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Football News: A To Z: Arsenal

A To Z: Arsenal
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A To Z - Arsenal

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A is for Amateurs

Arsenal were expelled from the London FA and boycotted by many southern clubs after they turned professional in 1891, while most football clubs remained as amateurs.

 


B is for Bank

Under Herbert Chapman, with record-breaking spending and gate receipts from their Highbury home, Arsenal were nicknamed the Bank of England club. It was the, for the time, huge salary and spending power on offer that enticed Chapman to move from Huddersfield Town.

 


C is for Chapman

Herbert Chapman already had two league titles and an FA Cup win with Huddersfield Town before Henry Norris appointed him as Arsenal manager in 1925. It toook him until 1930 to win the FA Cup with Arsenal, with his old team Huddersfield the victims in the final as the Gunners began a golden period in their history. The following season he led Arsenal to their first-ever league title, then a Charity Shield in 1931/32, followed by the league title again the following season. Sadly for all connected with Arsenal in January 1934 Herbert Chapman caught pneumonia watching the third team play and died just days later aged just 55. The foundations he laid down left Arsenal in a strong position for the future and they won the next two league titles after his death, to make it three in a row.

 


D is for Dial

Arsenal were supposedly originally named Dial Square due to the sundial atop the entrance to the factory. It was only a couple of weeks before they decided to rename themselves Royal Arsenal, according to many. Though many historians doubt there was ever a connection between the two.

 


E is for Emirates

Since 2006, Arsenal have played home matches at the Emirates Stadium in Ashburton Grove. The initial deal to sponsor the stadium by Emirates Airlines was the largest sponsorship deal in English football history at the time. Emirates paid around £100m for the deal but many fans still refer to the ground as Ashburton Grove or just the Grove.

 


F is for Forest

Not long after their formation, a group of players from Nottingham Forest joined the team. With the then-Royal Arsenal team lacking kits, the group asked their former club for some spare kit and Forest gladly obliged them. Arsenal have played in red shirts ever since.

 


G is for Graham

At one time Arsenal and Graham were as synonomous with each other as Arsene Wenger and Arsenal later became. Graham was a player in the successful Mee era before returning to bring more success as manager of the club, though the playing style of Graham was completely different from the playing style he encouraged as manager! An exciting player who became the epitome of dour as manager, which led to the famous 1-0 to the Arsenal chant.

 


H is for Highbury

Henry Norris in all likelihood saved Arsenal from extinction by moving them from Plumstead to Highbury in 1913, though it nearly never happened. Tottenham Hotspur, unsurprisingly, did all they could to block the move through the Football League, but they were also joined by the 'Highbury Defence Committee' and Islington Council, who voted to do all they could to block the move. In the end their efforts failed and Arsenal took up residence in Islington.

 


I is for Islington

The home of Arsenal is the London borough of Islington. Before being swallowed up by the sprawling capital metropolis, Islington began life as a Middlesex village, known by the name Giseldone (Gisla's Hill) by the Saxons. Over the next 1000 years it gradually morphed into the modern version. In more recent times it has been home to JK Rowling's Order of the Phoenix.

 


J is for Jensen

Danish midfielder John Jensen signed for Arsenal after scoring in Denmark's shock 1992 European Championships final win over Germany. He was one of the 12 foreign players that played on the opening weekend of the new Premier League. Jensen turned out to be one of two players that Arsenal boss George Graham took an under the table payment from agent Rune Hauge to sign, the other being Pal Lydersen. After the story broke Graham was sacked and banned from football for 12 months.

 


K is for Kroenke

The Gunners are owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, an American holding company based in Denver, Colorado. It is owned by Stan Kroenke and has a number of sports 'franchises' and entertainment companies under its banner. As well as Arsenal and Arsenal WFC, KSE owns Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Colorado Rapids and Colorado Mammoth in terms of sports teams. It also has two esports teams, four TV channels, one internet TV channel, 19 magazines and four radio stations.

 


L is for Live

Arsenal's game on 22nd January 1927 versus Sheffield United at Highbury was the first English League match to be broadcast live on radio. They followed it up just over ten years later when an exhibition game between their first team and reserve team became the first football match in the world to be televised live on 16th September 1937. In 2010 they faced Manchester United in the first live public broadcast of a sports event on 3D television.

