champion professor

Chapter 359 Goodbye, Our Highbury
After the match between Arsenal and Porto, their final opponents have also been announced.

However, the Champions League is generally used as a signal for the end of the European league season. Before the final, Arsenal still have the last two Premier League games to play.

And these two games may determine the championship of this Premier League.

These are Arsenal's last two games of the season, and also the last two games hosted by Highbury, an ancient stadium with a history of more than 90 years.

Before the penultimate Premier League game, Arsenal ranked second behind Manchester United, beating Chelsea to become second in the league.

However, after this game, Arsenal and Manchester United have the same points, and even in terms of goal difference, there is only a difference of three goals.

Chelsea fell behind, but they are enough to guarantee the team can directly enter the Champions League next season.

Eriksson doesn't have much nostalgia at Chelsea anymore. In both Lazio and Chelsea, Eriksson got high salaries.

After the end of this season, Eriksson will accept a high-paying contract from the FA and become the head coach of England.

After he came to England, he didn't win many championships, but he made a lot of money.

However, due to lack of honor, Eriksson is not yet a winner in life.

In the past two years, Arsenal and Manchester United have basically monopolized all the honors in England. They eat meat, and Chelsea can only drink soup.

However, even if Arsenal had just completed the unbeaten championship in the past two years, and Manchester United snatched the league title from Arsenal again last year, they are still extremely eager for the Premier League championship trophy, which symbolizes England's highest honor.

Every time they get one more, they are one step closer to surpassing Liverpool!
Surpassing Liverpool and becoming England's No. [-] club is what all non-Liverpool supporters hope for.

The desire for the first honor has brought about the improvement of England as a whole, which is an important reason for their fierce competition and attracting the attention of a large number of fans.

Therefore, whether it is Manchester United or Arsenal, they are bound to win the Premier League championship trophy this time!

Manchester United currently leads Arsenal by only three goal difference. In the next game, Manchester United can only win the next game with all their strength and score three points in order to guarantee a victory over Arsenal with a goal difference advantage.

However, with teammates like Tottenham Hotspur, Ferguson doesn't know if they can really steal this year's Premier League championship.

In any case, Arsenal and Manchester United are now facing each other in both the Champions League and the Premier League. These last two games will also show whether the efforts of the two teams have really gained enough this season. return.

Arsenal's last match at Highbury was with neighbors Tottenham in north London.

This arrangement of the FA is very considerate, giving Arsenal another chance to defeat this mortal enemy.

The centuries-old grievances between the two teams can't be explained clearly in a short time, and even if they want to solve it, they can't be resolved.

After all, if it weren't for Highbury, the two teams might not have had so many conflicts.

In the past, Highbury and nearby areas in North London, far away from the Thames River, were wasteland. It was not until the middle of the 19th century that it was bought by the church as a school for training priests and pastors.

Then, it was transformed into St. John's Church Seminary.

However, in the early 20th century, the school encountered a crisis and needed to sell land to raise funds.

It would have taken over London City Hall, and Highbury would have been transformed into a mental hospital.But no one wants to build a mental hospital around them, and the plan ends up going bankrupt.

But Sir Norris, who intends to come to North London for development, saw an opportunity, and he took advantage of the City Hall's decision to use the land as a stadium lease.

The land with an estimated value of about [-] pounds was rented out for about [-] pounds.

The lease term is 21 years.

However, because of the background of the seminary at that time, Highbury had two characteristics that were very different from other courses.That is that games are not allowed on certain religious holidays, and another is that the sale of hard alcoholic beverages is not allowed.

Arsenal moved to Highbury, but not in nearby Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient.

At that time, the fan culture was immature, and the cohesion of the club was not enough.Now English clubs have a long history of hundreds of years at every turn. Many fans have only supported one team for generations, even if their performance is not good.

However, when Arsenal just moved there, the League One League had not yet matured, and there were still many gaps in football.

Whoever plays well, who plays well, and whoever is close, the fans support whoever.

At this time, there is no concept of loyalty to the club yet!

Leyton Orient has now completely declined. Leaving aside, Tottenham Hotspur has always been entangled with Arsenal. After nearly a hundred years of wind and rain, they have been hostile to Arsenal.

Fearing that the attendance rate would be hit hard and Tottenham Hotspur's income would be affected, they went to the League One department behind their backs to report the corresponding problems, but the league department stated that they had no right to interfere in such matters.

