Portman Road Stadium

Portman Road is a football stadium in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, which has been the home ground of Ipswich Town F.C. since 1884. The stadium has also hosted many England youth international matches, and one senior England friendly international match, against Croatia in 2003. It staged several other sporting events, including athletics meetings and international hockey matches, musical concerts and Christian events.

The stadium underwent significant redevelopments in the early 2000s, which increased the capacity from 22,600 to a current figure of 29,673, making it the largest-capacity football ground in East Anglia. Its four stands have since been converted to all-seater, following the recommendations of the Taylor Report.

History

Ipswich played their early matches at Broomhill Park, but in 1884, the club moved to Portman Road and have played there ever since. The ground was also used as a cricket pitch during the summer by the East Suffolk Cricket Club who had played there since 1855. The cricket club had erected a pavilion, the first fixed building at the ground. More substantial elements of ground development did not begin for a further 11 years, though Ipswich became one of the first clubs to implement the use of goal nets in 1890. At this time, Ipswich were an amateur side (the team became professional in 1936) and the first visit of a professional club came in 1892, when Preston North End played a Suffolk County Football Association team. This was followed six years later by a visit from Aston Villa, a game which was so popular that a temporary stand was erected in order to accommodate a crowd of around 5,000. In 1901, a tobacco processing plant was built along the south edge of the ground by the Churchman brothers, a name which would later become synonymous with the south stand located there.

The first permanent stand, a wooden structure known affectionately as the "Chicken Run", was built on the Portman Road side of the ground in 1906. This structure was sold in 1971 to the local speedway team, the Ipswich Witches, who installed it at Foxhall Stadium. In 1914, the ground was commandeered by the British Army for use as a training camp for the duration of the First World War. Control of Portman Road was not returned to the club until two years after the end of the war and significant work was required to repair damage to the ground caused by heavy machinery.

For a short period during the 1920s, Portman Road was host to a number of whippet races in an attempt to increase revenue, and in 1928 a small stand was built on the west side of the ground. The football club turned professional in 1936 and the cricket club were forced to move out, so work began on the first bank of terracing at the north end of the pitch. The following year, on the back of winning the Southern League, a similar terrace was built at the southern "Churchmans" end and 650 tip-up seats, bought from Arsenal, were installed. Portman Road was home to Ipswich Town's first Football League match on 27 August 1938, a 4–2 victory against Southend United in Division Three (South) witnessed by more than 19,000 spectators.

The Supporters' Association funded a number of improvements at Portman Road; in 1952, concrete terracing replaced the wooden terraces at the cost of £3,000 and another £3,000 was used to re-terrace the North Stand in 1954, bringing the capacity of the ground to approximately 29,000. In 1957, the association raised £30,500 towards the building of a new West Stand, increasing ground capacity to around 31,000. Floodlights were installed two years later; the result of £15,000 raised by the association. The floodlights were switched on by club president Lady Blanche Cobbold for the first floodlit match at the ground, a friendly against Arsenal, in February 1960.

Television cameras made their debut at Portman Road in 1962 as Anglia Television arrived for ''Match of the Week''; it was another six years before the BBC
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