The following was an April Fool. Congratulations to all those clever people who spotted it. I must say I was rather surprised by the number of suckers who appeared to believe it, but even more surprised by the high proportion of those suckers who were all in favour of the move to Greenwich..... you can't all have been pulling my leg, surely?

By the way, we had a call from David Dein who says "it's a very interesting idea, we'll definitely be looking into it..."

For up-to-date stadium news, see NewsReel, or Arsenal World's coverage.

ArseWeb, 01/04/98

Exclusive - Arsenal bid to move to Greenwich

ArseWeb have learnt today, from extremely reliable sources close to Highbury, that Arsenal are shortly to announce a bid for the Millenium Dome site in Greenwich.

how the Dome might look in Arsenal's colours (artist's impression)

The move is expected to come as a major boost to the Government's millenium plans, as the fact that the post-Millenium future of the Dome was unclear has been one of the most embarrassing aspects of the Dome fiasco. In return Arsenal are hoping to receive a large subsidy from the Government towards the conversion. The feeling in the club is that, having given up on the attempt to buy Wembley and thus having doen the whole country a favour by preserving the perceived home of football as well as England's chances of landing the World Cup in 2006, they have manoeuvered themselves into a situation where everyone's bending over backwards to do Arsenal a favour in return. Whether or not that was the point of the Wembley bid in the first place remains to be seen, but what is clear now is that the Millenium Dome was always the number one target for Arsenal FC.

The main Dome will house Arsenal Stadium, while the Baby Dome will become a Leisure Complex. Both Domes will be able to host all sorts of other sport and music events. Wimbledon are already in talks about buying Arsenal Stadium, but are apparently concerned about a clause that means they won't be able to rename it.

This is all likely to cause quite an uproar. If you have a strong view on the prospect of the move to Greenwich please let us know. We'll forward your comments to the club which, because we've jumped the gun(ners) a bit here, should mean that ArseWeb readers views are the first feedback that they get!

• Apparently they haven't decided on a name for the stadium. They are considering sticking with "Arsenal Stadium", or going for the "Millenium Stadium", or even the American style "Arsenaldome". If you mail us your ideas we'll forward them to the club.
• See also the Millenium Dome Homepage. Why not let them know what you think about it too?
• Read some of the background to this decision on Chris Parry's excellent page about the whole Highbury controversy.
• Watch AFCi for further news. We expect an official announcement in the next couple of days.
• The move would probably not happen until the year 2006, but if Wimbledon want to take over Arsenal Stadium at Highbury before then some sort of ground-share in North London might be arranged for a season or two.
• This is NO HOAX , all the above information comes from someone who is involved in drawing up the press release.