Arsenal is a Russian professional football club based in the city of Tula. Despite their more than 100-year history, "gunsmiths" have recently joined the elite of national football. Since 2016, the team has managed to gain a foothold in the top division, as well as make its debut in the European arena.

The oldest predecessor of the modern Arsenal is the Tula football club Oruzhzavod, which was founded in 1925 at the local Arms Factory. Since then, the team has been participating in city and regional competitions for over 20 years. In 1946, already under the name Zenith, the club made its debut at the all-Union competitions, having received the right to play in the third group of the USSR championship.

1958 became the defining factor for the club, when Zenit entered the formed sports society "Trud", where a team of masters was formed to participate in the stronger football division of the country. The Gunsmiths moved to the new Tula Luzhniki stadium (now Arsenal) and a year later made their debut in Class B (Second Division).

In 1961, the club was separated from the Arms Factory, which resulted in the loss of the main sponsor. This decision was made due to the new policy of the Soviet authorities, as a result of which it was forbidden to associate sports with the military industry in order to ensure complete secrecy. The city sports committee did not attract funding for the team, but other large Tula enterprises came to the rescue. Over the next 17 years, the club changed three sponsors, which alternately became Tulaugol, Tulachermet and Tulamashzavod, in connection with which the names of the team also changed - Shakhtar, Metallurg and Mashinostroitel.
Metallurg finished in second place in the class B zone tournament, which allowed him to continue the struggle for promotion. Under the leadership of the four-time USSR champion Alexei Vodyagin, the Tula won the semifinal tournament, after which they took third place in the final four and got the right to play in the second group of class "A".

The Arsenal has many different historical and borrowed nicknames, the oldest and most popular of which is "gunsmiths". The club received this name almost from the moment of its foundation, since initially the Arms Factory acted as its main sponsor.

In addition, the team has nicknames associated directly with the city. So, Arsenal is sometimes called "samovars" and "gingerbread", because Tula is famous throughout Russia for both its samovars and branded gingerbread.

Another nickname for Arsenal is associated with club colors. The home kit is made in red with yellow accents, so the Tula team is quite logically called red and yellow. It should be noted that these same colors are the main colors on the city's coat of arms and on the Arsenal's emblem.

Arsenal recently joined the elite of Russian football and spent only six seasons in the top division, showing rather mixed results. On the one hand, the Gunners won the right to debut in European competition, but on the other hand, they found themselves on the verge of relegation more than once.

The Gunsmiths played for the first time in the Premier League in 2014/15, but the debut was unsuccessful. Arsenal failed to adapt in the top flight, with the result that the red and yellow finished in last place and went back to the FNL.

A year later, the Gunners returned to the RPL and this time, not without a share of luck, were able to bypass the relegation. At the end of the 2016/17 season, the Tula took 14th place and got into the play-off zone for the right to play in the top division. In the confrontation with Yenisei, after a 1: 2 away defeat, Arsenal won a minimum 1: 0 victory at home, which provided the "gunsmiths" with a residence permit in the RPL.

The Tula made their debut on the European arena in the 2019/20 season. In the second qualifying round of the Europa League, Arsenal lost twice to Azerbaijan's Neftchi (0: 1, 0: 3) and were eliminated from the tournament without even being able to score.

The most significant contribution to the development of the club was made by Dmitry Alenichev, therefore he can be considered the best coaches in the history of "gunsmiths". Coach took over at Arsenal in 2011 and took the team from the amateur league to the top flight in three years. Alenichev instilled in the red and yellow attacking style of play, which bore fruit and helped the Tula to reach the Premier League for the first time in history. The coach left the Gunners in 2015 after receiving an offer from Spartak Moscow.

The most productive player of the "gunsmiths" in the USSR championships is striker Pavel Shishkin, who has exactly 100 goals. In the Russian championships, the title of the team's top scorer belongs to striker Alexander Kuzmichev, who scored 69 goals for Arsenal.