The football team we know today as Arsenal, was founded by munition workers at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, in 1886. There’s plenty of history online and it’s not my intention here to repeat it. But one of the reasons that the munition workers themselves formed a football team is rarely mentioned.
Other work-based Football Clubs were founded by owners whose purpose was to give workers an alternative to going to Trade Union meetings. An example of this was West Ham United, originally founded 9 years after Arsenal, which was formed by the Thames Ironworks company.
Since its formation as Dial Square FC in 1886, of course, Arsenal has ceased to be owned by the workers. But in recent years it has been one of many teams that has been taken over by billionaires, now Stan Kroenke. The sport of the working class has been taken over by big business, and the fans are no longer considered at all.
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| STAN KROENKE OUT! |
The Beautiful Game is now just big business. The proposed European Super League is a case in point. I am glad that there has been an outpouring of opposition to it, but isn’t this the inevitable outcome of bigger an bigger money taking over football before and since the Premiership broke away from the old Football League? A compromise was reached then, meaning that there was automatic promotion and relegation. But I can’t see how there is a compromise that can be reached from this.
I might add some more to this later. For now, see my previous article on this subject.
