery
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 were taken over by businessmen Henry Norris and William Hall.[6] Sony VAIO PCG-5R1M Battery
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.[7] Arsenal only finished in fifth place in 1919, but were nevertheless elected to rejoin the First Division at the expense of local rivals Tottenham Hotspur, by reportedly dubious means.[8]Sony VAIO PCG-7141M Battery
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.[9] Sony VAIO PCG-7143M Battery
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.[10] Sony VAIO PCG-7151M Battery
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. 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. Sony VAIO PCG-7154M Battery
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. Sony VAIO PCG-7162M Battery
Even former England captain Billy Wright could not bring the club any success as manager, in a stint between 1962 and 1966.[13][14][15]
Arsenal began winning silverware again with the surprise appointment of club physiotherapist Bertie Mee as manager in 1966. Sony VAIO PCG-7181M Battery
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 in1970–71.[16] 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. Sony VAIO PCG-41112M Battery
Arsenal finished as First Division runners-up in 1972–73, lost three FA Cup finals, in 1972, 1978 and 1980, and lost the 1980 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.[13][17] Sony VAIO PCG-7153M Battery
The return of former player George Graham as manager in 1986 brought a third period of glory. Arsenal won the League Cup in 1986–87, 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 challengersLiverpool. Graham's Arsenal won another title in 1990–91, losing only one match, Sony VAIO PCG-71312M Battery
won the FA Cup and League Cup double in 1993, and a second European trophy, the Cup Winners' Cup, in 1994.[13][18] Graham's reputation was tarnished when he was found to have taken kickbacks from agent Rune Hauge for signing certain players,[19] 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.[20] Sony VAIO PCG-7144M Battery
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. Sony VAIO PCG-7191L Battery
In addition, the club reached the final of the 1999–2000 UEFA Cup (losing on penalties to Galatasaray), were 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".[21] The club went 49 league matches unbeaten in that season, a national record.[22] Sony VAIO PCG-3C1M Battery
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 were they able to retain the title.[13] As of June 2012, 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.[23] Sony VAIO PCG-3F1M Battery
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.[24] In July 2006, they moved into the Emirates Stadium, after 93 years at Highbury.[25] Sony VAIO PCG-3H1M Battery
Arsenal reached the final of the 2007 and 2011 League Cup final, losing 2–1 to Chelsea and Birmingham City respectively. The club has not gained a major trophy since the 2005 FA Cup.
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. Sony VAIO PCG-3J1M Battery
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.[27] 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; Sony VAIO PCG-8141M Battery
this crest only lasted until 1925, when the cannon was reversed to point westward and its barrel slimmed down.[27] In 1949, the club unveiled a modernised crest featuring the same style of cannon below the club's name, set inblackletter, and above the coat of arms of the Metropolitan Borough of Islington and a scroll inscribed with the club's newly-adopted Latin motto, Sony VAIO PCG-8161M Battery
Victoria Concordia Crescit "victory comes from harmony", coined by the club's programme editor Harry Homer.[27] 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 tocopyright it. Sony VAIO PCG-3C2M Battery
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,[28] 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.[29] Sony VAIO PCG-5N2M Battery
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.[30] Sony VAIO PCG-5P1M Battery
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.[31]
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. Sony VAIO PCG-5S1M Battery
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.[32] 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.[31] Sony VAIO PCG-9Z1M Battery
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. Sony VAIO PCG-7171M Battery
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