Gooners

London based Arsenal Football Club has developed a strong following since its founding in 1886. Arsenal's fans are often referred to as Gooners, the name derived from the team's nickname, the "Gunners".

Many fanzines, blogs, podcasts and fans websites have been dedicated to the club and the fans have long-standing rivalries with several other clubs; the most notable of these is with neighbours Tottenham Hotspur, with whom they regularly contest the North London derby.

The club and the fans have regularly featured in portrayals of football in British culture. Gunners come from far and wide, a 2005 report estimated Arsenal's global fanbase at 27 million, the third-largest in the world. A September 2011 report estimated Arsenal's fanbase at 100 million worldwide, still making them the third-largest team in terms of supporters.

The club, however, is also noted for the long-standing vitriolic criticism of the team by some of its own supporters, a group who since around 2010 have been named The Anti-Arsenal Arsenal. Although the contemporary version of this group focuses its antipathy on the manager Arsène Wenger, earlier reports note antagonism towards the title winning team of 1953, and even Arsenal team of the 1930s, with Herbert Chapman complaining of the activities of the "boo-boys". More recent research has traced the tendency of some Arsenal fans to criticise the team back to the 19th century.

In 2010 Arsenal supporters became the first fans of a Premier League club able to buy percentages of a stake in Arsenal through a "fanshare" scheme, therefore giving them rights to attend shareholders meetings.

Arsenal's performance in home matches have resulted in them having the second-highest average League attendance for an English club during the 2007–08 season, (60,069, which was 99.5% of available capacity), and as of 2006, the fourth-highest all-time average attendance. Arsenal have the highest proportion (7.7%) of non-white attending supporters of any club in English football, according to a 2002 report.

There are supporters' clubs worldwide. A 2005 report by Granada Ventures, which at the time owned a 9.9% stake in the club, estimated Arsenal's global fanbase at 27 million, the third-largest in the world.

The club's location, adjoining wealthy areas such as Canonbury and Barnsbury, mixed areas such as Islington, Holloway, Highbury, and the adjacent London Borough of Camden, and largely working-class areas such as Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington, as well as neighbouring Homerton, Clapton and Dalston has meant that Arsenal's supporters have come from across the usual class divides. Much of the Afro-Caribbean support comes from the neighbouring London Borough of Hackney and a large portion of the South Asian Arsenal supporters commute to the stadium from Wembley Park, North West of the capital.

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Wikipedia