Taylors Avenue is a football stadium in

Carrickfergus Carrickfergus ( , meaning " Fergus' rock") is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It sits on the north shore of Belfast Lough, from Belfast. The town had a population of 27,998 at the 2011 Census. It is County Antrim's oldest ...

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, ) is one of six counties of Northern Ireland and one of the thirty-two counties of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of and has a population o ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. It is the home stadium of local football team Carrick Rangers F.C. Taylors Avenue has a capacity of 6,000. There are two covered stands, with the rest of the ground made up of open terracing.

History

The ground, known before 1952 as the Barn Field, was the home of Barn F.C. from 1889 until the club folded in 1928. Taylors Avenue was originally founded as Barn Avenue where it was owned by James Taylor who owned the land as part of his converted barn estate. He set aside the land for the nearby Barn Mills National School to host sports events. In 2011, Carrick Rangers earned promotion to the IFA Premiership for the first time. However, Taylors Avenue did not meet

Irish Football Association The Irish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland. It organised the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became the Northern Ireland national football team. ...

standards. Work to get the ground up to standards started with the aim of allowing Carrick Rangers to play their at least part of the season. In the meantime, they groundshared with

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

at their Seaview ground in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

for the whole season. They had to do this again in 2016 following flooding at Taylors Avenue. It was originally planned that the redevelopment would include a 3G pitch, however following subsidence issues discovered during construction a natural grass pitch was retained. In 2015, Carrick Rangers agreed a naming rights deal for Taylors Avenue after a local hotel. In 2019,

Mid and East Antrim Borough Council Mid and East Antrim Borough Council is a local authority that was established on 1 April 2015. It replaced Ballymena Borough Council, Carrickfergus Borough Council and Larne Borough Council. History On 2 December 2021, the councils chief ex ...

awarded Taylors Avenue £69,000 from SportNI for ground improvements. They also received £13,000 as part of the

Department for Communities The Department for Communities (DfC, Irish: ''An Roinn Pobal'', Ulster Scots: ''Depairtment fur Commonities'') is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility f ...

' Access & Inclusion Programme in order to improve the toilets.

References

{{coord, 54, 43, 11, N, 5, 48, 1, W, display=title Association football venues in County Antrim Carrickfergus