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 Arsenal - A Few Facts !!!Thu 13th Sep 2012 11:23 Want to know a bit more about Arrsenal then read on, asonce again The Ugly Inside brings you the truth behind England's biggest football clubs. 1. any people thing that Arsenal's original name was Woolich Arsenal, but they would be wrong, it was originally formed in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich after they had read in the football magazine Shoot about a football club in Southampton being formed the previous year, they called the club Dial Square, although within a year had changed it to Royal Arsenal followed by in 1893, Woolwich Arsenal as they became a limited company. 2. Woolwich Arsenal were the original Franchise FC and were the blueprint for MK Dons, although a first division side in the early part of the 20th century, they got realtively small attendances compared to the other clubs in the division and after being relegated in 1913 they moved the club lock stock and barrel to Highbury which as most of you will know is north of the river from Woolwich, they kept the Woolwich part of their name for a while. 3, Tottenham as you may imagine were a bit miffed at Arsenal for suddenly plotting up in what they saw as their territory, when the league reconvened after World War 1 they were further miffed when despite finishing only fifth in the second division Arsenal were elected to the first division by reportably dubious means at the expense of Spurs who have been in that miffed condition ever since. 4. Arsenal have had more changes of crest than most clubs although a cannon facing one way or another has been used on all but one of them, in 2002 it was pointed out that the cannon was not pointing in the direction of White Hart Lane, so it was turned round to face the other way, much to the consternation of several generations of Arsenal supporters who had it tattoed on to their bodies. 5. Highbury was known as the library, but this is not because of chirpy cockney rhyming slang as you might expect, nor because of the silence of the crowd, but because of the extensive collection of books stored on shelves in the away dressing room, Arsenal's accounts for their final year at Highbury show an income of £136.35 earned from fines from visiting players returning their books back late, however the Emirates does not have such a facility aas it was scrapped due to the modern Premier player only having a remedial level understanding of English, indeed when a copy of Harry Potter was defaced with the words "Wayne Loves Colleen" by an unknown Manchester United player enough was enough for the Gunners. 6. Arsenal have traditionally been known to have played in their shirts of red with white sleeves, but this isnt as traditional as you might think, originally Nottingham Forest donated them some old shirts to get them going and they played in this all red shirt until as late as 1933, or 27 minutes to 8 as it was back then before the 24 hour clock. This was instituted by then manager Herbert Chapman who was riled that linesmen often failed to notice the red sleeved arm of the Arsenal back four appealing for off side, after a stream of disputed goals Chapman changed the sleeves to white enabling linesmen to spot the outstretched arm more easily. 7. Arsenal have many celebrity fans, although at time of writing it is not thought that they can list the drummer of a major rock group in this list, to be a top club in England this is a must, Roger Taylor out of Queen supporting Man Utd, Ringo Starr supporting Liverpool, the druimmer out of The Farm supporting Everton and of course our very own Will Champion of Coldplay, the Gunners have to rely on a more downmarket form of celebrity fan like Piers Morgan. 8. As a youngster Tony Adams used to try and stretch his arm by tying himself to the top of doorways and dangling there for hours at a time its thought that this extra inch or two on his arm was worth at least four goals a season not conceded with the linesman able to spot it, the downside is that Adams had to have surgery to release his shoulder muscles from a rigid position in order to regain normal movement in other directions other than upward. 9. Arsenal have a number of media firsts, in 1927 they were the first match broadcast live on radio, in 1964 they were the first club along with Liverpool to be screened on match of the day and in the 1980's they were the first club to be embarrased by Piers Morgan when he declared his love for them, a sad end to a proud media tradition. 10. Arsenal were one of the first clubs to have a hit record, Good Old Arsenal actually being written by Jimmy Hill for the cup final of that year, strangely it featured no drums on the record,
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