Player:Tomiyasu
STAND at the top of Highbury Hill in north London and, at a glance, you can see how over the years big money has transformed English soccer.
Down Avenell Road lies the old Highbury Stadium, home to Arsenal FC for 93 years and one of the temples of English soccer.
Its art deco-style facade, still grand after all those years, stands guard over rows of terraced houses.
On the very left lies the Gunners' spanking home of today - a gleaming architectural showpiece that is the Emirates stadium, partly funded by the Dubai-based airline.
NOSTALGIC
Marc Sands, a season ticket-holder for 19 years, is still nostalgic about the move 12 months ago, saying:" Highbury is a mini-world where all your experiences melt into one and you can barely distinguish one game from another.
"It's an ever-present fixture in your life, a place to go which has no relationship with the rest of your life and where the memories are tied to only that place." Arsenal, formed in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south London, moved to Highbury in 1913, settling on the site of the playing fields of St John's College of Divinity.
They arrived a relegated side with serious financial problems. Within 20 years they were the dominant force, winning five titles in the 1930s.
These successes allowed the ground to be redeveloped. The West Stand was opened in 1932 and the famous East Stand four years later.
Protected from alteration under modern-day heritage laws, the red-and-white East Stand is a reminder of how soccer used to be with its marble halls, bust of 1930s manager Herbert Chapman and military-style commi- ssionaires to keep out the riff-raff.
Executive boxes were added to the Clock (South) End in the late 1980s, and in 1993 the North Bank was completely redeveloped as Highbury became an all-seater stadium, sharply reducing attendances which had peaked at 73,295 in March 1935.
Despite all the changes, Highbury, unlike Manchester United's Old Trafford ground or Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, still looks and feels like an old-style soccer cockpit with the seating finishing just a couple of steps from the immaculate pitch and the brick-lined, echoing stairways to the stands.
Everyday, tourists can be seen leaving the Arsenal underground railway station on a pilgrimage, needing help from locals because the ground hides itself well among the houses.
When you arrive for the first time at Highbury, the stadium is suddenly in front of you and you don't know (how) because on the continent you see a stadium from three miles away," Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger said recently.
"What I always like in England is that you feel the club belongs to the population who live around there. I like the idea that you can go out the door and go to a football game. That doesn't exist anywhere else," said Wenger.
Arsenal have won 13 league titles during their time at Highbury and the stadium has also hosted internationals, served as a first aid post during World War Two and hosted the 1966 world title fight between boxers Muhammad Ali and Briton Henry Cooper.
It was the venue of the first radio commentary on a soccer match in 1927 and the first televised game 10 years later.
Highbury was also the centrepiece of a 1930s film, "The Arsenal Stadium Mystery" which revolved around the poisoning of a player, and Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" book which captured a fan's fervour as soccer's popularity exploded in the 1990s.
In 1991, on the day Arsenal clinched the title, you could buy a ticket at the box office and wander into the Clock End. But in its twilight days, tickets for Highbury were like gold dust unless you were a season ticket-holder.
Other Premier League clubs, such as Manchester United, were expanding or building new and bigger stadiums as television money began flooding into the game.
This left Arsenal at an ever-widening financial disadvantage - United were raking in around 20 million ($60m) a season more in match-day revenue.
Local opposition to the North Bank redevelopment meant expansion of Highbury was out of the question, and Arsenal finally picked Ashburton Grove, a large area of light industrial buildings, just around the corner, to site a new stadium.
SERIES OF AUCTIONS
In trying to ease the pain of departure. the club ran a series of Highbury-themed match-days and staged a series of auctions where fans could buy one square-foot pieces of the pitch, or Highbury memorabilia and equipment.
Sands, who also bought his, began comparing Highbury to the spanking new Emirates stadium, saying: "It's an astonishing stadium - Highbury was quite uncomfortable and had restricted views.
"Nonetheless, the fact the stadium is in the same neighbourhood means Arsenal will not lose its sense of being a gritty, north London club. The fans' routines will be exactly the same.."
