Arsenal F.C./import

Arsenal FC got it's start as a reserve team for Woolwich Armaments, the official date list Arsenal's founding as Christmas Day of 1886 as Dial Square, another almagalm of the official name was Woolwich Arsenal. Autumn of 1887 saw Woolwich Arsenal play their first official game as part of the old second division.

From 1886 to early 1913 the club had poor attendance at their South London location. Papers of the time describe the miserable conditions and "shoddy" area in an industrial eary 20th century South London. Ledger Shant said in 1941 that people were afraid to attend, "I remember how scared I was as a boy, goint to see the boys of the ol Arsenal was a scary affair".

Low attendance saw lower quality of play, at one point in 1911 attendance off the pitch was recorded as "5 lowly men having a few fags".

The club moved to North London and their were rumors over all over the papers of a possible club merger with Fulham. So A suitable and "a clean pitch" was located at the Theological College in Highbury not far from Gillespie Road Underground station on the Piccadilly Line. The area was less industrial and more residental, the location was easy to access and seemed to draw more support from the locals. Tottenham Hotspur, objected to the the new club, but official objections were overruled, and the club was allowed to proceed.

1915 was a good year for the club, the club officially became Arsenal, and was considered a "middle tier second division" club.

In the next four years, the club expanded it's roster and added better players with the increased income of the larger attendance. When the league expanded to 22 clubs Arsenal was brought into division one football. Tottenham objected to any expansion, and tried to block Arsenal from moving to division one. Once again Arsenal won it's battles with magnificant effort from the front office. Tottenham wound up paying for the expansion of Arsenal, a fact that Tottenham still tries to bring up to this day, and a rivalry was born.

STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION