Words: Jonee // @Jonee13
Imagine a windswept field in rural England, circa 1840: no stands, no fences, just a ragtag bunch of villagers chasing a pig’s bladder between makeshift goals—maybe a pair of trees or a couple of barrels if they were lucky. Now picture 2025: Qatar’s Lusail Stadium looms like a golden spaceship, its 80,000 seats packed with fans under a roof shimmering with LED lights.
Football stadiums have traced an extraordinary path, shadowing the sport’s ascent from a folk past time to a global colossus. These are ours hallowed turfs, and the economic engines of the communities they rise from. They’ve forged identities, birthed traditions, and shifted citys capes—sometimes uniting, sometimes dividing. Let’s dive in.
Drawing used to demonstrate to readers what a football match looked like, 1894.
Photo Credit: Athletics and Football
The Early Days
Before stadiums, football had fields—wild, untamed patches where the game was less sport, more melee. In the early 1800s, “mob football” ruled Britain: village against village, no set teams, goals miles apart. Shrovetide football in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, captures this anarchy—a tradition stretching back centuries, still played today with hundreds battling over a leather ball across streets and streams.
These weren’t stadiums in any modern sense—just open land, a farmer’s field or a town square, maybe roped off if the crowd cared to bother. Sheffield FC, founded in 1857 as the world’s oldest club, kicked off on such grounds: a borrowed cricket pitch at Sandygate Road, no seats, no gates, just locals clustered on grass. For clubs, this impermanence meant fluidity—Sheffield’s identity was a gentleman’s lark, not a fixed institution, their “home” shifting with each lease. Across the border, Scotland’s Queen’s Park, formed in 1867, played at what would become Hampden Park—then little more than a bare field in Glasgow’s Southside, surrounded by tenement housing.
Fans in this era were as much players as spectators. Crowds—mostly men, often rowdy with ale—swarmed the pitch. A big match might pull thousands of spectators, with no stands, fencing or boundary to hold them back. Their experience was visceral, intimate and sometimes vioent. Communities made these games a lifeline— harvest festivals or holidays turned into match days. But the early impact was shallow: no tickets, just a hat passed for pennies, and no infrastructure to fuel growth.
Football’s soul took shape in this lack of structure. Clubs were far from the brands we see them as today. Some weren’t even and organized ‘club’ yet—just bands of locals with a ball. Supporters had no terraces to claim, no chants honed over decades, and so their loyalty was fleeting. Such was the fluid nature of football in this era.
Communities hosted but didn’t build—fields were borrowed, not owned. Still, these patches sowed the sport’s seeds. Queen’s Park dominated early Scottish football, claiming 10 titles by 1900. This was football’s cradle—egalitarian, messy, a folk tale. As factories rose and cities swelled, these fields couldn’t hold the game’s growing hunger, setting the stage for the first true stadiums.
The transition loomed as football’s popularity surged. Private land crept into use—Preston North End moved to Deepdale in 1875, a former farm where uneven ground plagued play. Everton started in Stanley Park, a public patch, until a landowner offered space, only to evict them later for noisy crowds. These makeshift homes couldn’t last. Clubs needed permanence, revenue, a place to call their own. By the late 1800s, industrialization promised structure. This era of chaos closed with a whisper of what was to come—grounds that would root clubs, rally fans, and reshape towns.
The world’s oldest wooden football stand at Great Yarmouth Town FC.
Photo Credit: BBC
The Industrial Boom
By the late 19th century, football shed its rustic shell, driven by Britain’s industrial might. The first true stadiums emerged: wooden stands, sprawling terraces, but importantly, security and consistency for football.
Goodison Park marks this leap. In Liverpool’s Walton district, its 40,000 capacity—huge for its day—was a trailblazer, one of England’s first purpose-built football grounds. Archibald Leitch, a Scottish architect whose lattice ironwork would stamp an era and cement his fame, crafted its timber stands. For Everton, Goodison was a revolution: after hopping between pitches, they gained a fixed base. Celtic Park similarly rose in 1892 in Glasgow’s East End, a haven for the Irish diaspora in Scotland. These weren’t just fields anymore—they were places rooted in communities, where people met every few days to watch football. They became the anchors for club, community and supporter identity.
Saturday matches became something of a lifeline for spectators, particularly those who worked in industry or were based in heavily industrialised areas. Dockers and labourers, drained from 60- hour weeks, found release for 90 minutes at football matches. Rivalries began to consolidate, particularly between clubs who were close to one another, like Everton and Liverpool. People began to cash in on this new phenomenon, and communities around football grounds began to appear and consolidate.
But not everyone rejoiced—residents cursed the noise and drunkards. A 1900 Goodison fan’s diary recalls “a sea of caps, a fog of tobacco, a cheer that shook the soul”—football was now a ritual, its stands a proletarian altar.
