Arsenal F.C.

(official logo)

Honors Premier League Titles (3): 1997–98, 2001–02, 2003–04 First Division Titles (10): 1930–31, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35, 1937–38, 1947–48, 1952–53, 1970–71, 1988–89, 1990–91 FA Cup (10): 1930, 1936, 1950, 1971, 1979, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005 League Cup (2): 1987, 1993 Charity Shields and Community Shields (11+1): 1930, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1948, 1953, 1991 (shared), 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004 European Cup Winners' Cup (1): 1994 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup / UEFA Cup (1): 1970

Home Grounds Manor Ground (1888-1990), (1893-1913) Invicta Ground (1890-1893) Highbury (1913-2006) Emirates Stadium (2006-)

Front Office Chairman: Peter Hill-Wood Manager: Arsene Wenger Nickname: The Gunners

Contents 1 Team History 1.1 Origins 1.2 An Historic Meeting 1.3 Entry to the Football League 1.4 Woolwich Arsenal 1.5 Move to Highbury 1.6 Herbert Chapman Football Innovator 2 Crest, Colors, Kit 3 Current Squad 4 Managers 5 Records 5.1 Total Appearances 6 Yearly Results 7 Video Gallery 8 Picture Gallery 9 See Also 9.1 Arsenal References 9.2 Notable Arsenal Blogs 9.3 Recent Arsenal F.C. ArmchairGM Stories

Featured Arsenal Player

Perry Groves is seen here on the last day at Highbury. He is perhaps one of the terraces most enigmatic and beloved players in the club's history

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Featured Arsenal Team

The 70-71 Arsenal team stunned everyone by winning the domestic double of League Title and FA Cup.

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Barclays Premier League Member Clubs for 2009-10
Arsenal F.C. Aston Villa F.C. Birmingham City F.C. Blackburn Rovers Bolton Wanderers Burnley F.C. Chelsea F.C. Everton F.C. Fulham F.C. Hull City A.F.C.	Liverpool F.C. Manchester City F.C. Manchester United F.C. Portsmouth F.C. Stoke City F.C. Sunderland A.F.C. Tottenham Hotspur F.C. West Ham United F.C. Wigan Athletic F.C. Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.

Arsenal Football Club is an English football club and presently compete in the Barclays Premier League. The club has been very successful, their thirteen top flight titles is only bettered by both Manchester United and Liverpool. Arsenal's total of 10 FA Cups is second only to Manchester United. The club has also won three domestic doubles of League Title and FA Cup (1970-71, 1997-98, 2001-02). Arsenal were the first club to complete the domestic cup double by winning both the FA Cup and the League Cup in 1993. In 2006 Arsenal became the first London based club to compete in the UEFA Champions League final were they lost to F.C. Barcelona by a score of 2-1.

[edit] Team History

[edit] Origins

The origins of Arsenal Football Club can be traced to the Woolwich Arsenal, a government run munitions factory, located on the borders of rural Kent and the southern part of London. At that time the most popular sports in that area were cricket and rugby. It was a group of men from outside this area who worked at the munitions factory who came together to form a football club.

One of the key members of this group was David Danskin a Scotsman from Kirkcaldy in Fife. When two players from Nottingham Forest, Fred Beardsley and Morris Bates, arrived at the works it inspired Danskin and three friends Elijah Watkins, John Humble and Richard Pearce to ask around to see who would be interested in joining the new team. Fifteen men paid sixpence to join the club and Danskin added three shillings of his own money.

The first game for the club came on December 11, 1886 against a club named Eastern Wanderers. The club quickly adopted the name of Dial Square, which was the name of one of the workshops within the Arsenal. The actual result is disputed, because there were a lack of cross bars and markings on the pitch, it is generally accepted that Dial Square won the match 6-0.

[edit] An Historic Meeting

Christmas Day of 1886 was indeed a very important day for the new club. It was on that day that the players held a meeting in which they set about to solve some rather obvious problems. The name of the club was one of the issues to be tackled. Dial Square proving to be unpopular. The new name was a combination of the name of the pub, Royal Oak, where the players were meeting and their place of work. Thus was born the name Royal Arsenal. Eventually though the club adopted the name Woolwich Arsenal in 1891.

The next bit of business to be sorted was the kit. The color red was adopted mainly because the former Forest players Beardsley and Bates already had shirts of this color. Beardsley then wrote to his former club asking if they could help outfit the rest of the squad. Forest was very generous and sent the red shirts and even a ball.

The last bit of business was finding a place to play. It became clear to the men in attendance that their only option was to use the closest bit of public land available, this happened to be Plumstead Common.

[edit] Entry to the Football League

When originally formed the club was an amateur side as was the norm in the London area. The London Football Association were very much against the move of the northern clubs towards professionalism. Jack Humble a club committee member and sometime goalkeeper was taken aback by the relative ease at which the professional clubs could attract the better players from the amateur sides. Seeing this Humble first proposed taking the club professional in 1891. The proposal was approved by a vast majority.

The backlash from this controversial move was that the London FA immediately banned Arsenal from all competitions. The only option available for the club was to then enter the FA Cup and also schedule friendlies against other professional clubs. The FA Cup became a very important competition for the club financially. However, in their first round cup tie in 1892 the club lost to Small Heath 5-1. The following year they again bowed out in the first round losing to Sunderland 6-0.

One other item of change produced by the move to go professional was that the club changed their name dropping the "Royal" and calling the club Woolwich Arsenal. This was more than likely done to deflect any further backlash from the London FA.

