The Old Recreation Ground was a football stadium located in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, England, and home to Port Vale F.C. 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 opposing ...

. The dressing rooms were bare, there were no toilet facilities throughout the entire ground, and racing pigeons were kept by '' The Sentinel'' and a number of supporters so as to relay the scoreline to different parts of the city.

History

Port Vale F.C. 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 English football, the Potteries derby is the local derby between the two major clubs in the city of Stoke-on-Trent – Port Vale and Stoke City, first contested in 1882. Port Vale play at Vale Park whilse Stoke play at the bet365 Stadium, the ...

rivals Stoke 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 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 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 colle ...

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 Alder ...

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