"Good Old Arsenal" was a single released by the English

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

team

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

in 1971. It reached number 16 in the UK Singles Chart.

History

In the 1960s and 1970s, several football clubs released records. After being inspired by " Back Home" by the

England national football team The England national football team have represented England in international Association football, football since the first international match in 1872. It is controlled by the Football Association (FA), the governing body for football in Eng ...

in 1970, Arsenal players were urged by football pundit

Jimmy Hill James William Thomas Hill, Order of the British Empire, OBE (22 July 1928 – 19 December 2015) was an English football in England, footballer and later a television personality. His career included almost every role in the sport, including pla ...

to create an anthem for Arsenal that could rival

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

's "

You'll Never Walk Alone "You'll Never Walk Alone" is a show tune from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical '' Carousel''. In the second act of the musical, Nettie Fowler, the cousin of the protagonist Julie Jordan, sings "You'll Never Walk Alone" to comfort and e ...

". ITV held a competition for fans to create an Arsenal anthem. However, none of the entrants were selected as the stronger candidates were seen as "too wordy". Hill then approached Arsenal's manager

Bertie Mee Bertram Mee (25 December 1918 – 21 October 2001) was an English footballer and manager. After his playing career was cut short by injury, he later became a manager and led Arsenal to their first Double win in 1971. Playing career Born in Hig ...

for permission to write his own anthem for Arsenal. Hill wrote "Good Old Arsenal" to the tune of "

Rule, Britannia! "Rule, Britannia!" is a British patriotic song, originating from the 1740 poem "Rule, Britannia" by James Thomson and set to music by Thomas Arne in the same year. It is most strongly associated with the Royal Navy, but is also used by th ...

" and it was performed by Arsenal's first team squad for their 1971 FA Cup Final song. This was the first record ever released to be performed by a football team's squad to commemorate them reaching the

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official attendance of 89,472 ...

. "Good Old Arsenal" was initially disliked by some Arsenal fans who felt that it was bland and predictable. However, it did at first gain popularity with younger Arsenal fans because they found it was easy to learn. Following Arsenal's win in the final, the second part of their first

double Double, The Double or Dubble may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Multiplication by 2 * Double precision, a floating-point representation of numbers that is typically 64 bits in length * A double number of the form x+yj, where j^2=+1 * A ...

, "Good Old Arsenal" became widely accepted and popular at Arsenal and continued to be sung by Arsenal supporters and is viewed as a classic football song.

Charts

"Good Old Arsenal" was first released into the UK Singles Charts in May 1971 and remained in the charts for seven weeks. Its highest position was 16.

References

{{Arsenal F.C. 1971 singles Arsenal F.C. songs Association football songs and chants