Protected from alteration under modern-day heritage laws, the red and white
East Stand is a reminder of how soccer used to be with its marble halls, bust of
1930s manager Herbert Chapman and military-style commissionaires to keep out the
riff-raff.
Executive boxes were added to the Clock (South) End in the late 1980s and in
1993 the North Bank was completely redeveloped as Highbury became an all-seater
stadium, sharply reducing attendances which had peaked at 73,295 in March 1935.
Despite all the changes Highbury, unlike Manchester United's Old Trafford
ground or Chelsea's Stamford Bridge, still looks and feels like an old-style
soccer cockpit with the seating finishing just a couple of steps from the
immaculate pitch and the brick-lined, echoing stairways to the stands.
Every day tourists can be seen leaving the Arsenal underground railway
station on a pilgrimage, needing help from locals because the ground hides
itself well among the houses.
"When you arrive for the first time at Highbury the stadium is suddenly in
front of you and you don't know (how) because on the continent you see a stadium
from three miles away," Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger said recently.
"What I always like in England is that you feel the club belongs to the
population who live around there. I like the idea that you can go out the door
and go to a football game.
"That doesn't exist anywhere else."
LEAGUE TITLES
Arsenal have won 13 league titles during their time at Highbury and the
stadium has also hosted internationals, served as a first aid post during World
War Two and hosted the 1966 world title fight between Muhammad Ali and Briton
Henry Cooper.
It was the venue of the first radio commentary on a soccer match in 1927 and
the first televised game 10 years later.
Highbury was also the centrepiece of a 1930s film "The Arsenal Stadium
Mystery", which revolved around the poisoning of a player, and Nick Hornby's
"Fever Pitch" book which captured a fan's fervour as soccer's popularity
exploded in the 1990s.
In 1991, on the day Arsenal clinched the title, you could buy a ticket at the
box office and wander into the Clock End. Nowadays, tickets for Highbury are
like gold dust unless you are a season ticket holder.