Image: bleacherreport.com
The R.W. Berliner Professor of Medicine and Cell Biology at the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Michael Simons graduated cum laude from Yale in the 1980s. His distinguished work as a physician and researcher focuses on cardiovascular conditions. In his free time, Dr. Michael Simons is interested in sports, and is a devoted follower of the Arsenal football club.
The club’s origins date back to 1886, when a group of workers at the Woolwich Arsenal Armament Factory banded together as a team. They originally called themselves the Dial Square, in reference to a sundial emblem on one of the Woolwich factories. They later become the Royal Arsenal. From the beginning, the Arsenal, or the Gunners, played in donated red shirts, giving rise to the cry, “Come on, you Reds!”
The Arsenal’s most famous rival, the blue-and-white-clad Tottenham Hotspur–known to fans simply as the Spurs–also enjoy a long history, having formed in 1882. Since 1950, the Gunners and the Spurs have faced off in the same league for every season but one.
The first match, a friendly one, between the Arsenal and Tottenham, took place in November 1887, when the Arsenal were still based in Plumstead. In 1909, the two clubs really faced off as rivals for the first time, with the Arsenal winning 1-0.
The heat turned up in 1913, when the Arsenal relocated to Highbury in North London. Now only a few miles apart, the two clubs began the fiery rivalry that continues to this day.
Dr. Michael Simons's Blog 