History
The club were founded in 1987 by Vic Akers, the kit manager for the Arsenal men's team, who remained the club's manager until his retirement in 2009. They won their first major honour, the Women's League Cup in 1991–92. Later in 1992 they won promotion to the FA Women's Premier League and won the title at the first time of asking. As of 2010 they have won 12 of the 17 League titles, finishing as runners–up three times and won a record seven titles in a row between 2004 and 2010.
As of 2011 Arsenal have won the FA Women's Cup eleven times, and the Women's League Cup ten times. This includes eight League and FA Women's Cup Doubles; in 1992–93, 1994–95, 2000–01, 2003–04, 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08 and 2008–09, and four domestic Trebles, in 1992–93, 2000–01 and 2006–07, 2008–09. Arsenal have represented England a total of seven times in the UEFA Women's Champions League (formerly the UEFA Women's Cup), and had previously reached the semi-finals twice (in 2002–03 and 2004–05).
The 2006–07 season was Arsenal's most successful ever, having won not just all three domestic trophies but also the 2006–07 UEFA Women's Champions League (then called the UEFA Women's Cup), beating Umeå IK in the final 1–0 on aggregate; this was the first time any British club won the competition. On top of that Arsenal won the FA Women's Community Shield as well as the local London County FA Women's Cup. The end result was that the team won every single competition available to them, earning a unique sextuple. The wins that year came against full-time professional players, whereas most of the Arsenal team had full-time jobs. Additionally, Arsenal won all 22 games they played in the Premier League that season, scoring 119 goals and conceding just ten. In recognition of the achievement, the team were honoured with The Committee Award by the Sports Journalists' Association in the 2007 Sports Journalists' Awards.
Arsenal were unable to retain their European crown in 2007–08, after being knocked out by Olympique Lyonnais in the quarter-finals. The Premier League Cup final was lost to Everton. They ended the season on a high, winning the league for the fifth season in a row with 20 wins and two draws from their 22 games, and another FA Women's Cup, beating Leeds 4–1 in the final. Season 2008–09 saw the end of a record five year unbeaten run in the League; between 16 October 2003 (a defeat against Charlton Athletic) and 29 March 2009 (a 0–3 defeat at home to Everton) Arsenal went 108 games without defeat. During that spell, Arsenal won a record 51 league games in a row, between November 2005 and April 2008. Despite the defeat to Everton, Arsenal went on to complete a domestic treble in 2008–09, beating Everton 1–0 away on the final day of the league season and giving Vic Akers his eleventh title and fourth Treble. Akers retired in the 2009 close season, being succeeded by Tony Gervaise. In February 2010, after eight months in charge, Gervaise resigned, suggesting his position had been undermined by outside interference. In an unusual development, reserve coach Laura Harvey became first-team manager and Gervaise became reserve coach.
The following month Arsenal were named as founder members of the FA WSL which commenced in the spring of 2011. Arsenal won the inaugural season, the eighth consecutive English title, qualifying again to the UEFA Women's Champions League.
Arsenal completed another domestic treble by becoming inaugural WSL champions, winning the FA Cup, and lifting the Continental Cup in 2011.
Read more about this topic: Arsenal L.F.C.
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Like their personal lives, women’s history is fragmented, interrupted; a shadow history of human beings whose existence has been shaped by the efforts and the demands of others.”
—Elizabeth Janeway (b. 1913)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)