Moments in Time: The Arsenal home kit
The origins of Arsenal's kit tell a great and unusual story. Arsenal were originally formed as Dial Square FC in 1886 by workers at the Woolwich armaments factory in South London. The name was changed to the more imposing It has been widely reported that the club were given a set of Garibaldi Red shirts by Nottingham Forest but research by Mark Andrews and Andy Kelly has cast doubt on this. One of Arsenal's founders was Fred Beardsley, a native of Nottingham who was, according to his obituary had the idea of adopting Forest's colours. As an amateur, Beardsley continued to turn out for Forest in cup games and this may have given rise to the apocryphal story. In an interview published in 1938, Beardsley described the team's first strip as "red shirts, white three-quarter master pants, black stockings and caps." He also mentioned that Forest donated Arsenal's first football. Having turned professional in 1891, the club found themselves ostracis...