The industrial boom bred variety. In London, Stamford Bridge opened in 1877 as an athletics track, morphing into Chelsea FC’s home by. It drew 40,000 by 1910. Ibrox, Rangers’ base since 1899, hit 75,000 by the 1930s. These were football’s first temples, with Archibald Leitch alone building well over 20 of them. Design mirrored the age’s grit and limits. Goodison’s wooden stands, creaking underweight, were cheap but dicey. They offered little safety. The era closed with football professionalized—stadiums no longer borrowed, but built, owned and leased.
Leitch’s blueprint spread wide, and eventually these newly built stadiums bound them to place. Towns shifted, local business thrived and new communities grew. It laid the foundation for a magnificent era in stadium usage and design.
Drawing of Goodison Park commissioned by Archibald Leitch after construction of the Bullens Road stand.
Photo Credit: Everton FC Heritage Society
The Golden Age
The 20th century ushered in football’s golden age, and stadiums became monuments. Brazil’s Maracanã, unveiled in 1950 for the World Cup, and was a colossus: 200,000 capacity, a concrete bowl in Rio’s core. Mexico’s Estadio Azteca, opened 1966, matched it: 100,000+ seats for Club América, and the home of Maradona’s “Hand of God” goal. Wembley Stadium, iconic for its twin towers, hosted 130,000 for the 1966 World Cup win over West Germany, and FA Cup finals, the cross-country pilgrimage, complete with rosettes and scarves, becoming a football tradition.
This golden age was football’s peak in terms of stadium design and engagement. Grounds such as the Olympiastadion, with its tented roof was an iconic backdrop to Bayern’s rise. Munich’s post-war rebirth was mirrored in its gleam.
It wasn’t just the design though; the seats at these grounds were often full, either bursting to capacity or wildly over. Fans reveled in their now-established homes away from home.
This era gave birth to some of the most iconic arenas in world football. The Mestalla, El Monumental and Highbury all came into their own during this era. Wooden stands gave way to sturdier infrastructures. Terracing was the norm in every ground.
As this era progressed, cracks began to appear, and safety concerns were rightly raised after stadiums disasters plagued much of the 20th century. Ibrox, Bradford and Hillsborough were some of the worst, with Ibrox suffering two disasters in under 70 years. It would be fair to say that tragedy was a common undertone to football in this era. In some cases, other aspects were at play which led to disaster and loss of life, particularly in the case of Hillsborough where police incompetence and disdain for football supporters exacerbated the tragedy.
In the end, many grounds were deemed unsafe and the Taylor Report put an end to terraces and standing areas across much of the country. This laid the foundations for where we find ourselves now.
The Bradford Stadium Fire claimed the lives of 56 people.
Photo Credit: BBC Sport
The Modern Era
The late 20th-century football went corporate, and stadiums accordingly. In the wake of diaster and tragedy, our dynamic with stadiums changed, as did their function and perception among society.
Safety drove this shift—The Taylor Report, released in the wake of the Hillsborough disaster, put an end to standing sections. Subsequently, new stadiums have popped up after some were demolished, while other clubs have moved from their historic homes into stadiums initially built for other purposes.
Fans are understandably split. Spurs’, who moved from White Hart Lane to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium can expect to pay £80 per ticket. West Ham’s 2016 shift to the London Stadium sparked rage, and supporters yearn for Upton Park more every season. A 2016 banner displayed “Built on Our History, Sold for Their Profit.”
This came at the cost of heritage. Every football club has suffered a hut to their culture in this new landscape where football is so heavily commodified and corporate. Football has become gentrified. There’s no two ways about it.
Therein lies the paradox of football in the modern era. Stadiums like the Allianz and Tottenham’s are feats of modern engineering, but they have come at the cost of identity and engagement. What some would call ‘legacy fans’ are now being priced out of attending games, showing that football clubs are shifting to attract new demographics – which some claim sanitise the football experience. In this light, stadiums become vehicles to drive commerce, development and profit. Progress always has a cost. It’s a fine balance.
Stadiums can offer an insightful outlook in charting football’s saga. Early chaos gave us a game for all, a folk tale in mud. Industrial boom brought timber stands and pavilions, rooting clubs in communities and giving supporters a home they can identify with. The golden age transformed stadiums into the arenas we know them as today. But it’s hard not to feel that something has been list for supporters in this change. Supporters cling to roots, yet face extortionate ticket prices and having their historic grounds ripped from them. There is little democracy in how this transpires; fans are often at the mercy of the rogue billionaire owners who spearhead their clubs and only have profit in mind. Heritage and culture is the last thing on their mind. There’s a strange irony in the fact that Archibald Leitch’s pioneering stadiums models are now few and far between, and at risk of becoming extinct. But there’s hope for the future. Our collective heritage clings on – for now.
The Maracanã in the modern day.
Photo Credit: WikimediaCommons