Highbury (Arsenal Stadium)
Highbury, officially called Arsenal Stadium, was the home of Arsenal FC between 1913 and 2006. In its latest years it had a capacity of about 38,500 seats.
In the early years of the 20th century Arsenal had been playing its matches at Manor Ground close to Greenwich, when then Arsenal-Chairman Henry Norris decided to move the club to North London. A plot of land was leased in the borough of Highbury, and a stadium designed by Archibald Leitch.
The first match was played between Arsenal and Leicester Fosse, which the home team won 6-3. Back then the stadium consisted of one main stand and a series of terraces.
The stadium was bought by Arsenal in 1925, and seven years later a new grandstand, consisting of two tiers, was constructed. The stand could seat 4,000 people and furthermore had standing capacity for 17,000 more. Four years later, in 1936, another new stand opened: the art-deco style East Stand. In 1948 the stadium hosted a few games during the Olympics football tournament.
Only incremental changes were made to the stadium in the following decades, and it took until 1989, with the renovation of the Clock End, for any new major redevelopments to take place. A few years later works began to turn Highbury into an all-seater stadium. Part of this conversion was the demolishing of the North Bank terraces and construction of a new North Bank stand.
However, due to its limited capacity and lack of expansion possibilities, being enclosed by residential housing, the club started looking into moving away from Highbury, and in 2004 the construction of the Emirates Stadium started.
The last match at Highbury was played on the 7th of May 2006, a 4-2 league match victory against Wigan, with a hattrick scored by Thierry Henry. Arsenal Stadium was consequently demolished and the site redeveloped into residential flats. Just the exterior of the art-deco East Stand and West Stand have remained and were incorporated into the new developments. The pitch has been turned into a communal garden.
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