Born in a munitions factory
The Arsenal crest has a military origin that most fans know but few understand in detail. Arsenal FC was founded in 1886 by workers at the Royal Arsenal — a sprawling weapons-manufacturing complex on the Thames in Woolwich, south-east London. They needed a club badge, and the most obvious symbol was the cannon that sat outside the factory gates.
1886–1949: Woolwich-era cannons
Early Arsenal crests featured a cannon, often multiple cannons, sometimes pointing up, sometimes pointing to the right, with the letters RA or RAFC around them. When the club moved north from Woolwich to Highbury in 1913, the cannon stayed but the background changed. Different cups featured different crests. There was no standardised version.
1949: The first proper shield
In 1949 Arsenal commissioned their first formal club crest. It featured a single cannon pointing right inside a shield, with the word "Arsenal" across the top and a Latin motto "Victoria Concordia Crescit" ("Victory Through Harmony") underneath. This crest persisted, with minor variations, until 2002.
2002: The commercial redesign
In 2002 Arsenal undertook a major crest redesign with the primary goal of making it trademark-able. The old crest could not be legally trademarked because too many of its elements (the cannon, the Latin motto) were in the public domain or were imitations of heraldic forms. The redesign modernised the cannon, dropped the Latin motto, and added a modernised "Arsenal" wordmark. Fans were split.
The trademark controversy
The 2002 crest was always about protection. Prior to the redesign, fan-sold merchandise featuring the cannon could not be legally prevented. Arsenal wanted to license officially and prosecute unofficial vendors. The new design, being a unique visual work, could be trademarked. The club subsequently won a famous legal case against a counterfeit merchandise seller in 2003.
The forward-pointing cannon
One detail consistent across almost every Arsenal crest: the cannon points east (right to the viewer). This is often romantically framed as a nod to "attacking football" — though the design choice predates any such narrative and probably just reflects what looked best aesthetically. The modern 2002 crest preserves this.
Kit-specific crest variants
Arsenal frequently release special-edition crests for anniversary kits. The 2005-06 redcurrant home — marking the final season at Highbury — used a heritage crest that was explicitly pre-1949 in style. Some recent Adidas kits have used simplified one-colour versions of the modern crest for stylistic effect.
Why the cannon persists
Most football crests are somewhere between heraldic pastiche and corporate design. Arsenal’s cannon is neither. It is a direct, specific reference to the club’s real historical origin — Royal Arsenal munitions workers. Few clubs have this kind of authentic one-to-one link between their crest and their founding myth.
Read next
For the full kit history of Arsenal see the Arsenal kit history page. For more club crests, see Liverpool and Manchester United.