 


M is for Manager

The Gunners have had a number of managers who stamped an indelible mark on the club's history. Herbert Chapman in the 1920s built an Arsenal on the back of huge spending, for the time, which was successful on the pitch but his time was also remembered for the arrival of the famous white sleeves. Sadly his sudden death from pneumonia mid-season left his work to be continued by others. Bertie Mee in the early 1970s brought the clubs first double and he brought a certain George Graham to the club as a player. In the second half of the 1980s and first half of the 1990s the club was very firmly a Graham entity, with a style of play that was rigidly set by the manager. Who can forget the famous back four raising their arms in unison? Or the 1-0 to the Arsenal? The arrival of Arsene Wenger transformed the club into a modern entity that looked to play attacking football, in complete contrast to Graham's side, and introduced proper diet and fitness practices to the players. While the second half of Wenger's reign was characterised by parsimony with money, his early days were exciting and revolutionised the game in England.

 


N is for Neill

At the age of just 34, Arsenal's youngest ever manager was Terry Neill, who took over from Bertie Mee in 1976. While Neill managed to lead the Gunners to 3 FA Cup finals and a European Cup Winners' Cup final with talents such as Malcolm Macdonald, Pat Jennings, Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton, they won just one FA Cup in his time in charge.

 


O is for O'Leary

David O'Leary spent almost his entire club career at Arsenal and racked up a club record 722 appearances for the Gunners. He first signed for Arsenal in 1973 as an apprentice from Shelbourne at the age of 16, making his debut while still only 17 and only moved on to Leeds United after 20 years in Islington.

 


P is for Plumstead

In their first season, Arsenal played on Plumstead Common. For their second season they moved to the Sportsman Ground on Plumstead Marshes, but growing support meant they were on the move again for the third season, this time to the nearby Manor Ground. A few years later their growing fanbase made another move necessary, this time just across the road to the Invicta Ground.

 


Q is for Quy

The man inside the Gunnersaurus suit from its inception in the early 1990s was Jerry Quy, right up until the club made him redundant in October 2020 as part of a cost-cutting move due to the pandemic. Then Arsenal player Mesut Ozil even offered to pay Quy's salary himself to keep him in the job. Gunnersaurus has since returned but is now being played by a 'roster' of people.

 


R is for Relegation

Arsenal have been relegated just once, in 1913. They returned to the top flight in 1919, via a vote over recently relegated local rivals Spurs, when Division 1 was enlarged, and have been in the top flight ever since.

 


S is for South

In 1893, Arsenal became the first club from the south of England to join the new Football League, the oldest professional football league competition in the world. They joined when the new second division, which had only been formed the year before, was expanded to 15 teams.

 


T is for Training

For most of the club's history the team trained at the stadium until 1961 when they began using facilities owned by the University College of London Students' Union. Which could go some way to explain the drinking culture at the club during that period! Arsene Wenger oversaw the introduction of a new purpose-built facility in 1999. Since then the players have continued to train at what is named the Shenley Training Centre in Hertfordshire.

 


U is for Uniform

Up until very recently, Arsenal always had a tradition of all players wearing the same uniform. They would start the season with short sleeved shirts and then, when the captain made the decision it was cold enough, they would swop to long sleeves for the winter period. When it began to warm up, he would then decide when to revert to short sleeves.

 


V is for Victoria

The club motto is Victoria Concordia Crescit, which is Latin for 'Victory Through Harmony'.

 


W is for Woolwich

The club was founded in 1886 by a group of workers from the Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory. The team's name could have been so different as what became the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, was originally called the Woolwich Warren due to being built on land used as a domestic warren for raising rabbits for meat and fur in the grounds of a Tudor house. The Royal Arsenal was at its peak during the First World War, when it covered over 500 hectares and employed nearly 80,000 people.

 


X is for Xhaka

Though not the most popular player with Gooners, Arsenal's current club third captain is Swiss international midfielder Granit Xhaka. The 29 year old has 98 caps for his country and 225 appearances for the Gunners.

 


Y is for Yawp

Something Arsenal fans are not known for is a yawp. In fact they are considered so quiet that Highbury was nicknamed the Library.

 


Z is for Zeal

In 1913 the suffragettes burned down the grandstand of the Plumstead stadium Arsenal were then using in their zeal. It was part of their national campaign of bombing and arson attacks as they fought for women's suffrage. The club moved to Highbury that year.

 

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To read the previous A To Z: Celtic click here.

Written by Tris Burke October 09 2021 02:17:53

 

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