Stadiums are better, safer - but has their spirit been lost?

01/01/2025 04:02 AM

As the finishing touches are put to Everton's impressive new home on the Merseyside waterfront and debate continues to rage over the future of Old Trafford, it is clear football stadium design has come a long way.

Giant, sweeping terraces were the most common feature of the first wave of grounds: they were cheap to build and capable of packing in as many people as possible. There was little in the way of facilities, even at the very best grounds, with Wembley barely more than a concrete bowl when first opened in 1923.

Later, toilets and concourses for people to buy food or drink would become more familiar features, along with maybe a roof to keep the punters dry. But this was still as good as things had got when football grounds guru Simon Inglis started his early-Eighties travels around grounds invariably hemmed in by housing and industry due to being built in a bygone age when supporters had walked to the match.

"On the whole, you were looking at the architecture of neglect and convenience and economy. Very little to enjoy visually, yet somehow you stepped inside these grounds and were transported into this different world."

Only after the 1989 disaster at Hillsborough, where eight years earlier 38 Tottenham fans had been left with an assortment of injuries including broken arms and ribs in a crush at another FA Cup semi-final, did things finally change.

"Up to 1990, there was no stadium industry," says Inglis. "No platform for people to share their best practice. All very hit and miss, a time when most football clubs employed the local builder or architect. Or got a friend of the chairman to do the design work."

It was the all-seater stipulation that had the biggest impact, as famous old terraces such Manchester United's Stretford End (1992) and Liverpool's Kop (1994) were flattened. In their place came new stands with vastly improved facilities, if not the same atmosphere, to leave fans pushing for the return of safe-standing areas that are now a common feature in the Premier League and Championship.

Inglis adds: "For the British to go for a more understated and functional approach, I understood. But I also hoped we'd get better at it - which is what has happened. For me, The Emirates was probably the first great club stadium to be built in this country since the beginning of the 20th century."

As for the future, once Everton's new stadium opens in 2025, Old Trafford is the next big UK stadium project looming on the horizon. Manchester United will have to decide whether to refurbish and extend the current ground or start again completely on adjoining land.

Inglis adds: "I'm sure they will do a fantastic job at Old Trafford, though I will personally put a bet on that it won't get to 100,000. There is an exponential rise in costs, in maintenance, all sorts of issues that come with going from 80,000 to 90,000 and certainly to 100,000. You're going to be either too far away from the pitch or too high."

"Another issue — and this could be solved in Trafford Park — is there's a massive difference between getting 100,000 people or 75,000 in and away on a matchday. The reason why Wembley works is not that Wembley is unique as a stadium. It's that Wembley Park is a massive transport hub in north-west London."

But there is a dissenting view expressed by one fan: "Have to say I really dislike how all modern stadia have become so generic on the inside. Watching international football in the 90s and earlier you could instantly tell what country the game was taking place in from the style of the stadium.

However watching the most recent world cup and euros every stadium interior looks identical. Only the board on the halfway line with the host cities name offers any clue as to the location of the game. It could be Johannesburg, London, Rio, Doha or Berlin. The interiors all look the same. The facilities for the spectators might be great, and sometimes the exteriors can be interesting but all the idiosyncratic character of the stadia themselves has been lost."