Maiden Castle sports centre, also known as the Graham Sports Centre and the Durham University Sport and Wellbeing Park, is the main sports complex at

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

and the home for many of the university's teams. It also stages professional football as the home of

Durham W.F.C. Durham Women Football Club is a Women's association football, women's football club based in Durham, England, Durham, Northern England. The team has competed in the FA Women's Championship, the second tier of Women's football in England, since 2 ...

since 2020 and is used as an international venue, including hosting one of the four 2023 Women's EuroHockey Championship Qualifiers tournaments in summer 2022 and the 1995 IAAF World Cross Country Championships. It has been used as a training ground by

Hartlepool United Hartlepool United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Hartlepool, County Durham, England. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. They were founded in 1908 as Hartle ...

since 2021, having previously been used by

Newcastle United Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End ...

. The sports centre is situated on the southeast side of

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county * Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in N ...

on the floodplain of the

River Wear The River Wear (, ) in North East England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers, wends in a steep valley through th ...

, just south of the Maiden Castle iron age fort from which it takes is name. The main sports complex, including the centre buildings and artificial pitches, are located on the west bank of the river, with vehicular access from the A177 Stockton Road, with additional playing fields on the east bank linked to the main complex via a footbridge. Paths along the river link Maiden Castle to the university's other sports fields at Hollow Drift (150 m north) and

The Racecourse The Racecourse is an open area on the River Wear in Durham, England of total that has been used as a sports ground since at least 1733. It forms part of Durham University's sports facilities as well as hosting local sports clubs. The Raceco ...

Development

The original sports centre was designed by Cordingley and McIntyre and constructed by R.E. Coleman Ltd between 1961 and 1965. It was opened on 8 May 1965 by

Clive Rowlands Clive Rowlands OBE (born 14 May 1938) is a former Welsh rugby union footballer and later coach. Rowlands was born in Upper Cwmtwrch. As recorded in the preface for the book 'The Children of Craig-Y-Nos', Rowlands was admitted in 1947, as an ...

, captain of the Welsh rugby team, as "Maiden Castle Sports Hall and Playing Fields", with an athletics meeting being held the same day. An all-weather hockey pitch was added in the early 1970s and a footbridge was built across the

, allowing for the development of more pitches on the east bank of the river. Expansion of the facilities was proposed in 1981 and funds were raised as part of Durham University's 150th anniversary appeal. This led to its redevelopment as the Graham Sports Centre over 1984 to 1988, named (from January 1985) after university registrar Ian Graham who had died in December 1984. In 2001 the sports centre was refurbished and upgrades were made to the artificial pitch, running track and tennis courts. In 2002 a new water-based astroturf hockey pitch was opened alongside the existing all-weather pitch. A £6.7 million upgrade to Maiden Castle, including £500,000 from

Sport England Sport England is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Its role is to build the foundations of a community sport system by working with national governing bodies of sport, and other funded par ...

, to add indoor cricket nets, a fencing piste and a powered indoor rowing tank was begun in 2009 as part of the sporting legacy of the

2012 Olympic Games The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

. A 3G rubber crumb artificial pitch was installed for the start of the 2009/10 season. The renovated centre was opened in 2012 by Sport and Olympics Minister, Hugh Robertson. Facilities at Maiden Castle were used for training by the Sri Lanka Olympic badminton team prior to the games. A further £500,000 grant from Sport England in 2013 enabled construction of a second 3G rubber crumb artificial pitch. The pitch was officially opened with a lacrosse match between Durham University' women's team and the Team England development squad. In 2017–19 a major upgrade to Maiden Castle was carried out at a cost of £35 million. External work in 2017 saw the installation of a third 3G rubber crumb inside the running track, the resurfacing of the existing water-based artificial hockey pitch and the reconstruction of the sand-based hockey pitch as a water-based pitch, as well as upgrades to the carparking ar the site. Internal work and extensions to the existing buildings, designed by FaulknerBrowns Architects and built by

Galliford Try Galliford Try plc is a British construction company based in Leicester, England. It was created through a merger in 2000 of two businesses: Try Group, founded in 1908 in London, and Galliford, founded in 1916. Formerly involved in house-buildi ...

over 2018–19, saw the addition of a 12 court sports hall, indoor cricket centre, sports labs, indoor tennis and squash courts and a new fitness suite, as well as the construction of sports laboratories for use in sports science degree programmes. However, the expansion raised opposition from the City of Durham Trust as the site lies within the

North East Green Belt The North East Green Belt, also known as the Tyne & Wear Green Belt, is a non-statutory green belt environmental and planning policy that regulates the rural space in part of the North East region of England. It is centred on the county of Tyne ...

and there were concerns about the environmental impact of the floodlights. Durham County Council's senior planning officer found that the development was inappropriate for green belt land but that the harm was "less than substantial" and outweighed by the benefits of maximizing participation in sport.

