The rich history of Arsenal football goes back to 1886 at a Arsenal munitions factory in Woolwich. With help from co-workers and local natives that contributed to the start of the football club, the team had no name despite playing it’s first game against Dial Square which they humbly lost 6-0. While sitting at the local pub called Royal Oak, the team name was invented combining the workplace and the pub, hence Royal Arsenal was born. The name only stuck for five years and the founders of the team eventually went with Woolwich Arsenal for the team name. What began as fun and exercise for these hardworking men, little did history know or the men themselves of what they unleashed. In that same year Woolwich Arsenal became a professional club.

In the early days of the league itself, the London FA tried to coax other London teams like Tottenham, Queen’s Park Rangers and Millwall to form a southern league but the proposal was rejected. Woolwich Arsenal applied to the league and in 1893 were elected to the Second Division. They were London’s only professional club and the first club south of Birmingham City to be elected to the league. Their first ever league game was played in a 2-2 draw against Newcastle United.

Arsenal’s long football history began with Herbert Chapman in the summer of 1925. He is easily the most talked about factor that made Arsenal into the football club it remains today. The team struggled within the league for years and by 1930, Chapman’s persistence was starting to pay dividends and Arsenal won it’s first trophy. Despite the sudden death of Chapman from pneumonia in 1934 at the age of 55, Arsenal was the team to beat during the whole decade and having three back-to-back titles to it’s credit.

Arsenal and many other teams returned after World War II and George Allison took over the reigns of the team. Arsenal wasn’t the same team from the 30’s and with players retiring and a different look, they could not capture the old magic they once had. Allison retired eventually and the team was taken over by assistant, Tom Whitaker. The team ended up losing some close battles and winning and losing the final before going on a 17-year drought. This included a couple manager changes and a few trips to the finals but coming up empty.

The next few decades saw the team go through many trials and tribulations with coaches and disappointing results but the biggest project was taking Arsenal from its home of 93 years to a state-of-the-art venue just a stone’s throw away in 2006. A new stadium (Emirates Stadium), a new energized community and one fired-up Arsenal team. During that era Arsene Wenger was the manager, and still is to this day. His success at the club is un-rivalled, particularly in respect of the fact that in a modern football world of high transfer fees, he has traded arsenal at a profit over 12 years. He is viewed as a master of picking up young unknown players with considerable talent and moulding them into a team that play a devastating standard of pass ad move football.

Author Bio: Adrian Bryan writes for The Football Merchandise Store the web’s finest collection of Football Souvenirs and Football Merchandise

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