page_title: Roker Park
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Roker Park / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Fragments of Archibald Leitch's criss-cross lattice work, taken from the Main Stand at Roker Park and used within the car park at the Stadium of Light
context_page_description: Roker Park was an English football stadium situated in Roker, Sunderland. The stadium was the seventh home of the English football club Sunderland A.F.C. from 1898 to 1997 before the club moved to the Stadium of Light. Near the end of the stadium's history, its capacity was around 22,500 with only a small part of the stadium being seated. The stadium's capacity had been higher in previous years, attracting a record crowd of 75,118.
context_section_description: In the 1890s, the then Sunderland chairman and his brother decided to build a bigger ground for the club, to replace what was then the club's current ground at Newcastle Road. The club had negotiated to buy farmland that belonged to a Mr. Tennant and part of the agreement was that Sunderland would have to build a house on the site as well as their new stadium. Until this house was built, Sunderland still had to pay rent on the land.
  Within a year of the land being bought, Roker Park had been built, with the wooden stands only taking three months to build. The Clock Stand had 32 steps, no seats and a crush barrier for safety. The turf was brought from Ireland, and lasted for 38 years. The pitch was designed to have a slight drop of about one foot from the centre of the pitch to each corner to help with drainage. The first event at the ground was an "Olympic Games and Band Contest" on 12 August 1898. On 10 September 1898 Roker Park was officially opened by Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry. The first match was a friendly against Liverpool which Sunderland won 1–0, with Jim Leslie scoring the stadium's first ever goal.
  The Roker End was concreted in 1912, and by 1913 the capacity had risen to 50,000. In 1929 the old wooden grandstand was demolished and replaced by a new Main Stand, which was designed by Archibald Leitch, whose influence, the criss-cross lattice work, can still be seen at Ibrox (Rangers), Home Park (Plymouth Argyle) and Goodison Park (Everton). Fragments of the iconic lattice work would later be used to separate parts of the car park at the Stadium of Light. The work on the new Main Stand nearly bankrupted the club. By this time the official capacity of Roker Park was 60,000 but at some matches they would have crowds as large as 75,000. More work continued in the 1930s and in 1936 the Clock Stand was rebuilt. The 114 m (375 ft) long structure was officially opened by Lady Raine, whose husband was Sir Walter Raine, the Chairman of Sunderland AFC at the time.
  In 1943, during the Second World War, a bomb landed in the middle of the pitch and another nearby killed a policeman. In 1952, Roker Park was fitted with floodlights, being only the second ground in the country to do so after Arsenal's Highbury stadium. The lights were only a temporary addition, and were replaced by permanent structures at the end of the season after proving to be a success. When England hosted the 1966 World Cup, improvements were made to the Clock Stand, involving the addition of seats, and a roof over the Fulwell End. Temporary seating was also installed in the Fulwell End. The capacity of Roker Park during the World Cup was 40,310.
  In 1955, Roker Park hosted an FA Cup Semi-Final replay, between (eventual winners) Newcastle United and York City, who were then in the third tier of English Football. Newcastle won the game 2-0 in front of a crowd of 55,239. Sunderland were in the other semi-final, but lost out 1-0 to Aston Villa.
  During the 1970s, there were even more improvements to Roker Park. These improvements included installing underground sprinklers, upgrading the floodlights to European Standard Lux Value, installing electronic crowd monitoring systems, and re-sheeting the roof. In the 1980s, with a downturn in the club's fortunes (which included a season in the Football League Third Division), Roker Park started to decline. The capacity was severely reduced following the report in the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989, with the Roker End suffering the most.
  In the early 1990s, new Football Association (FA) rules following the publication of the Taylor Report meant the stadium would have to have been upgraded to all-seater status, which would have consisted of a much smaller capacity than the sort of attendances that Sunderland could expect, as they had played in the penultimate First Division campaign (1990–91 season) before the creation of the Premier League and were aiming for a swift return to the top flight (although promotion was ultimately not achieved until the 1995–96 season). The site was too confined
caption: Fragments of the Archibald Leitch lattice work from the Main Stand now form part of the car park at the Stadium of Light.
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