Given this lack of success something had to be done. In 1892 Arsenal held meetings to determine the likelihood of forming a southern division of the professional Football League. The original idea found favor of 12 clubs including Arsenal. Once more the London FA threatened to ban the member clubs so all of them save Arsenal dropped out.

With the collapse of the southern division idea only one option was left for Arsenal. At the end of the 1892-93 season the Football League decided to expand the Second Division from 12 clubs to 15. In addition to that, two further spots opened when Bootle resigned and Accrington refused relegation from the First Division. There were now five spots open in the Second Division. Newcastle United and Rotherham Town were given places immediately. The other three spots were voted upon and Liverpool, Woolwich Arsenal and Middlesbrough Ironopolis were granted entry into the Second Division. Woolwich Arsenal became the first team south of Birmingham and Burton to enter the Football League.

[edit] Woolwich Arsenal

[edit] Move to Highbury

[edit] Herbert Chapman Football Innovator

[edit] Crest, Colors, Kit

[edit] Current Squad

No.	Player	Position	Country	Join Date
1	Manuel Almunia	GK	Spain	July 14, 2004
2	Abou Diaby	MF	France	January 13, 2006
3	Bacary Sagna	DF	France	Jul 12, 2007
4	Francesc Fabregas	MF	Spain	September 11, 2003
5	Kolo Touré	DF	Côte d'Ivoire	February 14, 2002
7	Tomas Rosicky	MF	Czech Republic	May 23, 2006
8	Samir Nasri	MF	France	July 11, 2008
9	Eduardo da Silva	FW	Croatia	July 3, 2007
10	William Gallas	DF	France	August 31, 2006
11	Robin van Persie	FW	Netherlands	May 17, 2004
12	Carlos Vela	FW	Mexico	January 1, 2008
14	Theo Walcott	FW	England	January 20, 2006
15	Denilson	MF	Brazil	August 31, 2006
16	Aaron Ramsey	MF	Wales	June 13, 2008
17	Alexandre Song	MF	Cameroon	August 12, 2005
18	Mikael Silvestre	DF	France	August 21, 2008
19	Jack Wilshere	MF	England	October 1, 2001
20	Johan Djourou	DF	Switzerland	August 1, 2003
21	Lukasz Fabianski	GK	Poland	May 26, 2007
22	Gaël Clichy	DF	France	August 4, 2003
24	Vito Mannone	GK	Italy	July 1, 2005
25	Emmanuel Adebayor	FW	Togo	January 13, 2006
26	Nicklas Bendtner	FW	Denmark	August 1, 2004
27	Emmanuel Eboué	DF	Côte d'Ivoire	January 2, 2005
28	Amaury Bischoff	MF	Portugal	July 30, 2008
31	Justin Hoyte	DF	England	August 1, 2001
37	Paul Rodgers	DF	England
39	Henri Lansbury	MF	England	July 31, 2007
40	Kieran Gibbs	MF	England
41	Gavin Hoyte	DF	England	September 10, 2007
42	Fran Merida	MF	Spain	January 10, 2007
47	Mark Randall	MF	England
50	Jay Simpson	FW	England
Loaned				On Loan To
6	Philippe Senderos	DF	Switzerland	AC Milan
30	Armand Traore	DF	France	Portsmouth
43	Nacer Barazite	MF	Netherlands	Derby County
--	Havard Nordtveit	MF	Norway	U.D. Salamanca
--	Vincent van den Berg	MF	Netherlands	F.C. Zwolle
--	Pedro Botelho	MF	Brazil	U.D. Salamanca
--	Kerrea Gilbert	DF	England	Leicester City

[edit] Managers

[edit] Records

[edit] Total Appearances

The following table lists the all time club leaders in appearances. Only competitive matches are included.

Rank	Player	Nationality	Years	League	FA Cup	League Cup	Europe	Community Shield	Total Appearances
1.	David O'Leary	Ireland	1975-93	558	70	70	21	3	722
2.	Tony Adams	England	1984-02	504	53	59	48	4	669
3.	George Armstrong	England	1961-77	500	60	35	26	0	621
4.	Lee Dixon	England	1988-02	458	53	45	57	5	619
5.	Nigel Winterburn	England	1987-00	440	47	49	43	5	584
6.	David Seaman	England	1990-03	405	47	38	69	4	564
7.	Pat Rice	Northern Ireland	1964-80	397	67	36	27	1	528
8.	Peter Storey	England	1965-77	391	51	37	22	0	501
9.	John Radford	England	1964-76	379	44	34	24	0	481
10.	Peter Simpson	England	1964-78	370	53	33	21	0	477
11.	Bob John	Wales	1922-37	421	46	0	0	3	470
12.	Graham Rix	England	1975-88	351	44	47	21	1	464
12.	Ray Parlour	England	1992-04	339	43	26	52	4	464
14.	Martin Keown	England	1984-86, 1993-04	333	40	23	49	4	449
15.	Paul Davis	England	1980-95	351	27	51	16	2	447
16.	Eddie Hapgood	England	1927-44	393	41	0	0	6	440
17.	Paul Merson	England	1985-97	327	31	40	22	3	423
17.	Dennis Bergkamp	Netherlands	1995-06	315	39	16	48	5	423
19.	Patrick Vieira	France	1996-05	280	48	7	68	4	407
20.	Frank McLintock	Scotland	1964-73	314	36	34	19	0	403

[edit] Yearly Results

[edit] Video Gallery

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[edit] Picture Gallery

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[edit] See Also

[edit] Arsenal References

• Arsenal Official Home Page

[edit] Notable Arsenal Blogs

[edit] Recent Arsenal F.C. ArmchairGM Stories