Bank of England club

It used to refer to Arsenal, Everton, Aston Villa and Blackpool[1] in the 1930s as well as in recent times for being the last of the Premier League's Big Four clubs to be owned primarily by English investors,[2] and it used to describe Sunderland in the late 1940s[3] and the 1950s.

Bernard Joy recalled that people "sneered at the 'Bank of England' methods of team building" after the five-digit figure paid for David Jack.

[4] Arsenal continued to spend considerable sums on other players, including Alex James, and, in 1938, broke the English transfer record again with the purchase of Bryn Jones.

[5] Accompanied by £2,500 earned from match day programme sales and financial reserves of over £60,000, the "Bank of England club" moniker became regularly used to describe Arsenal.

The cost of repairing Highbury and gaining no income from being able to play home Wartime League matches eliminated most of Arsenal's cash reserves, which meant that the "Bank of England club" descriptor gradually became less used and redundant.