Use of the sports complex

For university sport

The sports centre is owned by

and had been used for university sport since it opened in 1965. It hosts inter-varsity sport as one of

Team Durham Team Durham (formerly Durham University Athletic Union, DUAU) is a student-run organisation responsible for sport at Durham University. In contrast to most British universities it is a separate organisation with the status of a students' union, ...

's home grounds and also inter-collegiate sport between the

Colleges of Durham University The Colleges of Durham University are residential colleges that are the primary source of accommodation and support services for undergraduates and postgraduates at Durham University, as well as providing a focus for social, cultural and sporting ...

. Sports played at Maiden Castle include

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competi ...

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

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 striki ...

(

indoor Indoor(s) may refer to: *the interior of a building *Indoor environment, in building science, traditionally includes the study of indoor thermal environment, indoor acoustic environment, indoor light environment, and indoor air quality *Built envi ...

and outdoor),

fencing Fencing is a group of three related combat sports. The three disciplines in modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also ''saber''); winning points are made through the weapon's contact with an opponent. A fourth discipline, s ...

field hockey Field hockey is a team sport structured in standard hockey format, in which each team plays with ten outfield players and a goalkeeper. Teams must drive a round hockey ball by hitting it with a hockey stick towards the rival team's shooting ci ...

floorball Floorball is a type of floor hockey with five players and a goalkeeper in each team. Men and women play indoors with sticks and a plastic ball with holes. Matches are played in three twenty-minute periods. The sport of bandy also played a role ...

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

gymnastics Gymnastics is a type of sport that includes physical exercises requiring balance, strength, flexibility, agility, coordination, dedication and endurance. The movements involved in gymnastics contribute to the development of the arms, legs, shou ...

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

judo is an unarmed gendai budō, modern Japanese martial art, Olympic sport (since 1964), and the most prominent form of jacket wrestling competed internationally.『日本大百科全書』電子版【柔道】(CD-ROM version of Encyclopedia Nipponi ...

karate (; ; Okinawan language, Okinawan pronunciation: ) is a martial arts, martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the Okinawan martial arts, indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called , "hand"; ''tii'' in Okinawan) under the ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, inc ...

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

squash Squash may refer to: Sports * Squash (sport), the high-speed racquet sport also known as squash racquets * Squash (professional wrestling), an extremely one-sided match in professional wrestling * Squash tennis, a game similar to squash but pla ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

touch rugby Touch rugby refers to games derived from rugby football in which players do not tackle each other but instead touch their opponents using their hands on any part of the body, clothing, or the ball. A formal, competitive variety, known as Tou ...

ultimate frisbee Ultimate, originally known as ultimate Frisbee, is a non-contact team sport played with a frisbee flung by hand. Ultimate was developed in 1968 by AJ Gator in Maplewood, New Jersey. Although ultimate resembles many traditional sports in its ath ...

volleyball Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...

and

wheelchair basketball Wheelchair basketball is basketball played by people with varying physical disabilities that disqualify them from playing a non-disabled sport. These include spina bifida, birth defects, cerebral palsy, paralysis due to accident, amputations (of ...

. Maiden Castle hosted the University Athletics Union Championships in 1966 and 1973, the British Universities Championships in 1970 and the British Students Cross Country Championships in 1994.

As a training centre

During the group stages of the

1966 FIFA World Cup The 1966 FIFA World Cup was the eighth FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial football tournament for men's senior national teams. It was played in England from 11 July to 30 July 1966. The England national football team defeated West Germany 4-2 in the ...

group 4 Group 4 may refer to: *Group 4 element, chemical element classification *Group 4 (racing), classification for cars in auto racing and rallying * G4S, formerly Group 4 Securicor, a prominent British security company *IB Group 4 subjects The Group 4 ...

was based in the northeast of England. The Soviet team was based at

Grey College, Durham Grey College is a Durham University#Colleges, college of Durham University in England. Although it was originally planned for the college to be named Oliver Cromwell College, this proved too controversial and it was instead named after Charles Gre ...

and trained at Maiden Castle. The Soviets ordered a larger flag when they realised that the flag of the Italian team, who were training across the road at

Houghall College East Durham College, formerly known as East Durham & Houghall Community College, is a community college with campuses in Peterlee and Houghall, south-east of Durham. The college student roll at the time of a February 2014 Ofsted report was 1,5 ...

, was larger. The replacement flag was then stolen as a "spur of the moment thing" in broad daylight. Police were unable to trace it, but it was handed in to the offices of

The Northern Echo ''The Northern Echo'' is a regional daily morning newspaper based in the town of Darlington in North East England, serving mainly southern County Durham and northern Yorkshire. The paper covers national as well as regional news. In 2007, its t ...

over 50 years later and returned to the university. From 1992 to 2001, Maiden Castle was the training ground for

, attracting crowds of up to 5,000 fans. The openness of the Maiden Castle training sessions was credited with helping

Kevin Keegan Joseph Kevin Keegan (born 14 February 1951) is an English former footballer and manager. A forward, he played for several professional clubs from 1968 to 1984. Having begun his career at Scunthorpe United, he moved to Liverpool in 1971 and ...

