The Athletic posted a post, telling the origin story of the Premier League Big6.
Arsenal
Among all the origin stories of Premier League clubs today, the story of Arsenal still leaves a small number of people feeling uneasy. They were originally born under the name of Dell Square Football Club and were formed by workers from the Royal Arsenal of Wolvech. Wolvech is now a suburb of East London, but at the end of the 19th century it was almost as far away from its capital, London, as Belgium. So a Conservative MP named Henry Norris saw the opportunity, initially proposing a merger with the Fulham club he already owned, but in 1913 he moved the team to a few acres of land in Highbury, North London.
This relocation faces many oppositions, but Norris has a wide connection and his friendship with various powerful people helped the matter pass smoothly. Arsenal was in the second-tier league at the time, and World War I also disrupted Norris' plan. But the good news is that when the post-war league resumed in 1919, the first-tier league plans to expand from 20 teams to 22. The problem is that Arsenal ranked second in the last second Division season and shouldn't have been eligible for promotion. But Norris' connections played a role again, and he successfully convinced the decision makers who were already his friends, Arsenal was promoted to the top league, and by the way, Tottenham was relegated.
Now about 106 years have passed, and some people are still angry about it.
Chelsea
Usually, a football team is formed first and then go to find the venue for the game. But Chelsea's situation is exactly the opposite. At the turn of the 20th century, real estate developers Joseph Mills and Gus Mills bought a piece of land in West London, which was once the home of the London Track and Field Club. But they didn't have to keep it as a stadium, which disappointed a local businessman named Frederick Parker.
Here are some rumors and anecdotes. It is said that when Parker was helping Gus Mills walk his dog, he tried to convince the latter to retain the original purpose of the venue, and during which the dog somehow bit Parker's leg. Parker was obviously not discouraged and continued to state his ideas continuously, which impressed Mills so much that he changed his mind and invited legendary football field architect Archibald Leach to design a venue that could host football, track and field and cycling competitions.
Their intention was to then find a tenant, whose mind was the nearby Fulham Club. But Fulham owner Henry Norris (also mentioned him in the Arsenal section above) was reluctant to pay £1,500 a year and instead hired Leach to renovate the Craven Farm Stadium. So instead of looking for other possible tenants, the Mills decided to set up their own club. So on March 10, 1905, at a meeting held at the Rising Sun Tavern opposite Stamford Bridge Stadium (the tavern remains to this day and is now called Butcher's Hook), Chelsea Football Club was born.
Liverpool
The most successful and romantic club in English football was born due to a rent dispute, which makes people feel a bit incredible. Everton was one of the founding members of the Football League in 1888, when their home court was Anfield Stadium, and their chair was a Conservative politician named John Holding, but more importantly, he owned the venue.
After Everton won his first league title in 1891, Holding raised the rent at Anfield, which was not welcomed by the club members, who immediately kicked Holding out, walked through Stanley Park and camped at Mel Green Stadium (now better known as Goodison Park Stadium).
Holding, who made his winemaking fortune, blamed the dispute on his political rival's "prohibition fanaticism" rather than on the rent issue, as writer John Williams wrote in his book Red Men Reborn. He tried to set up a new limited company called "Everton" and retain the club's registration qualification, but neither attempt was successful and he had to rename the company "Liverpool Football Club and Sports Fields Limited".
He did retain some key figures, including manager William Barkley, who initially played in Lancashire League and then won a seat in the Football League Division II in 1893. Under Tom Watson, they won the first of 20 league titles in 1901. It is sometimes difficult enough to determine the exact details of most football clubs’ earliest days, as they mostly occurred in the 19th century. But this is especially tricky for Manchester City, partly because a 1920 fire destroyed a large amount of documents and other materials. What we know exactly is that a team representing St. Mark's Church in West Gorton (southeast of Manchester city center) played for the first time in November 1880 against a Baptist church from McClersfield.
Football was just one of a series of activities introduced to prevent social chaos in the region, which was suffering from severe unemployment and poverty at the time: in activities such as cricket, rugby and workers' meetings, football was the one that persisted. In the following years, the club went through several evolutions, renamed Gorton Football Club and Adwick, and eventually became Manchester City Football Club in 1894.
This was both a name change and a rebranding, driven by then-manager Joshua Palby to match Manchester's development as the city. The official establishment of the club as we know it today coincides with the opening of the Manchester Canal. Club historian Gary James wrote in "The Years of Manchester" that Palby "wanted to build a club that matched the pride that was felt throughout Manchester in 1894".
Manchester United
If it weren't for a St. Bernard, the Manchester United we know today would probably not exist.
At least that's what the story says. It was in 1878, and the Newton Heath Carriage Factory of Lancashire and Yorkshire Railways believed that their workers needed to engage in some healthier pastimes than drinking and sex. Therefore, they were encouraged to set up a football and cricket club. Newton Heath continued to grow and eventually joined the Football League in 1892, but by this time the dark clouds of the financial crisis had begun to gather.
Over the next decade, the club had to do everything possible to raise funds, including using the St. Bernard "Major" owned by Captain Harry Stafford to help raise funds. During a such fundraising event in 1901, the Major was sent to work with a fundraising can, but the hound was lost and was said to be finally found in a bar run by John Henry Davis, a rich man.
When Stafford came to pick up "Major", he talked to Davis and convinced him to invest in the club. Davis was not only investing financially but also emotionally. By the second year he had completely taken over the club and he thought it was necessary to change the name, so after discussing the Manchester Celtics and Manchester Central, they finally decided on the name Manchester United.
Tottenham Hotspur
"Tottenham" is a great suffix in the football world, not only because it is unique, but also is there any football club whose name is inspired by Shakespeare? Tottenham Hotspur as we know today originated from a cricket club that once belonged to the Percy family, a former nobleman, one of which was Sir Henry Percy, who was nicknamed "Harry Tottenham" by Scottish soldiers for his willingness to attack quickly in battle.
He proved this by rising up to resist Henry IV and became famous in Shakespeare's drama of the same name, but unfortunately the ending was tragic and he was killed in the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403.
Therefore, the club was originally called Tottenham Cricket Club, and when a group of young men wondered how to spend the winter, the story says they stopped under a gas light on what to do on the current Tottenham High Road (about 100 yards from their current home court) and decided to choose football.
Julie Walsh wrote in Tottenham Biography: "It costs six pence to join the team, and the boys collected the first dues on September 5, 1882, a day recognized as the date of the establishment of the Tottenham Football Club." The boys had considered naming the spin-off club Northumberland Wanderers, but ultimately decided to adopt a variant of the cricket club's name and eventually put "Tottenham" in front of them to resolve the confusion between them and a West London football club called Tottenham, because both clubs always receive emails from each other.