Stadium MK

Stadium MK is a football ground in the Denbigh district of Bletchley in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Designed by Populous and opened in 2007, it is the home ground of EFL League One side Milton Keynes Dons and FA Women's National League South side Milton Keynes Dons Women. In 2022, the stadium hosted several matches during the UEFA Women's Euro 2022.

, the stadium has two tiers which hold a capacity of 30,500. Should it be required, there is the option to increase the capacity of the stadium again to 45,000 with the addition of a third tier, hence the high roof. The design meets UEFA's Elite Stadium specifications and includes a Desso GrassMaster playing surface.

The plans of the complex included an indoor arena, Arena MK (now known as The Marshall Arena), that was to be the home of the Milton Keynes Lions professional basketball team. However, the retail developments that would have provided enabling funding were deferred due to lack of financing, leaving the Lions without a home. Following the conclusion of the 2011–12 season, the Lions could not secure a venue within Milton Keynes, resulting in their relocation to London.

In addition to association football, the stadium occasionally hosts rugby union. The first such occasion was in May 2008, when Saracens (who at the time groundshared with Watford at Vicarage Road) played Bristol at Stadium MK because Watford needed their ground for a Championship play-off. In 2011, Northampton Saints RFC used the ground for their Heineken Cup quarter and semi-final matches because their home ground is too small for major events. The stadium hosted three matches in the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

The stadium also hosts music concerts, with artists including Take That, Rammstein, Rod Stewart, Olly Murs, My Chemical Romance and Imagine Dragons having performed there in recent years.

Construction, planning and background

Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium

From the first days of Milton Keynes as a new town, designated in 1967, the Milton Keynes Development Corporation (1967–1992) envisaged a stadium capable of accommodating a top-flight football team. What would become Stadium MK was first proposed in 2000 by the Milton Keynes Stadium Consortium or "Stadium MK", led by Pete Winkelman and his company Inter MK Group. This consortium proposed a large development in the southern Milton Keynes district of Denbigh North, including a 30,000-capacity football stadium, a Asda hypermarket, an IKEA store, a hotel, a conference centre, and a retail park. The plan to build a ground of this size was complicated by the fact that there was no professional football club in Milton Keynes and that the highest-ranked team in the town, Milton Keynes City—based in Wolverton in northern Milton Keynes, and formerly known as Mercedes-Benz F.C.—played in the then eighth-tier Spartan South Midlands League, four divisions below the Football League. The developers could not justify building such a stadium for a club of this small stature.

Winkelman, an ex-CBS Records executive and music promoter, had moved to the Milton Keynes area from London in 1993. He attested to a vast untapped fanbase for football in Milton Keynes—a "football frenzy waiting to happen", he said. Critics of this claim pointed to the apparent lack of public interest in Milton Keynes City and the other local non-League clubs, and argued that Milton Keynes residents interested specifically in League football already had ample access with Luton Town, Northampton Town and Rushden & Diamonds all within . Winkelman was the only person in Milton Keynes publicly associated with the project; his financial supporters, later revealed to be Asda (a subsidiary of Walmart) and Ikea, were kept strictly anonymous.

Opponents of such a move surmised that the stadium was a "Trojan Horse" included in the blueprint to bypass planning rules, and that although the consortium described the larger development as enabling the construction of the stadium, the reverse was the case—Winkelman's consortium, they claimed, had to have a professional team in place right away to justify the ground so the development could get planning permission. David Conn of ''The Guardian'' corroborated this assessment. "The whole project was indeed dependent on Asda and Ikea," Conn summarised in a 2012 article, after interviewing Winkelman. "Having seen the opportunity to build a stadium Milton Keynes lacked, and realised Asda did not have a store in the town, Winkelman acquired options to buy the land from its three owners, including the council. Asda would not have been granted planning permission for a huge out-of-town superstore unless it gave the council the benefit of building the stadium. A League club would move up, permission would be granted, then Winkelman would exercise the option to buy all the land, sell it to Asda and IKEA for very much more, and the difference would be used to build the stadium." Conn retrospectively described this as the "deal of a lifetime".

Relocation of Wimbledon F.C.; Milton Keynes Dons F.C.

Starting in 2000 the consortium offered this proposition to several Football League clubs, including Luton Town, Crystal Palace, Barnet,

Queens Park Rangers, and Wimbledon F.C. Wimbledon F.C., who had groundshared at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park ground since 1991, adopted the Milton Keynes plan after the appointment of a new chairman, Charles Koppel, in January 2001. Koppel said that such action was necessary to prevent Wimbledon F.C.'s going out of business. He announced Wimbledon F.C.'s intent to move on 2 August 2001 with a letter to the Football League requesting approval, stating that Wimbledon had already signed an agreement to relocate and "subject to the necessary planning and regulatory consents being obtained" intended to be playing home games at a newly built stadium in Milton Keynes by the start of the 2003–04 season. The proposed move was opposed in most quarters; the League board unanimously rejected Wimbledon's proposed move in August 2001. Koppel appealed against this decision, leading to a Football Association (FA) arbitration hearing and subsequently the appointment of a three-man independent commission by the FA in May 2002 to make a final and binding verdict. The League and FA stated opposition but the commissioners ruled in favour, two to one.

