Anfield

This article is about the football stadium. For the district, see Anfield, Liverpool.

Anfield

View from Anfield Road Stand
Full name	Anfield Stadium
Location	Liverpool, England
Owner	Liverpool F.C.
Operator	Liverpool F.C.
Capacity	45,522
Field size	110 x 75 Yards
Surface	Grass
Construction
Built	1884
Opened	September 1884
Construction cost	£555,099
Tenants
Liverpool FC

Anfield is a football stadium in the district of Anfield, in Liverpool, England. A UEFA 4-star rated stadium, it is the home of Liverpool F.C.

The stadium is well known for the Kop stand on the south-west side of the ground, and the atmosphere fans can create at games.

The club plans to replace Anfield with a new Stanley Park Stadium, where construction is set to begin in 2007.

History

In 1882 Everton F.C. were forced to find an enclosed ground for their matches due to rent problems - previously they had played on the public pitches in Stanley Park, but were eventually unwelcome because of the noisy crowds that were attracted on matchdays. At a meeting conducted in the Sandon Hotel in Everton they managed to rent a field off Priory Road. However, two years later the owner asked them to leave and John Houlding (a Liverpool brewer) helped them secure a pitch from fellow brewer John Orrell at Anfield Road adjacent to Stanley Park. The first game was played on 28 September 1884 when Everton beat Earlstown 5-0.

Over the ensuing eight years Houlding poured money into the club and improved the facilities with purpose-built stands. Attendances topped 8000 and in 1888 Everton became founder members of the Football League. Houlding became more proprietorial and insisted that the club use his hotel for changing before and after games; he also increased the rate of interest on his loan to the club. John Orrell threatened to withdraw the tenancy of Anfield Road in 1891 unless certain alterations were undertaken.

At a further meeting on 12 March 1892 Houlding was outvoted and the club decided to leave. A building fund was immediately set up and £1,517 pounds raised to purchase a new ground. The chosen location was Goodison Park on the north side of Stanley Park, Liverpool, less than a mile away, and was purchased for £8,000.

Stadium features

Shankly Gates

The stadium features tributes to two of the most successful managers, with the Paisley Gates, named for Bob Paisley, who guided Liverpool to three European Cups and six League Championships in the 1970s and 80s, and Shankly Gates, named for Bill Shankly, Paisley's predecessor between 1959 and 1974. Shankly Gates features the lettering "You'll Never Walk Alone", from the Gerry & the Pacemakers hit that has become the club's anthem.

Inside the gates is another tribute to Shankly, a statue outside the club shop, and inside the players tunnel remains a plaque Shankly had installed reading "This is Anfield", which he placed to "remind our lads who they're playing for -- and to remind the opposition who they're playing against." Another feature was The Boot Room.[1][2]

Home and away fans leave their scarfs at The Hillsborough Memorial, which pays tribute to the 96 fans who died in the Hillsborough disaster.

Stands

File:Anfield wide view.jpg

A panoramic photo of Anfield, looking from the Kop stand towards Anfield Road Stand.

Liverpool proceeded quickly to develop Anfield. The first stage was the provision of a significant Main Stand, completed in 1895 with a highly distinctive half-timbered gable that proved a landmark in English football until its demolition in the early 1970s to make way for the current Main Stand.

The Kop was originally called Walton Breck Bank and before that Oakfield Road Embankment [3] In 1906, Liverpool and Preston North End formally renamed the banked stand at one end of their ground Spion Kop, after a hill in Natal that was the site of a battle in the Second Boer War, where the British forces suffered heavy losses (many of the fallen were Scousers in the Lancashire Regiment). Many other football grounds, such as Blackpool FC (Bloomfield Road), St Andrews, Birmingham and Hillsborough, Sheffield, adopted the name of "Kop" for one of their stands.

File:Liverpool outline2 df2k2.png

Anfield Outline by df2k2.

At its peak, the stand could hold 30,000 spectators, and was one of the largest single tier stands in the world after the East Stand at The Valley. Local folklore claimed that the fans in the Kop could "suck the ball into the goal" if Liverpool were playing towards that end. Traditionally, if the Liverpool captain wins the coin toss at the start of the game; he will choose for Liverpool to kick toward the Kop in the second half. There are often boos from the crowd when rival teams choose to prevent this should they win the coin toss. Licensed capacity was lowered to just under 22,000 with the Safety of Sports Grounds Act in 1975, and the limit was lowered again due to safety measures brought in following the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. Finally the Kop was completely rebuilt as an all seater stand in 1994, although the new Kop like the old one is a single tier. The current capacity is 12,499.

