HIGHBURY HIGHS

Colin Mayo looks back on 110 years of Arsenal FC being based in north London

- Colin Mayo

At the start of the 2023/24 Premier League football season, Arsenal fans may reflect that although they finished second to Manchester City last term, they had enjoyed their best season since the days of French manager Arsène Wenger. However, I wonder how many fans at their current ground, the Emirates Stadium, will reflect on the fact that, 110 years ago, on 6 September 1913, Arsenal played their first competitive game at Highbury Stadium which formed the foundations of the current club?

Their opponents were Leicester Fosse, and 20,000 fans turned up to watch them: some were from the local area and some were from Woolwich where Arsenal had previously resided. For a club which has become a pillar of the English football establishment, Arsenal's "Road to Highbury" from south of the Thames, and their eventual election to the First Division after World War One, was marred by the chicanery of a gentlemen builder by the name of Sir Henry Norris.

Norris was a Freemason, a mayor of Fulham, and an active member of the Church of England with close ties to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He had made a fortune in property development through his building company Allen & Norris which had transformed much of London and, pertinently, he was director of Fulham Football Club.

However, he knew the club was too small to fulfil his dream of a London club to rival the big northern teams.

He looked at buying Chelsea, Orient and Tottenham Hotspur without success but Woolwich Arsenal were a different proposition. Royal Munitions' depot workers had formed the club (hence the nickname "the Gunners") but the Division One side was mired in debt and played at the inhospitable and oft waterlogged Manor Ground in Plumstead in front of just 10,000 spectators.