The Old Recreation Ground was a football stadium located in Hanley,

Stoke-on-Trent Stoke-on-Trent (often abbreviated to Stoke) is a city and Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Staffordshire, England, with an area of . In 2019, the city had an estimated population of 256,375. It is the largest settlement ...

, England, and home to

Port Vale F.C. Port Vale Football Club are a professional football club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent, England, which compete in . Vale are the only English Football League club not to be named after a place; their name being a reference to the valley of ...

from 1913 to 1950. It was the sixth ground the club used.

Structure and facilities

The stadium was in rather bad condition, especially following years of neglect during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The dressing rooms were bare, there were no toilet facilities throughout the entire ground, and

racing pigeon Pigeon racing is the sport of releasing specially trained homing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the animal to cover the specified distance is measured and the bird's rate of trave ...

s were kept by '' The Sentinel'' and a number of supporters so as to relay the scoreline to different parts of the city.

History

opened the ground in 1913, and six years later were admitted into the

English Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engl ...

. The visit of

Potteries derby In Football in England, English football, the Potteries derby is the List of sports rivalries, local derby between the two major clubs in the city of Stoke-on-Trent – Port Vale F.C., Port Vale and Stoke City F.C., Stoke City, first contested i ...

rivals

Stoke Stoke is a common place name in the United Kingdom. Stoke may refer to: Places United Kingdom The largest city called Stoke is Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire. See below. Berkshire * Stoke Row, Berkshire Bristol * Stoke Bishop * Stok ...

on 6 March 1920 saw a crowd of 22,697 turn up to see an away victory. Other big matches for Port Vale went more favourably in later years though, as they drew 2–2 with

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

in the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

on 29 January 1927 and beat

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

2–0 on 13 January 1936, again in the FA Cup. Port Vale were forced to sell the land to the city council, under the chairmanship of Tom W.Flint after suffering a financial crisis, they received £13,500. This came after the club's president Major William Huntbach died in 1943, leaving £3,000 of loans to be repaid to his estate. The council initially refused to allow the club to play at their ground, but eventually relented for rent of £400 a year. In 1950, the city council decided to construct a

shopping centre A shopping center (American English) or shopping centre (Commonwealth English), also called a shopping complex, shopping arcade, shopping plaza or galleria, is a group of shops built together, sometimes under one roof. The first known collec ...

on the site forcing the club to move to their current home of

Vale Park Vale Park is a football stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It has been the home ground of Port Vale F.C. since 1950. The ground has seen its capacity go up and down, its peak being 42,000 in 1954 against Blackpool, although a club record 49, ...

. Ironically the club raised £50,000 to construct the new stadium, leading some to question why the directors did not simply attempt to raise a relatively much smaller sum of £3,000 in order to pay off the Huntbach family.''What If There Had Been No Port in the Vale?: Startling Port Vale Stories!'' (Witan Books, 2011, ) The final match at the Old Recreation Ground was described as an "uninspiring finale" as Vale lost 1–0 to

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alders ...

in front of a crowd of 9,645 on 22 April 1950.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Old Recreation Ground, The 1913 establishments in England Defunct football venues in England Demolished buildings and structures in England Port Vale F.C. Sports venues in Stoke-on-Trent Sports venues completed in 1913 Sports venues demolished in 1950 English Football League venues Demolished sports venues in the United Kingdom