A brief history of Arsenal FC: Formed in 1886 by workers at a South East London munitions factory, originally named Dial Square, then Royal Arsenal and then Woolwich Arsenal in 1893 when they entered the Football League. They won promotion to the first division in 1904, but went bankrupt in 1910. They moved to Highbury in North London in 1913, dropping the Woolwich bit of the name to be simply known as The Arsenal.
In the last year before the first world war, their new neighbours Tottenham Hotspur finished bottom of the first division. After the war, the Football League extended the first division from 20 clubs to 22. And instead of keeping Spurs up or promoting 3rd in div 2 Barnsley, they instead decided to thank The Arsenal for the work done by the munitions workers by promoting 5th place Arsenal instead, thus beginning a fierce rivalry with the boys from White Hart Lane. And they have never been relegated since. Later that year, the the was dropped and from then on the Arsenal were known as Arsenal.

Their rise to the top coincided with the rise of Huddersfield Town. As we were winning our first two Football League titles in 1923/24 and 1924/25, the Arsenal board of directors were casting jealous glances northwards to the West Riding of Yorkshire and in particular the manager of Huddersfield Town, a certain Mr Herbert Chapman.
By the time we completed our hat trick of league titles, Chapman had been lured down south and had set about revolutionising football at Highbury. The 1930s was Arsenal's decade. First they beat us in the 1930 cup final (see below), before winning themselves a hat trick of successive league titles. But Chapman, as at Leeds Road, never saw the culmination of the three titles as in January 1934 at the age of 55, he died of pneumonia.
They won the cup again in 1936 and the league again in 1938.




The 2nd world war was particularly bad for the club. They had the more players killed than any other top flight club and despite winning the league again in 1947/48 and the Cup in 1950, followed by a 7th league title in 1952/53, the club were slowly going into decline and debt. It would be 1970 before they won another trophy. That was the Inter City Fairs Cup (which evolved into what is now the Europa League), beating Anderlecht 4-3 on aggregate.
The season after, they won the double, winning the League and the FA Cup, beating Liverpool 2-1 in the final. The rest of the 70s they were very much like they are nowadays, nearly a winning team, but not quite, coming second in various tournaments, with just the one FA Cup triumph to show off about when they beat Man Utd in 1979 by 3-2, with a famous last minute Alan Sunderland winner.
The Arsenal side of the early 1980s were possibly the worst in their illustrious history. I used to go down to Highbury occasionally with an Arsenal supporting friend and believe you me, they were crap! Things started to improve in 1986 when one of the players from the 1971 double winning team, George Graham, took over as manager. And by the end of the decade they had another League title. This title was won in dramatic style at Anfield on the very last day of the season. Just weeks after the Hillsborough disaster, the match had been postponed for various Hillsborough related goings on and wasn't played until the back end of May on a Friday night, live on ITV when live league games were still a relatively new thing. It had come down to a winner takes all situation, with Liverpool 3 points ahead, but as the goal difference stood, a 2-0 Arsenal win would give them the title. The Gunners led in the 52nd minute with an Alan Smith goal, but as injury time started, Liverpool still had one hand on the trophy. Liverpool had the ball with John Barnes in an attacking position. Instead of running the clock down though, he cut inside to go for the equaliser rather than heading towards the corner flag, lost the ball and Arsenal worked the ball forward and within seconds of Barnes losing it, it was in the back of the net, a famous title winning goal from Michael Thomas.




They won another League title in 1991, the FA Cup and League Cup double in 1993 and the European Cup Winners Cup in 1994, beating Parma 1-0 in the final. The Premier League had been born by this time and in 1996 Arsenal appointed Arsène Wenger as manager. They won all sorts of things in his early years, including three Premier League titles. They have seven FA Cups in his time there and have been playing in the Champions League for what like seems forever, until they missed out last season. Yet despite all this, some fans are not happy with not winning the League since 2004 and wanted a change at the top. In May, Wenger managed his final match for the Gunners, a lucky win at the John Smith's stadium.

In 2006 they moved from Highbury to the Emirates Stadium.







Head to Head



The Gunners lead in the overall head to head with 35 wins to Town's 16, with 25 draws.

