page_title: Bloomfield Road
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Bloomfield Road / History
caption_attribution_description: en:Bloomfield Road, home of en:Blackpool F.C. In view is the Mortensen North Stand straight ahead and the Pricebusters Matthews (West) Stand to the left. Photograph taken by Simon Povey in 2006 using a Nikon D1 (www.SimonPovey.co.uk)
context_page_description: Bloomfield Road is a football stadium in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901.
  The record attendance at Bloomfield Road is 38,098, when Blackpool played Wolverhampton Wanderers on 17 September 1955.
  The stadium hosted three matches of the 2005 UEFA Women's Championship. It has also been the venue for the final of the Northern Rail Cup, a rugby league tournament.
context_section_description: Before moving to Bloomfield Road, Blackpool had called two other grounds home during their short existence. Firstly, between 1896 and 1897, they played their fifteen home Football League matches at Raikes Hall Gardens (also known as the Pleasure Gardens). In 1897, they moved to the Athletic Grounds at the present-day Stanley Park, which hosted thirty-two League matches over two seasons. After a short spell back at Raikes Hall Gardens in 1899, during their season out of the League, and again for all but the first home game of the 1900–01 campaign, Blackpool made the permanent move to Bloomfield Road.
  The ground was originally known as Gamble's Field, so-named for the farmer who owned the land, when South Shore F.C. played there in the Lancashire League in 1899.
  The first competitive game played at the ground took place on 21 October 1899, when South Shore played the 1st South Lancashire Regiment. A comment at the time was: "The new ground was not quite finished on Saturday and the linesman had plenty to do besides watching the game to keep the spectators from getting over the line. The grandstand was not up, but it is expected to be ready for next Saturday. A bar is going to be erected and two dressing tents." The official opening of the ground did indeed occur on 28 October 1899, when South Shore entertained Newton Heath in an FA Cup tie.
  When Blackpool F.C. merged with South Shore F.C. in mid-December 1899, the former club moved into the latter's ground and changed the name to Bloomfield Road. Additionally, the two clubs amalgamated with the Lancashire League fixtures of Blackpool, because they were deemed easier than those of South Shore.
  The first game after the merger took place on 23 December. Horwich R.M.I., with only ten men in their line-up, were the visitors. Blackpool won 8–0. The ground, at this time, had a small wooden grandstand along the western side of the pitch, which seated about three hundred spectators. A perimeter fence ran around the rest of the pitch to keep supporters off the playing surface. Walking to the game would have been very different from today. Coming from the south, supporters would have had to navigate their way through row after row of allotments along Central Drive from Waterloo Road. All behind the west side of the ground were railway sidings and tracks. Henry Street was only partially built up, and behind the north end of the ground lay open space and the town's waste-disposer and the corporation stables.
  After this match, Blackpool returned to play at their Raikes Hall ground, where the Christmas Day game against Oswaldtwistle Rovers resulted in a "better attendance than ever". Raikes Hall was used for the season's remaining home games, and it was not until a practice match on 25 August 1900 that the club – then back in Division Two — returned to Bloomfield Road.
  At this time there was only one stand at the ground, a small structure on the western side, which held about 300 seated. Gainsborough Trinity were the first visitors to Bloomfield Road for a Football League game. On 8 September 1900, they drew 1–1 with the Seasiders, in front of what was a "good" attendance of "just under 2,000". It was noted that the ground "conveyed the impression that at some remote period of its history it had been a ploughed field".
  Once again, Blackpool returned to playing their home games at Raikes Hall for the remainder of the season. "We shall not easily forget Saturday's match, or rather, to be more accurate, the conditions under which it was played", one critic said. "Unfortunately for the club, the game had to be played at Bloomfield Road, and if there is one ground in this town unsuitable for the purpose for which it is used, this is surely the one. It is out of the way, all the players and most of the committee and the spectators declared that it was impossible to play on such a pitch; and the provision for the Press was absolutely nil." In addition, commenting on the attendance, it was thought that "the figure would have been nearly double had Raikes been available".
  The only reason that the
caption: The stadium as it was in 2006, prior to the re-construction of the South Stand
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