Arsenal 2013/2014

arsenal-stadium

Arsenal quick review - season 2013/2014

Arsenal Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Holloway, London. One of the most successful clubs in English football, it has won 13 First Division and Premier League titles and 10 FA Cups. Arsenal holds the record for the longest uninterrupted period in the English top flight and would be placed first in an aggregated league of the entire 20th century. It is the second side to complete an English top flight season unbeaten (in the 2003–04 season), and the only one to do so across 38 matches.

Arsenal was founded in 1886 in Woolwich and in 1893 became the first club from the south of England to join the Football League. In 1913, it moved north across the city to Arsenal Stadium in Highbury. In the 1930s the club won five League Championship titles and two FA Cups. After a lean period in the post-war years it won the League and FA Cup Double, in the 1970–71 season, and in the 1990s and first decade of the 21st century won two more Doubles and reached the 2006 UEFA Champions League Final. Arsenal has a long-standing rivalry with North London neighbours Tottenham Hotspur, with whom it contests the North London derby. Arsenal is the fourth most valuable association football club in the world as of 2012, valued at $1.3 billion.

Arsenal fans often refer to themselves as "Gooners", the name derived from the team's nickname, "The Gunners". The fanbase is large and generally loyal, and virtually all home matches sell out; in 2007–08 Arsenal had the second-highest average League attendance for an English club (60,070, which was 99.5% of available capacity), and as of 2006, the fourth-highest all-time average attendance. Arsenal has the seventh highest average attendance of European football clubs only behind Borussia Dortmund, FC Barcelona, Manchester United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, and Schalke. The club's location, adjoining wealthy areas such as Canonbury and Barnsbury, mixed areas such as Islington, Holloway, Highbury, and the adjacent London Borough of Camden, and largely working-class areas such as Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington, has meant that Arsenal's supporters have come from across the usual class divides.

Like all major English football clubs, Arsenal have a number of domestic supporters' clubs, including the Arsenal Football Supporters Club, which works closely with the club, and the Arsenal Independent Supporters' Association, which maintains a more independent line. The Arsenal Supporters' Trust promotes greater participation in ownership of the club by fans. The club's supporters also publish fanzines such as The Gooner, Highbury High, Gunflash and the less cerebral Up The Arse!. In addition to the usual English football chants, supporters sing "One-Nil to the Arsenal" (to the tune of "Go West") and "Boring, Boring Arsenal", which used to be a common taunt from opposition fans but is now sung ironically by Arsenal supporters when the team is playing well.

There have always been Arsenal supporters outside of London, and since the advent of satellite television, a supporter's attachment to a football club has become less dependent on geography. Consequently, Arsenal have a significant number of fans from beyond London and all over the world; in 2007, 24 UK, 37 Irish and 49 other overseas supporters clubs were affiliated with the club. A 2005 report by Granada Ventures, which at the time owned a 9.9% stake in the club, estimated Arsenal's global fanbase at 27 million.

Arsenal's longest-running and deepest rivalry is with their nearest major neighbours, Tottenham Hotspur; matches between the two are referred to as North London derbies. Other rivalries within London include those with Chelsea, Fulham and West Ham United. In addition, Arsenal and Manchester United developed a strong on-pitch rivalry in the late 1980s, which intensified in recent years when both clubs were competing for the Premier League title – so much so that a 2003 online poll by the Football Fans Census listed Manchester United as Arsenal's biggest rivals, followed by Tottenham and Chelsea. A 2008 poll listed the Tottenham rivalry as more important.

Trophies list

FA Premier League Cup

1930, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1937, 1947, 1952, 1970, 1988, 1990, 1997, 2001, 2003
FA Cup

1930, 1936, 1950, 1971, 1979, 1993, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2005
Football League Cup

1987, 1993
FA Charity / Community Shield

1930*, 1931, 1933*, 1934*, 1938*, 1948, 1953*, 1991 (shared), 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004, (* - shared)
European Cup Winners' Cup

1993