Football clubs look to use their badges in order to represent who they are, often involving a story being told of the club’s history as well as where it sees itself in the grand order of things. Arsenal are no different, with the club’s badge representing their history as having emerged from the Woolwich armoury towards the end of the 19th century. Whilst Tottenham Hotspur supporters might well wonder where the badge shows the club’s decision to move to north London, but that churlishness aside, it is an interesting look through a past filled with stories and excitement.
The First Crest
As is often the case with football clubs, Arsenal didn’t boast a club crest until more than a decade after they had been formed. The Gunners came into being in the December of 1886, known as Dial Square at the time. That was a nod to a workshop that stood at the heart of the Royal Arsenal complex, with the team being made up of munitions workers. In the January of 1887, the club renamed to become Royal Arsenal, changing to Woolwich Arsenal in 1893. They then became The Arsenal prior to dropping the ‘The’ in 1919. Even so, the link to the munitions factory never went away.
This is important because of the design of the club badge, which was introduced for the first time in 1905. The first one was largely based upon the coat of arms of Woolwich Borough, which saw three cannons that had lions’ heads at the bottom, sitting on a crest and with banners underneath that bore Latin writing. That Latin said, “CLAMANT NOSTRA TELA IN REGIS QUERELA”, which translates to “Our weapons clack in the King’s quarrel”. The municipal crest had itself been designed four years earlier when it was tuned from a town into a borough.
The cannons were there as a reference to the military’s influence in Woolwich, having a dominant influence over the area. Arsenal also chose to add some laurel leaves to the side of the crest, whilst the wording of the motto was made to look slightly grander. The first crest remained in use until 1921, in spite of the fact that the football club actually departed Woolwich for north London in 1913. Initially, it wasn’t clear whether the club would maintain the links to its military history, but it soon became apparent that the military ties were seen as an important part of the Arsenal history.
The Single Cannon
As the 1921-1922 season approached, Arsenal were looking to ensure that the club was recognisable to the rest of the Football League. As a result, a decision was taken to simplify the club’s crest, showing a single cannon pointing to the west. It was the first time that a single cannon had appeared as part of the club’s design, but it didn’t take long before a change was made. For the first match of the 1922-1923 season, the match day programme for the Gunners’ game against Burnley revealed a new-look design. The single cannon was still in use, but it had changed.
It now faced east rather than west, having a much more resplendent design to it. It looked fearsome enough to mean that it would have been in pride of place in the Woolwich Arsenal, had it been a real thing. Meanwhile, the words ‘The Gunners’, in curved writing, appeared to the left of the cannon. That remained in use for the following three seasons, then the beginning of the 1925-1925 campaign saw the cannon switched back to facing west. The cannon itself, meanwhile, was also much closer to the previous design in being simpler, whilst the words ‘The Gunners’ remained, albeit to the right of the cannon.
Introduction of the ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ Crest
Although there were minor tweaks and changes to the single cannon design of the club crest over the years that followed, it remained largely the same until a major change was brought in in 1949. That saw the introduction of what was known as the ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’ crest, on account of the fact that the Latin words appeared in a banner underneath the crest itself. Those words translate to mean ‘victory grows out of harmony’ and may well have been inspired by the club’s programme editor, who wrote in the final match day programme of the previous season:
My mind seeks an apt quotation with which to close this season which has been such a glorious one for Tom Whittaker, Joe Mercer and all connected with The Gunners. Shall we turn for once to Latin? ‘Victoria Concordia Crescit’. Translation: ‘Victory grows out of harmony.’
The crest itself was red and white, featuring the word ‘Arsenal’ at the very top, above the same westward-facing cannon as had been on previous versions. Below the cannon was a red line about two thirds of the way down, underneath which was a Borough of Islington’s coat of arms. All over the crest were marks that looked a little bit like they might be meant to be explosions. The Latin phrase was officially adopted as being part of the club’s maxim from that point onwards, becoming a much more apt replacement for the Latin words that were part of the original crest.
The crest remained largely unchanged across the 50 years or so that followed. There were some cosmetic adaptations brought in, such as the introduction of green and gold. This resulted in the bar going through two-thirds of the crest being made green, whilst the colour was also introduced to the Borough of Islington’s coat of arms. Meanwhile, the banner at the bottom and the Latin words it contained were both written in gold. The Gothic typeface of Arsenal at the top of the Crest faded down from gold to white, with the westward-facing cannon being a gold outline.
For the 2001-2002 season, a decision was taken to clean up the badge a touch. For largely commercial reasons, solid yellow replaced the gold that had been used previously. ‘Arsenal’ remained written in its Gothic typeface at the top of the crest, only in bold yellow, whilst the cannon was also a bold yellow in colour. The band across he crest remained green but with a yellow border and the same colour was used on the border of the banner featuring the Latin inscription. This, on the other hand, was written in red. The Borough of Islington’s coat of arms featured red, white, yellow and green.
The Modern Day Arsenal Badge
Prior to the start of the 2002-2003 season, Arsenal made a bold decision to completely revamp the look of the club’s badge. The Gunners were preparing to depart their Highbury home for the Emirates Stadium, so it was felt that a more modern appearance was necessary to keep with the times. The new-look crest removed the Gothic styling of Arsenal at the top of the badge, using a much more modern font instead. The word is in white with a gold border, whilst the overall shape of the badge is that of a V. The border of the V is gold, with a blue on the inside and a white line inside that.
The central part of the badge is red, but offering two different shades. The one on the right is slightly darker than the one on the left. The other big decision resulted in the cannon being switched once more to face to the east instead of the west, seeing the outline of the cannon being in white and the inside being coloured gold. The Latin motto has been removed altogether, offering a much more modern appearance to the badge that has continued to look modern more than 20 years after it was first introduced. Although unchanged, a special version has been used at times too.
The Art Deco Crest
When Herbert Chapman took over at Arsenal in 1925, it took him some time to realise what the possibilities were of being in charge of a club in central London. He worked with the architect of Highbury’s East Stand and West Stand, Claude Waterlow, to come up with a rebranding of the club. They created an art deco symbol that saw an A, for Arsenal, surrounded by a C, representing Club. In the middle was a ball, which was used to symbolise the word Football, meaning that the crest was there to represent Arsenal Football Club in a simplistic style that you can still see today.
That art deco crest was inlaid into the floor of the ‘Marble Halls’ and had been seen proudly above the entrance to Highbury, as well as being ingrained into the heavy steel doors. Nowadays, you will mostly see it as part of scarves that are hoisted above the heads of people cheering on the Gunners inside the Emirates, in addition to being on unofficial pieces of memorabilia that you can buy around the stadium from hawkers and street sellers. Even some of the official things you can buy from the club shop, such as mugs and badges, can be seen to bear the symbol on them.
The 125th Anniversary Edition
Ahead of the 2011-2012 season, as Arsenal geared up to celebrate 125 years of existence, a decision was taken to use a specially designed crest for the occasion. It was something of a mix of the first club crest alongside the modern one, putting the modern badge in the middle of laurel leaves in gold on the left. There were 15 of them, signifying the detail on the reverse of the sixpence pieces that the 15 men paid to establish the club. On the right, meanwhile, were 15 oak leaves, also in gold, acknowledging the fact that the club’s founders met in the Royal Oak pub.
Beneath the two leaves and the crest itself was a banner that said ‘Forward’, one of the first mottos related to armaments, as well as the years 1886 on the left and 2011 on the right. Although only used for one season, it was a favourite of Arsenal fans because of what it represented.