Arsenal came late to the commercialisation of football. Yep, may seem hard to believe today but it took us a long time to accept even advertising boards round the pitch and even a name on the shirt. Advertising in the programme was also seen as somehow sullying the good name, and image,of the club.Which makes this early sponsorship all the more bizarre. The game against West Brom in 1982/83 was sponsored by a box of matches!
They certainly went all out to generate interest. In the previous league game, against West Ham, they put out another full page advert offering a discount on terrace admission for the game against the Baggies. And for those who don't know, terraces used to be quite popular, we stood on them.
The question of course now is, in the day and age of multi million pound sponsorship deals, why would Arsenal attract a company that produced matches? West Brom at the time had a shirt sponsor called Swan who may or may not have been a car rental company...how sad do you think I really am? It so happened Swan was the name of a large manufacturer of matches.
Perhaps it was all some kind of in joke?
Whatever the reason, and no matter how comical we think it today, the company went all out, offering to knock a substantial 50p off the admission price at a time when the cheapest seat at Highbury was 3 pound!
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