page_title: Boothferry Park
section_title: Opening and continued construction
hierarchical_section_title: Boothferry Park / History / Opening and continued construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Boothferry Park, Boothferry Road, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, England.Hull City's old ground. This picture shows the celebrations taking place on the last day that football was played at the ground.
context_page_description: Boothferry Park was a football stadium in Hull, England, which was home to Hull City A.F.C. from 1946 until 2002, when they moved to the KC Stadium.
  In later years, financial constraints forced Hull City to allow Kwik Save and Iceland supermarkets to embed themselves into the stadium's structure. Parts of the ground were demolished in early 2008, more than five years after the last game was played there, and the remainder in 2011.
context_section_description: The ground was opened in August 1946, 17 years after its initial proposal, but only had planning permission for one stand along the west side with an upper cost limit of £17,000. The ground was still not fully completed and it became a race against time to make the stadium ready for its opening match against visiting Lincoln City. Twenty-thousand people gathered to watch the opening ceremony performed by the city's lord mayor. The teams were led onto the pitch by Sergeant JT "Tommy" Brooke riding a white horse. Sergeant Brooke was a detective and mounted officer in the Hull Police and was a veteran of the First World War and the Battle of the Somme where he was a machine gunner with the Royal Horse Guards.
  By 1948 the attendance record had swelled to 40,179 as the stadium hosted visitors Middlesbrough in the FA Cup. The terracing embankments were raised and by February 1949 a ground and club record which still stands was hit – 55,019 turned out to watch Hull City play Manchester United. The locally famous Boothferry Halt opened in 1951.  The ground now had its own railway station, its first use being a fixture against Everton when six trains ran the football service between Paragon Station, Hull's central railway station and Boothferry Park. At the same time, work proceeded on the covering of the North Stand.
  The East Terrace was the next to be covered, albeit with a temporary structure. This temporary structure was never replaced, and stood throughout the years of the ground. The popular East Terrace became known as the Kempton Stand after Kempton Road on the other side of the railway station. With the three stands completed, the ground was now suited to a floodlight installation. Two gantries housing 96 lamps were built, one on the west and one opposite on the east following a licence being granted. Although this lighting system was the envy of many clubs, advancements in stadium lighting came rapidly, and the system soon needed replacement. A six pylon system replaced the old gantries in 1963.
  The new lights were used for the first time in 1964, using four of the six available, in an evening match against Barnsley which ended in a 7–0 win for the Tigers.
  In 1965 a new South Stand was built over the Bunker's Hill Terrace. The new two-tiered structure included a propped cantilever roof, 2,500 seats in the upper tier and terracing for 4,000 more in the lower tier. The new stand was arguably the best stand at Boothferry Park, and a reminder of the golden days in the declining years to come.
  On 20 March 1967, Boothferry Park hosted an FA Cup 2nd replay between Leeds United and Sunderland. Over 40,000 fans attended and Leeds United won 2–1. It was standard procedure in the pre penalty shoot-out days for 2nd and subsequent replays to be held on neutral grounds.
  On 16 February 1972 Boothferry Park hosted a full international match between Northern Ireland and Spain. The result was drawn at 1–1.
  The final football match to be staged at Boothferry Park saw Hull City lose 0–1 to Darlington in December 2002. The goal was scored by Simon Betts; it would be his only goal in Darlington colours.  Darlington goalkeeper Michael Ingham played in both the final match at Boothferry Park and the first match to be played at Hull City's new home (in Sunderland colours).
  Boothferry Park was also the scene of a rugby league international when it hosted the first Ashes series test of the 1982 Kangaroo tour between Great Britain and Australia on 30 October. The Aussies ran in eight tries to nil in a 40–4 thrashing watched by a vocal crowd of 26,771.
  In January 1990, the Taylor Report required all clubs in the top two divisions of English football to have an all-seater stadium by August 1994. Hull were in the Second Division by this stage, but their relegation at the end of the 1990-91 season meant that the club was not covered by these requirements. Attendances fell throughout the 1990s as Hull suffered a further relegation in 1996 and financial problems almost put the club out of business, with strained finances meaning that Boothferry Park was
caption: Celebrations taking place on the pitch on the last day that football was played before demolition
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