Arsenal are one of the oldest football clubs in the country, and started life back in October 1886 when a group of workers from the Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory decided to form a football team.
David Danskin, from Burntisland in Fife, Scotland, was one of the workers at the munitions factory in Woolwich, and he had a plan. A football man through and through, the Scot was situated in an area dominated by rugby and cricket and wanted to set up a team with the help of three friends: Elijah Watkins, John Humble and Richard Pearce.
The arrival in Woolwich of Nottingham Forest player Fred Beardsley gave Danskin all the motivation he needed to found the club.
WHY WERE ARSENAL CALLED DIAL SQUARE?
Word got around and 15 men came forward, each prepared to pay sixpence to help start up a club. Danskin added another three shillings himself and the club bought a football.
We arranged its first game for December 1886 but had no name, no kit and nowhere to play. We called ourselves Dial Square, in reference to one of the factory workshops.
Beardsley had brought their old red Forest kit along with them, and working to a tight budget, the club decided the most inexpensive way of acquiring a strip was to kit out the team in the same colour.
Read more about the origins of our first name, Dial Square.
WHEN WAS DIAL SQUARE's FIRST-EVER GAME?
Our first game came as Dial Square on December 11, 1886, when we downed Eastern Wanderers on the Isle of Dogs 6-0, and by Christmas Day they were to be known as Royal Arsenal.
At the time, the 15 men, who had pooled their resources to buy a football, wanted little more than a means of exercise and, no doubt, the social activity which accompanied it.
They had no idea they would be forming one of the most decorated and successful clubs England has ever seen.
Check out how the foundations were laid.
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