Down Avenell Road lies the old Highbury Stadium, home to Arsenal FC for 93 years and one of the temples of English soccer.
Its art deco-style facade, still grand after all those years, stands guard over rows of terraced houses.
On the very left lies the Gunners' spanking home of today - a gleaming architectural showpiece that is the Emirates stadium, partly funded by the Dubai-based airline.
NOSTALGIC
Marc Sands, a season ticket-holder for 19 years, is still nostalgic about the move 12 months ago, saying:" Highbury is a mini-world where all your experiences melt into one and you can barely distinguish one game from another.
"It's an ever-present fixture in your life, a place to go which has no relationship with the rest of your life and where the memories are tied to only that place." Arsenal, formed in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, south London, moved to Highbury in 1913, settling on the site of the playing fields of St John's College of Divinity.
They arrived a relegated side with serious financial problems. Within 20 years they were the dominant force, winning five titles in the 1930s.
These successes allowed the ground to be redeveloped. The West Stand was opened in 1932 and the famous East Stand four years later.
Protected from alteration under modern-day heritage laws, the red-and-white East Stand is a reminder of how soccer used to be with its marble halls, bust of 1930s manager Herbert Chapman and military-style commi- ssionaires to keep out the riff-raff.
Executive boxes were added to the Clock (South) End in the late 1980s, and in 1993 the North Bank was completely redeveloped as Highbury became an all-seater stadium, sharply reducing attendances which had peaked at 73,295 in March 1935.
Despite all the changes, Highbury, unlike Manchester United's Old Trafford ground or Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, still looks and feels like an old-style soccer cockpit with the seating finishing just a couple of steps from the immaculate pitch and the brick-lined, echoing stairways to the stands.
Everyday, tourists can be seen leaving the Arsenal underground railway station on a pilgrimage, needing help from locals because the ground hides itself well among the houses.
When you arrive for the first time at Highbury, the stadium is suddenly in front of you and you don't know (how) because on the continent you see a stadium from three miles away," Arsenal manager Arsène Wenger said recently.
"What I always like in England is that you feel the club belongs to the population who live around there. I like the idea that you can go out the door and go to a football game. That doesn't exist anywhere else," said Wenger.
Arsenal have won 13 league titles during their time at Highbury and the stadium has also hosted internationals, served as a first aid post during World War Two and hosted the 1966 world title fight between boxers Muhammad Ali and Briton Henry Cooper.
It was the venue of the first radio commentary on a soccer match in 1927 and the first televised game 10 years later.
Highbury was also the centrepiece of a 1930s film, "The Arsenal Stadium Mystery" which revolved around the poisoning of a player, and Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch" book which captured a fan's fervour as soccer's popularity exploded in the 1990s.
In 1991, on the day Arsenal clinched the title, you could buy a ticket at the box office and wander into the Clock End. But in its twilight days, tickets for Highbury were like gold dust unless you were a season ticket-holder.
Other Premier League clubs, such as Manchester United, were expanding or building new and bigger stadiums as television money began flooding into the game.
This left Arsenal at an ever-widening financial disadvantage - United were raking in around 20 million ($60m) a season more in match-day revenue.
Local opposition to the North Bank redevelopment meant expansion of Highbury was out of the question, and Arsenal finally picked Ashburton Grove, a large area of light industrial buildings, just around the corner, to site a new stadium.
SERIES OF AUCTIONS
In trying to ease the pain of departure. the club ran a series of Highbury-themed match-days and staged a series of auctions where fans could buy one square-foot pieces of the pitch, or Highbury memorabilia and equipment.
Sands, who also bought his, began comparing Highbury to the spanking new Emirates stadium, saying: "It's an astonishing stadium - Highbury was quite uncomfortable and had restricted views.
"Nonetheless, the fact the stadium is in the same neighbourhood means Arsenal will not lose its sense of being a gritty, north London club. The fans' routines will be exactly the same.."
