The Football Grounds of Britain

July 23, 2005 at 11:00 pm · Filed under General

The Football Grounds of Britain
Author: Simon Inglis (Limited availability)


Grounds for Divorce
In April 1981, Wolves played Spurs in a cup semi final at Hillsborough, home of Sheffield Wednesday. Late arrivals to the game contributed to thirty eight people being injured in the Leppings Lane End. Exactly eight years later, ninety five people were killed in the exactly the same circumstances. In fact over four thousand people had been killed or injured at football grounds in Britain before Hillsborough.

Since the disaster of Hillsborough, and the resulting Lord Justice Taylor report, many football grounds have gone under a fundamental redesign, with some being demolished altogether and their club’s relocating to new premises.

I first bought this book ten years ago. When I recently bought the latest version, I was astonished to find how football grounds have changed over the last decade. I’m a regular visitor to these wonderful places, but even though I noticed the changes going on around me, it wasn’t until I read this book that I realised the tremendous upheaval and fundamental change that has happened.

A history of football grounds in general is followed by an in depth description and history of the homes of every current Premier, First, Second and Third Division clubs in England, Wales and Scotland, except those recently promoted from the Nationwide Conference and the Highland League. In depth analyses is accompanied by some marvellous photographs of the old and new, with the authors personal comments on the past, the present and the future of the homes of each individual club.

For every football fan who has had that fantastic feeling of anticipation as he or she first catches sight of the floodlight pylons, this book is an absolute must. It brings home the fact that we had to have so many disasters before action was taken to reduce the risk of it happening again.

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