Plenty of Premier League teams have upgraded their stadiums over the years. In 2025/26, for instance, Everton are now playing in the new Hill Dickinson Stadium, having left Goodison Park after 133 years in the iconic old ground.
Other big teams to go through major venue changes include north London sides Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs only left White Hart Lane in 2017, while the Gunners swapped Highbury for the Emirates back in 2006.
However, that wasn't the first time Arsenal changed the location of their home ground. Tottenham fans will keenly remind anyone who listens that they were the original north London outfit, with their three-time Premier League-winning rivals originally from south of the river.
As such, their old Invicta Ground was located in Plumstead, south-east London, and the ruins of it can still be seen today – in someone's back garden, no less.
Arsenal's Stadium History Before Highbury and the Emirates
Arsenal were founded way back in December 1886, originally known as the Dial Square Football Club. Named after a workshop at the heart of the Royal Arsenal complex, they would then change their name to Royal Arsenal by January 1887.
Their first home was Plumstead Common, but they spent more time playing at the Manor Ground, which was essentially just a field and had a notoriously muddy pitch. As such, they spent three years between 1890 and 1893 at the nearby Invicta Ground. Equipped with a stand, a row of terracing, and changing rooms, it was the club's first proper stadium.
The club were an amateur team at the time, with a small following of only about 1,000 fans, but quickly grew in popularity. Within a year, they had renamed themselves Woolwich Arsenal and had turned professional.
The Invicta Ground even attracted an impressive crowd of at least 10,00 in March 1891, when Woolwich Arsenal hosted Heart of Midlothian. The Scottish Cup holders of the time won comfortably, thumping their hosts 5-1. It later attracted 12,000 against Millwall, but most commonly got crowds of around the 7000 to 8000 mark. These attendances were a significant factor in discussions about them becoming a professional club.
Why Arsenal Left And What Happened To Invicta Ground
Highbury
When Woolwich Arsenal officially became part of the Football League, they planned to play in the Invicta for that debut campaign of 1893–94. Sadly, though, the ground's owner, George Weaver, was not so accommodating. Hoping to profit out of the club's growing status, he put the annual rent up from £200 to £350.
The side could not afford to meet such high fees, and so returned to the Manor Ground just three years after leaving. They managed to sell shares in the club, which meant they would buy the venue and add a single main stand and banks of terracing. The stadium had an average attendance of 6,000 for that season.
As for the Invicta Ground, amateur side, Royal Ordnance Factories – who were set up in response to Woolwich Arsenal joining the professional League – played some home games there but that didn't last long, as they left by the end of 1894. Owner Weaver, a mineral water magnate, could not find a permanent tenant for the ground. Consequently, he later demolished it, instead opting to build houses on the site.
As of 2025, Mineral Street and Hector Street stand where the stadium used to be. Even so, there is still a trace of Arsenal's history there, with some of the stadium's concrete terracing surviving in the back gardens of houses in Hector Street.
Images of the ruins recently resurfaced online, prompting author and Arsenal fan, Michael Rosen, to comment: "Imagine having these steps in your garden! Sacred!"
Starting out in the Second Division at Manor Ground, Woolwich Arsenal – who were the first southern member of the Football League – reached the First Division in 1904. But the club struggled with financial difficulties over the coming years and came close to bankruptcy in 1910.
Part of the issue was the arrival of more accessible football clubs elsewhere in the city, and so in 1913, soon after relegation back to the Second Division, the club moved across the river to the new Arsenal Stadium in Highbury. By 1919, now known as The Arsenal, despite only finishing fifth in the Second Division's last pre-war season of 1914-15, the Gunners were controversially promoted into the newly enlarged First Division, instead of relegated local rivals Tottenham Hotspur.
Starting to drop 'the' from their name later that year, Arsenal went from strength to strength from there, winning 13 First Division and Premier League titles before leaving Highbury for the Emirates in 2006.