The Athletic Grounds was a sports ground in
Blackpool, England. It was the home ground of
Blackpool F.C. between 1897 and 1898, and it was the 55th ground to host a
Football League game.
History
The Athletic Grounds was located in
Stanley Park
Stanley Park is a public park in British Columbia, Canada that makes up the northwestern half of Vancouver's Downtown Peninsula, surrounded by waters of Burrard Inlet and English Bay. The park borders the neighbourhoods of West End and ...
, a municipal park to the east of the town centre. It was a 24-acre site, with a
horse racing track around most of the perimeter. At the western edge of the site there was a
cinder
Cinder is an alternate term for scoria.
Cinder or Cinders may also refer to:
In computing
*Cinder (programming library), a C++ programming library for visualization
*Cinder, OpenStack's block storage component
* Cyber Insider Threat, CINDER, a ...
cycle track, which overlapped the racing track. A football pitch was located inside the cycle track, whilst the site also contained a
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
pitch. Spectator facilities included a covered stand and some uncovered seating on the western side of the cycle track.
[Paul Smith & Shirley Smith (2005) ''The Ultimate Directory of English & Scottish Football League Grounds Second Edition 1888–2005'', Yore Publications, p18, ]
Blackpool moved to the ground at the start of the
1897–98 season, as their
Raikes Hall ground required development following the club's election to the
Football League.
[Smith & Smith, p109] The first League match at the Athletic Grounds was played on 11 September 1897, with 4,000 spectators seeing Blackpool draw 1–1 with
Burnley
Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2001 population of 73,021. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, Lancashire, Preston, at the confluence of the River C ...
. That proved to be the ground's record attendance, and was equalled for matches against
Newton Heath
Newton Heath is an area of Manchester, England, north-east of Manchester city centre and with a population of 9,883.
Historically part of Lancashire, Newton was formerly a farming area, but adopted the factory system following the Industrial R ...
on 15 January 1898 and
Darwen
Darwen is a market town and civil parish in the Blackburn with Darwen borough in Lancashire, England. The residents of the town are known as "Darreners".
The A666 road passes through Darwen towards Blackburn to the north, Bolton to the s ...
on 8 April 1898.
[
Due to the distance between the stands and the pitch, the ground was unpopular with supporters, and midway through the 1898–99 season the club returned to Raikes Hall after it became apparent that the planned redevelopment was going to be delayed. The last match at the Athletics Ground was a 2–1 defeat by Glossop North End on 31 December 1898.][
The Athletics Ground subsequently became part of the Stanley Park Leisure Complex, with housing later built on the site.][
]
References
External links
Athletic Grounds
at Doing The 92
{{Authority control
Defunct football venues in England
Defunct cricket grounds in England
Defunct horse racing venues in England
Blackpool F.C.
Sports venues in Blackpool
Cricket grounds in Lancashire
Defunct sports venues in Lancashire
English Football League venues