At that time, Arsenal had a wide network of contacts. Sir Norris sometimes used dishonorable methods, but he helped Arsenal lay the foundation for their rise.

Woolwich Arsenal therefore completed the relocation in the summer of 1913 without incident.

It's just that Arsenal later discovered that hostile forces do not always appear on the bright side.

Local residents of Highbury in a conservative state of mind set up a boycott of the Arsenal Self-Government Association to protest Arsenal's move in.

What makes the club even more troublesome is that this self-governing association once received the full support of the Islington community government and local media.

Arsenal's first season in Highbury was not easy, but fortunately they quickly gained the support of local businessmen and most residents, and with the rapid increase in the number of local supporters, the district government and local media eventually I also unconsciously began to change my attitude and began to support this newly relocated team.

Arsenal's financial situation has improved since then.

By 1925, the team completely bought the ownership of the stadium real estate and all ancillary buildings, and also leased some ancillary buildings back to the school.

The original tenant turned out to be the landlord, 30 years in Hedong and 30 years in Hexi.

The St. John's Church Theological Seminary persisted on the south side of Highbury until 1946. Even World War I and World War II did not destroy it.

However, under negligence, a fire eventually destroyed all the buildings of the school.

Due to the high cost of reconstruction, the site of the school was converted into a park and a residential area, and the school was forced to move to Nottingham in central England, where it was renamed St. John's College and is still operating tenaciously.

Leitch, the designer who designed Old Trafford for Manchester United, was the most outstanding designer in Britain at that time.Therefore, after Sir Norris rented Highbury, he immediately invited Leitch to design a stadium for Arsenal.

This is how Highbury was born.

On September 1913, 9, Arsenal finally ushered in their North London debut at Highbury Stadium as scheduled.

The opponent is the predecessor of Leicester City, which has been relegated from the Premier League, the Leicester Trench.

Nearly [-] fans flocked to this new stadium to watch the game. Because seats were not required at that time, many fans stood and watched the entire game.

Of course, many fans are used to this, but the seats will not be used to it.It wasn't until the Hillsborough tragedy that Highbury followed the FA's request and, like all stadiums in England, converted standing seats into seats.

The audience of Arsenal's Highbury debut included many die-hard fans who traveled here from southeast London, and more were local residents of Highbury.

The 2:1 victory was enough to help Arsenal gain the support of the local people at that time.

However, it was only after Shao Bo consulted relevant information about Highbury that he found out that Highbury had been under pressure from design to construction. The government has obtained the official license to use Highbury Stadium.

Therefore, this first game at Highbury, which is recorded in Arsenal's history, actually has the problem of illegal use of unlicensed stadiums.

However, no matter what the law is, it cannot trace back the mistakes made more than 90 years ago. Instead, this has become an anecdote and was included in the Highbury documentary filmed by the BBC.

Moreover, when Highbury was built, there was an urban legend of "Highbury Horse".

It is said that a coal merchant’s horse stumbled and fell into the deep pit of the foundation at that time. Seeing that the horse died of serious injuries in the deep pit, the workers had to bury it on the spot under the foundation of the North Stand.

The British people's affection for horses can be seen from the first show at Wembley Stadium being robbed of the limelight by a white horse.

From the royal family to the common people, no matter who they are, they all have a special feeling for horses.

Therefore, this accident, which seems ordinary to outsiders, is regarded as a romantic legend by local fans.Since then, whenever the North Stand is undergoing major renovations, people always hope that relics related to horses can be unearthed there.

It just hasn't been possible.

Maybe people will only get a chance to find out when Highbury is completely demolished this year?
It may be that they were really blessed by the heroic spirit of the horse. In the first season at Highbury, Arsenal's average attendance reached 3000 people.

At that time, Arsenal was only a second-tier team.

At Woolwich, Arsenal's average attendance was just over [-].Sir Norris' decision successfully sent Arsenal skyrocketing.

After the First World War, Arsenal jumped into the top flight, and their attendance rate in the 1919/20 season also increased to 2000 people.

Since then, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur have become mortal enemies that can no longer be reconciled because of the relegation issue.

Since then, Arsenal have never left England's top league after being promoted.

Since then, Arsenal's journey at Highbury has also opened a new chapter!
　Second update?This chapter is 3k first, because it took a while to write, so it is more comfortable to separate, and the next chapter will be posted soon.Is there a fourth watch today?

　　
　
(End of this chapter)