The giant flagpole found at Kop End was the top mast from the SS Great Eastern, one of the first ever iron ships. The club came by it when they were looking for a flagpole, and with the ship being broken up at nearby Rock Ferry, they decided to purchase it

The other stands are:

• Main Stand - rebuilt in 1973 and more or less unchanged to the present day, with a capacity of 12,277.
• Centenary Stand - originally known as the Kemlyn Road Stand. This stand was built in 1963 and it used to have seating for 6600 fans. In the late 1970s-early 1980s, the club started to buy all the houses on Kemlyn Road with the aim of demolishing all of them so that the existing stand could be expanded. The club had bought nearly all the houses in the street by 1981 but the planned expansion had to be delayed for nearly a decade because Joan and Nora Mason refused to move out of their home until finally accepting a settlement in 1990. The development was then started which saw all of the houses in Kemlyn Road demolished and the address becoming non-existent. A second tier was added to the stand which gave it a capacity of 11,762. The new stand was opened for the club's centenary in 1992. It is now known as the Centenary Stand.
• Anfield Road Stand - rebuilt in 1998, with a capacity of 9,074, including the away fans section. The Away fans are located on the lower tier, where just under 2,000 seats are available. This stand is also shared with home supporters, some of whom will be sitting in the small seated tier above the away fans.

Difficulties of expanding

Due to the difficulties of expanding Anfield beyond its current boundaries (an entire terraced street had to be demolished to make way for the Centenary Stand expansion), Liverpool are expected to leave the ground in the next few years. The plans, originally approved in February 2005, needed to go before Liverpool City Council for a second time some 12 months later to ensure that the proposed stadium complied with new planning regulations. It was reported on 11 April 2006 that the plans had passed without amendment. The club now looks for George N. Gillett Jr. and Tom Hicks to help fund the £160m, 60,000 all-seater stadium, after agreeing the taking over from former chairman David Moores. Work was to start in April 2007 but the new owners had gone back to Liverpool City Council for planning permission to add a further 10,000 seats.

In the early stages, there had been suggestions for the new stadium to be shared with local rivals Everton F.C. but this was ruled out by Liverpool's Board of Directors in 2005.

The earliest date that Liverpool could occupy their new home is said to be August 2009.

The original plan, announced in December 2000, had been for a 70,000-seat stadium to be ready for August 2004. But the plans were re-written 18 months later after the club's directors decided that the 70,000-seat plan would have been too costly. If the relocation goes ahead, Liverpool will demolish all four stands of the existing Anfield ground but retain the pitch as a garden of remembrance, as so many deceased fans have had their ashes scattered on the Anfield pitch - including some of the Hillsborough victims.

Attendance

Records

Record Attendance: 61,905 v Wolverhampton Wanderers, February 2, 1952 (FA Cup 4th Round)

Average attendances (Premier League)

• 1999-00: 45,852
• 2000-01: 43,698
• 2001-02: 43,389
• 2002-03: 43,243
• 2003-04: 42,706
• 2004-05: 42,587
• 2005-06: 44,236
• 2006-07: 43,561

International matches

A number of international matches have been played at Anfield, including some that were nominally "home" matches for Wales. The ground also hosted four matches in the Euro 96 finals. The latest international match to be hosted at Anfield, in 2006, took place on 1 March. This was a friendly between England and Uruguay which England won 2-1.

Date	Home team	Score	Away team	Notes
2 March, 1889	England	6-1	Ireland	British Home Championship
27 March, 1905	England	3-1	Wales	British Home Championship
13 March, 1922	England	1-0	Wales	British Home Championship
20 October, 1926	England	3-3	Ireland	British Home Championship
11 November, 1931	England	3-1	Wales	British Home Championship
16 September, 1944	England	2-2	Wales	Wartime International
23 September, 1959	England	0-1	Hungary	Under-23 International
27 November, 1963	England	4-1	West Germany	Under-23 International
12 October, 1977	Wales	0-2	Scotland	World Cup qualifier
25 February, 1981	England	1-0	Republic of Ireland	Under-21 International
13 December, 1994	England	2-0	Republic of Ireland	B International
13 December, 1995	Republic of Ireland	0-2	Netherlands	European Championship playoff
11 June, 1996	Italy	2-1	Russia	European Championship Group C
14 June, 1996	Czech Republic	2-1	Italy	European Championship Group C
19 June, 1996	Russia	3-3	Czech Republic	European Championship Group C
22 June, 1996	France	0-0	Netherlands	European Championship Quarter Final (after extra time; France progressed 5-4 on penalties)
5 September, 1998	Wales	0-2	Italy	European Championship qualifier
9 June, 1999	Wales	0-2	Denmark	European Championship qualifier
24 March, 2001	England	2-1	Finland	World Cup qualifier
17 April, 2002	England	4-0	Paraguay	Friendly International
1 March, 2006	England	2-1	Uruguay	Friendly International

External links

• Liverpool FC Website
• My Anfield - Collection of fans' memories
• Virtual tour at official Liverpool FC site
• Take a tour of Anfield

53°25′50.95″N 2°57′38.98″W