Wimbledon F.C. hoped to move to Milton Keynes immediately, but as the new ground was yet to be built an interim home in the town would have to be found first. The first proposal, to start the 2002–03 season at the National Hockey Stadium in central Milton Keynes, was abandoned because it did not meet Football League stadium criteria. While alternative temporary options were examined—Winkelman suggested converting the National Bowl music venue—Wimbledon F.C. started the season at Selhurst Park and set a target of playing in MK by Christmas 2002. A group of Wimbledon F.C. fans protested by setting up AFC Wimbledon, to which the vast majority of Wimbledon F.C. fans switched allegiance, in June 2002. A temporary stadium in Milton Keynes proved difficult to arrange and Wimbledon F.C. remained in south London at the end of the 2002–03 season. Koppel announced a plan to convert the National Hockey Stadium for football and play there from the start of the 2003–04 season until the new stadium was built.

Wimbledon F.C. entered administration in June 2003. After the club missed a deadline to invest in renovations to the Hockey Stadium, confusion arose as to whether Wimbledon F.C. would move and where they would play if they did. The administrators arranged a return to Selhurst Park. With the move threatened and the club facing liquidation, Winkelman made "the life-defining decision", to quote Conn, "of taking it on himself". He secured funds from his consortium for the administrators to pay the players' wages, keep the club operating, and pay for the necessary renovations for the National Hockey Stadium to host League football.

After hosting the first few home matches of the 2003–04 campaign at Selhurst Park, Wimbledon F.C. played their first match in Milton Keynes in September 2003. A company voluntary arrangement was put together in March 2004 under which Winkelman's consortium would take Wimbledon F.C. out of administration, reportedly using a holding company called MK Dons. The Football League threatened to expel the club if the takeover were not completed by 31 July. Winkelman's Inter MK Group brought Wimbledon F.C. out of administration in late June 2004 and concurrently announced changes to its name, badge and colours. The new name was Milton Keynes Dons F.C. (commonly shortened to MK Dons).

Milton Keynes Dons continued to play at the National Hockey Stadium while the development including the new ground was constructed in Denbigh. Asda paid Inter MK £35 million for its section of the site, IKEA £24 million. Ground was broken on the stadium in February 2005. In December 2005 MK Dons set a target of playing at the new ground by January 2007; in February 2007 they revised their proposal to a 22,000-seater stadium ready in July of that year, with provision for expansion to 32,000 (it had originally been intended to seat 30,000). The new ground, Stadium mk, hosted its first match in July 2007. Four months later, on 29 November 2007, it was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.

Attendances

Although attendances increased since leaving the National Hockey Stadium, the MK Dons average attendance of 10,550 during the 2008–09 League One season remained below half the ground capacity. The MK Dons average home attendance for the first part of the 2009–10 season was ranked 6th out of 24 teams in League One. The average attendance for the 2012–13 season was just 8,612; in the 2013–14 season it was 9,047; in the 2015–16 season it was 13,158.
In 2016–17 it was 10,306.

On 29 March 2014, the stadium saw Wolverhampton Wanderers take a record away attendance of 8,943 supporters in a League One fixture. The total attendance for the match was 20,516.

The record attendance for a football match at Stadium MK was on 25 September 2019 when a crowd of 28,521 attended to see MK Dons lose 2–0 to Liverpool in the EFL Cup 3rd Round. This record attendance surpassed the one set on 31 January 2016 when a crowd of 28,127 attended Milton Keynes Dons' 5–1 defeat in the FA Cup fourth round by Chelsea., which beat the previous record of 26,969 who witnessed a shock historic 4–0 win over Manchester United in the second round on 26 August 2014. On 6 October 2015, Stadium MK hosted the Rugby World Cup match, Uruguay versus Fiji and this set the new record attendance to 30,043. On 4 February 2017 a record league attendance of 21,545 was set against Bolton Wanderers in Football League One.

Association football (men’s)

Milton Keynes Dons

The football club's first stadium was the National Hockey Stadium, which was temporarily converted for football for the duration of the club's stay whilst Stadium MK was under construction. Their lease on this ground ended in May 2007.

On 18 July 2007, the club's new 22,000 seater stadium hosted its first game, a restricted-entrance event against a young Chelsea XI.Dons open stadium against Chelsea
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