's team bond with their fans.

used Maiden Castle as a training ground from at least 2008/9 up to 2017, when work began on the renovation, and returned in 2021/2 after the new facilities opened. In addition to training, Hartlepool have played friendly matches at Maiden Castle. In July 2022, the Zambian team trained at Maiden Castle in the run up to the

2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England bet ...

As an international venue

In December 1994, Maiden Castle hosted the County Durham International Cross Country (later the

Great Edinburgh International Cross Country The Great Edinburgh International Cross Country was an annual cross country running competition that took place every January in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was one of the competitions in the Great Run series of athletics events and was held alongsi ...

). A few months later it hosted the 1995 IAAF World Cross Country Championships. Maiden Castle staged two under-21 international hockey matches between England and Scotland in 2004, with England winning both games. Durham hosted its first full international hockey matches in 2022, with the six matches of 2023 Women's EuroHockey Championship Qualifier A, hosted by England, being held at Maiden Castle over 25–28 August. The four competing team were England, Wales, Croatia and Slovakia, with Russia having been originally scheduled to participate prior to their exclusion following the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, which began in 2014. The invasion has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths on both sides. It has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II. An ...

. Prior to the qualifiers, Wales and Scotland played a three-match uncapped series at Maiden Castle in May 2022, with Scotland winning all three games.

As a professional club ground

(

) moved to Maiden Castle in summer 2020 following work on the facilities around the 3G pitch and running track to meet the requirements of the

FA Women's Championship The Women's Championship (formerly The FA Women's Championship) is the second-highest division of women's football in England. The division was established in 2014 as the FA Women's Super League 2 (WSL 2). WSL 2 replaced the previous level 2 d ...

. Upgrades included the construction of a 300-seat, fully-covered stand, upgraded floodlights and changing rooms, facilities for broadcasting and press, and the installation of turnstiles and a barrier around the spectator area. The

Darlington Mowden Park Durham Sharks Darlington Mowden Park Sharks Ladies Rugby Football Club (known currently as DMP Durham Sharks for partnership purposes) is a women's rugby union club in Darlington, County Durham, England founded in 1996. Their top try scorer (42 tries in 68 appe ...

(

) played their home games in the latter part of the 2020/21 Allianz Premier 15s season (from February 2021) at Maiden Castle.

Durham County Cricket Club Durham County Cricket Club (rebranded as Durham Cricket in February 2019) is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Durham. Founded in 1882, Du ...

have used the Maiden Castle cricket ground occasionally for

Second XI Championship The Second XI Championship is a season-long cricket competition in England that is competed for by the reserve teams of those county cricket clubs that have first-class status. The competition started in 1959 and has been contested annually ever ...

matches.

Facilities

The indoor facilities along with the artificial pitches and a grass-wicket cricket field (with grass pitches in the outfield) are located on the west side of the

, with access from the A177 Stockton Road. The remaining grass pitches and a cricket field an artificial wicket are located on the east side of the river with access from the west bank via a footbridge. The

Durham University Boat Club Durham University Boat Club (DUBC) is the rowing club of Durham University. In recent years, DUBC has cemented itself as one of the strongest university boat clubs in Great Britain. Under the leader ...

boathouse is also located at the Maiden Castle site, on the west bank of the river. All three 3G rubber crumb pitches are included on the register of full-size artificial pitches certified by the

Rugby Football Union The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the Sports governing body, national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby ...

as meeting

World Rugby World Rugby is the world governing body for the sport of rugby union. World Rugby organises the Rugby World Cup every four years, the sport's most recognised and most profitable competition. It also organises a number of other international rug ...

standards and on the

Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world an ...

's 3G pitch register as meeting

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

standards. In total, there are around of playing fields. Outdoor facilities include: * Floodlit playing surface, 3G rubber crumb artificial football pitch and four-lane running track with 300-seat stand, spectator fencing and turnstiles * Two other floodlit 3G rubber crumb artificial pitches of and total area * Two floodlit playing surface, water-based astroturf artificial hockey pitches * Seven grass pitches * Cricket field with artificial wicket * Cricket field with grass wicket * Tarmac tennis and netball courts Indoor facilities include: * 12 court sports hall, with seating for 2,000 spectators in arena configuration * sports hall (two basketball courts) * Fitness suite * Martial arts dojo * Fencing salle * Powered rowing tank * Ergo gallery * indoor cricket centre * Aerobics room * Weights room * Physiotherapy centre

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maiden Castle Association football training grounds in England Athletics (track and field) venues in England Cricket grounds in County Durham Durham University Field hockey venues in England Football venues in England Hartlepool United F.C. Newcastle United F.C. Sport in Durham, England Sports venues completed in 1965 Sports venues in County Durham Sport at Durham University University sports venues in the United Kingdom