Sports: Why Arsenal remain London's biggest club!

Champions League ever-presents and
the capital's most successful team,
the Gunners look poised to remain
London's elite side for years to come
under Arsene Wenger

London’s football landscape has
changed beyond all recognition over
the course of the last 127 years but
there has remained one constant:
Arsenal’s undisputed position as
kings of the capital.

From their humble beginnings as a
munitions factory team based in
Woolwich to the global behemoth
they have become, constant
innovation as well as strict
adherence to the morals and values
instilled by Herbert Chapman in the
1930s have seen the club maintain
and grow its stature.
Despite the majesty and splendour
of their art deco Highbury home,
complete with marble halls, it wasn’t
until Chapman’s appointment in
1925 that the club began to enjoy
success on the pitch. Under his
guidance Arsenal would dominate
the game in the 1930s, winning
seven major honours of which
Chapman was responsible for three
before his untimely death aged just
55.
The constant stream of silverware
helped in terms of putting the club
on the map but it was Chapman’s
visionary ideas and innovations that
helped spread the gospel and truly
set the club on the path to
greatness.
He ensured Highbury was to become
one of the most iconic stadiums in
world football, with his attention to
detail key to the instillation of
electronic turnstiles, a PA system
and, of course, the famous clock that
sat proudly atop the south stand for
decades.
Chapman helped forge links with the
local community by lobbying for the
Gillespie Road underground station
to be renamed Arsenal (the only
stop on the entire underground
network to be named after a football
club) but also had the foresight to
ensure the club’s name was known
and revered far beyond their north
London home.
Long before the advent of organised
Uefa competitions, Arsenal embarked
on European tours - Chapman
responsible for an ongoing series of
home-and-away friendlies against
the likes of Racing Club Paris.
The War years curtailed Arsenal’s
dominance of the English game,
allowing others to catch up, but the
club remained synonymous with
success. In 1970 they became only
the second London club to win a
major European trophy, lifting the
Uefa Cup in front of over 50,000 fans
packed in at Highbury.
They were to follow that success a
year later by becoming only the
third team in the history of English
football to complete a league and FA
Cup double – Charlie George
providing one of the most iconic
Wembley images of all-time with his
celebration that followed the
winning goal against Liverpool.
The club had to wait a further 18
years to win another league title but
the circumstances of their last-gasp
success made it worth the wait.
Needing to beat Liverpool at Anfield
by two clear goals, Michael Thomas
provided, in legendary commentator
Brian Moore’s words “an
unbelievable climax to the league
season” by scoring the decisive goal
with practically the last kick of the
entire campaign.
That success is part of a trophy
collection unrivalled by any London
club. The Gunners have won a total
of 40 major honours – only
Manchester United and Liverpool
have won more in England – nearly
double that of Chelsea and
Tottenham despite the nine-year
wait for silverware that ended at
Wembley in May thanks to Aaron
Ramsey’s dramatic FA Cup winning
goal.
Roman Abramovich’s billions have
represented the biggest threat to
Arsenal’s position as London’s finest
but although Chelsea have enjoyed
an enviable period of success, they
simply cannot match Arsenal for
consistency or sheer size.
The Gunners have won 13 First
Division and Premier League titles,
compared to Chelsea’s four, and a
joint record 11 FA Cups. The club
has accumulated the second most
points in English top-flight football
and holds the ongoing record for the
longest uninterrupted period in the
highest division.
Under Arsene Wenger, the club
completed the 2003-04 league
season unbeaten with a side that
contained some of the finest players
in Thierry Henry, Patrick Vieira and
Dennis Bergkamp that English
football has ever seen.
The club have also remained
omnipresent in the Champions
League and have qualified for the
competition a record 17 seasons in
succession, despite the financial
constraints placed upon them by the
move to the magnificent 60,000-
seater Emirates Stadium – the
second largest club stadium in
England.
To gain a measure of Arsenal’s size
and following, for the first two years
back in Europe’s elite competition
the club elected to play their games
at Wembley Stadium where crowds of
90,000 flocked to see them play the
likes of Barcelona and Dynamo Kiev –
a remarkable turnout when you
consider Chelsea regularly struggle
to fill their Stamford Bridge home for
Champions League matches.
Arsenal’s global reach has increased
significantly as a result of their
continued presence in the
Champions League and commitment
to fast, free-flowing football under
Wenger. They are the only Premier
League club to boast over four
million followers on Twitter and 25
million likes on Facebook.
Home, as the 250,000 fans who
greeted Arsenal’s FA Cup heroes by
lining the streets of Islington, is very
much where the heart of this great
club remains.