Lots of drama go down in every English Premier League season. Records are created and broken, with some offset. We will be digging deep in this article to uncover some fascinating facts and stories about Arsenal FC like “the year Arsenal FC won their first European trophy”
Relax and read each fact carefully, because you will certainly discover some jaw-dropping Arsenal FC facts you can use to banter with your friends.
Note: date-based facts are correct as of 2023.
1. Arsenal was founded by a group of noisy workers from Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory.
2. Arsenal FC holds the record for the longest uninterrupted period in the English top flight.
3. Thomas Mitchell is recognized as the first professional manager of Arsenal.
4. They were the first southern team to join the football league.
5. Arsenal FC won their first European trophy, the Inner-Cities Fairs Cup in 1970.
6. In April 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Arsenal as the third most valuable football team in the world.
7. Arséne Wenger is known as the first foreign manager of Arsenal.
8. They hold the title for the longest unbeaten away record in the league, standing at 27 games in 2003/04.
9. Thierry Henry is the highest scorer in Arsenal with a total of 228 goals.
10. David O’Leary made the highest appearance in the club with 722 games.
11. The youngest player in the club is Ethan Nwaneri who clocked 15 in September 2022.
12. The oldest player to have played for Arsenal is Jens Lehmann at 41 years, and 5 months.
13. The 15 oak leaves to the right of the club’s crest used in their 125 years anniversary celebration acknowledged the founders who usually met in the local Royal Oak pub.
14. Arsenal qualified for the UEFA Champions League for 19 successive seasons from 1988 to 2017.
15. Arsène Wenger is the longest-serving manager and won the most trophies.
16. David Danskin, Elijah Watkins, John Humble, and Richard Pearce are the main founding fathers of Arsenal.
17. Social media activity from 2014-15 showed that Arsenal’s fan base is the fifth largest in the world
18. An exhibition match between Arsenal’s first team and the reserves on 16th September 1937 was the first ever football match to be broadcast live on television.
19. They are the only team to have finished a Premier League season undefeated (2003/04)
20. Arsenal holds the record for the longest unbroken record in the top division of football.
21. They were nicknamed ‘The Gunners’ because they were formed by a group of cannon makers at the Woolwich Arsenal in 1886.
22. They changed their name permanently to Arsenal in 1914.
23. When they reached the final in 2006, they played ten games, 995 minutes, without conceding a goal. They hold the record for an uninterrupted clean sheet in Champion League.
24. Research shows that David Danskin and his three other workers’ friends first formed the club in October 1886 before fifteen other men joined them.
25. Members of the founding groups contributed sixpence each with Danskin adding extra three shillings to help form the club.
26. The founding fathers of Arsenal named the Dial square as a reference to the sundial atop the entrance to the factory in Royal Arsenal but changed their name to Royal Arsenal after a month
27. They played their first match as Dial Square against Eastern Wanderers and won 6- 0 on 11 December 1886.
28. Royal Arsenal became the first club in London to turn professional.
29. Mikel Arteta is the youngest manager of Arsenal at the age of 37.
30. They moved into the Emirates Stadium In July 2006, after 93 years at Highbury Stadium.
31. The choice of red in their uniform is in recognition of a charitable donation from Nottingham Forest, soon after Arsenal’s formation in 1886.
32. A certain story has it that Champman noticed a supporter in the stand wearing a red sleeveless sweater over a white shirt and decided to adopt the dress code for the club.
33. Arsenal’s home colors have been an inspiration for at least three other clubs.
34. Arsenal’s kits were manufactured by Adidas from the 2019-20 season.
35. Arsenal has had its kits manufactured by Adidas, Puma, and Nike, but Adidas is the current manufacturer.
36. Their current stadium was named after its sponsor, the Emirates airline company which the club signed a sponsorship deal of about £100 million. It is the largest sponsorship deal in English football history.
37. The stadium will be officially known as Emirates Stadium until at least 2028, and the airline will be the club’s shirt sponsor until at least 2024.
38. The club used facilities on a nearby site owned by the University College of London Students’ Union for their training until they built their own Shenley training center in Hertfordshire and transferred.
39. The club’s academy under-18 teams play their home matches at Shenley, while the reserves play at Meadow Park but, they occasionally play together at the Emirates.
40. Arsenal’s fan base is referred to as “Gooners” – a name derived from the club’s nickname “The Gunners”.
41. Arsenal has a number of domestic supporters’ clubs; the Arsenal Football Supporters Club, which works closely with the club, and the Arsenal Independent Supporters Association, just like all major English football clubs.
42. The Arsenal Supporters’ Trust promotes greater participation in ownership of the club by fans.
43. A report made by the sports market in 2011 estimated Arsenal’s global fan base to be 113 million.
44. Arsenal’s major rivalries include Chelsea, West ham, and Manchester United, and their longest-running and deepest rivalry is Tottenham Spur, their nearest major neighbor.
45. A match between Arsenal and Tottenham Spur is referred to as the North London derby.
46. Their match at Highbury against Sheffield United on 22 January 1927 was the first English League match to be broadcast live on the radio.
47. Arsenal founded a community scheme, “Arsenal in the Community” in 1985, which offered sporting, social, educational, and charitable projects.
48. The club’s mascot is a smiling, 7-foot-tall green dinosaur named Gunnersaurus Rex, who is based on a drawing by then-11-year-old Peter Lovell.
49. Peter Lovell’s official backstory of the club’s Mascot is that the dinosaur hatched from an egg found during renovations at Highbury.
50. American sports tycoon, Stan Kroenke is the largest shareholder on the Arsenal board.
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