Back in the day, we were great rivals. The first meetings of the two clubs were before the first world war when Arsenal were still a bang average 2nd division team. We first met at the top level in November 1920, our first ever top flight season. Back then, teams played each other in quick succession so after we were beaten 0-4 at Leeds Road we went down to Highbury the following week and got beat 0-2.
We soon started to turn the tables on them though and did the double over them in the next season, but during our first two title winning seasons we absolutely pumped them. In 1923/24 we won 3-1 away and 6-1 at home. And then in 1924/25 we beat them 4-0 at home and 5-0 away. This, I suspect, was what led the Arsenal board to decide to steal Herbert Chapman away from us, sadly.  
Anyway, the Arsenal improved greatly and by 1930 the two clubs were to meet at Wembley Stadium for one of the most famous matches in FA Cup history.




Arsenal won it 2-0 and despite having a top notch computerised priority match ticket scheme, thousands of Town fans were unable to get tickets. Such was the draw of the two clubs, they reckon they could've sold it out twice over.
And then two seasons later we were drawn at home to Arsenal again in the FA Cup. Quarter final stage this time and they won again, 1-0 this time but it was remarkable for the number of people who turned out. The official attendance was 67,037 inside Leeds Road, but there were thousands more watching from Dalton Bank and talking to old Town fans myself when I was younger and people who were there were still alive, they reckon that a lot of people were stuck behind the terraces and never saw a ball kicked.

There'll be a similar sized attendance at this week's match, but it will be played in a very flat, soulless atmosphere, apart from the pocket of noise in the corner of course.

We kept up the rivalry over the next few decades. Town's 5-3 win in 1954/55, the year we finished 3rd (our highest post war finish), being a highlight, but relegation the following year meant we didn't meet again in the league until the 70s. There was a 2 legged League Cup semi final in 1968, which the Gunners won 6-3 on aggregate. Then when we got back to the first division, we beat them at home 2-1. Les Chapman scored an absolute pearler in that game and won Match of the Day's Goal of the Month, the last Town player to do so. The winner in this match came from a very bad penalty decision when Frank McLintock handled the ball about a yard outside the area. Frank Worthington slotted home to give us the points.

In the intervening wilderness years we have actually been drawn to play the Arse four times in cup competitions. First up was a League Cup match in 1983 we went down there after famously beating the "Champions of Europe" at Bellend Road in the previous round. Beaten 0-1 this time by a very bad penalty decision (a theme developing here).
Then in 1986/87, League Cup again, lost 1-3 on aggregate. And in 1993/94 we lost 1-6 on aggregate.

And finally, the FA Cup of 2011. The Gunners took an early lead when a shot from Nicklas Bendtner went in via a deflection which ended up given as a Peter Clarke own goal.
Then just before half time, debutant Jack Hunt, fresh back from a loan spell at Chesterfield, went on a burst through the Arsenal defence and was abruptly stopped by Sebastien Squillaci, who was shown a red card. So Arsenal came out for the second half with ten men and Town really took advantage and it was no big surprise when Alan Lee scored a header from a corner. Well I say no surprise. The scorer was. It was Alan Alan's first Town goal in his 26th appearance.  There was only gunner be one winner from now on, but the game slipped away from the plucky League 1 side when the Premier League giants resorted to cheating. A shocking dive from Bendtner when Jamie McCombe breathed down the back of his neck. Up stepped Cesc Fabregas to slot home and send us all home to concentrate on reaching the Play Offs.
Last season, they beat us twice. 5-0 down at theirs and 1-0 back at ours.











So what's happening at the Emirates Stadium?  Managed now by Dick's lad Unai Emery, the former Paris Saint-Germaine boss. He had a modest playing career but made his name as a manager at Sevilla, winning the Europa League on three occasions. Could this be the main reason Arsenal signed him, as there seems little prospect of them ever entering the Champions League again.  
After Sevilla he had a couple of years at PSG, doing nowt much before walking out with a year left on his contract and was taken on by the Arse in May, almost before Wenger had cleared his desk.



Recent form: Town are 17th in the Premier League with 10 points. Arsenal are 5th with 31 points.



Arsenal's line up at Old Trafford on Wednesday:

19 Leno
20 Mustafi
5 Papastathopoulos
16 Holding
2 Bellerín
11 Torreira
29 Guendouzi
31 Kolasinac
8 Ramsey
17 Iwobi
14 Aubameyang

Substitutes
1 Cech
4 Elneny
7 Mkhitaryan
9 Lacazette
12 Lichtsteiner
15 Maitland-Niles
49 Nketiah