page_title: Priestfield Stadium
section_title: Structure and facilities
hierarchical_section_title: Priestfield Stadium / Structure and facilities
caption_attribution_description: English: The Brian Moore Stand at Priestfield Stadium. I took this picture myself at the game between Gillingham F.C. and Barnet F.C. on 26 December 2012. Summary The Brian Moore Stand at Priestfield Stadium. I took this picture myself at the game between Gillingham F.C. and Barnet F.C. on 26 December 2012.
context_page_description: Priestfield Stadium is a football stadium in Gillingham, Kent. It has been the home of Gillingham Football Club since the club's formation in 1893, and was also the temporary home of Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club for two seasons during the 1990s. The stadium has also hosted women's and youth international football matches and a London Broncos rugby league match.
  The stadium underwent extensive redevelopment during the late 1990s, which has brought its capacity down from nearly 20,000 to a current figure of 11,582. It has four all-seater stands, all constructed since 1997, although one is only of a temporary nature. There are also conference and banqueting facilities and a nightspot named The Factory. Despite having invested heavily in its current stadium, Gillingham F.C. has plans to relocate to a new stadium.
context_section_description: The pitch is surrounded by four all-seater stands – the Medway Stand, the Rainham End, the Gordon Road Stand and the Brian Moore Stand. All are covered with the exception of the Brian Moore Stand.  The Medway Stand, which replaced the old Main Stand and part of the terracing at each end, is the largest and northernmost of the four. It has two tiers with a row of twenty executive boxes between the top and bottom tier. The stand also contains the changing rooms, physiotherapy facilities, club offices and club shop.  The Rainham End, located behind the goal at the eastern end of the pitch, opened in 1999 and houses 2,400 fans.  This stand, like the terrace it replaced, is known for housing the club's most vocal supporters.  The Gordon Road Stand, which seats 2,600, was opened in 1997 and is opposite the Medway Stand.  Due to planning requirements, the stand had a height restriction placed upon it, making it significantly lower than the other three sides of the ground, and due to the road layout behind it is narrower at one end than the other.  A gantry for television cameras is located on the roof of this stand.
  Opposite the Rainham End is the Brian Moore Stand.  This stand is a temporary one, and accommodates visiting supporters.  It occupies the site of the former Town End terracing, which was unusual in that it had a pronounced slope, with one end of the terracing being higher up than the other.  In 1955 the pitch, which previously sloped at that end of the stadium, was levelled out but the gradient of the Town End was left unchanged.
  The state of the stadium's pitch caused the club severe problems in 2003.  A number of fixtures had to be postponed due to the state of the pitch, which was described as resembling a ploughed field, and the surface had to be heavily sanded before an FA Cup match against Leeds United.  At the end of the season, taking advantage of the demolition of the old Town End, which allowed better access to the pitch, the club had the drainage system replaced and a completely new pitch laid.
  Added to the new stands were several new developments. The Conference and Banqueting Centre, which is located behind the Rainham End, comprises the Great Hall, which can accommodate up to 600 delegates for events, and twenty smaller delegate rooms.  The Centre is connected to the Medway Stand, thus allowing views from the banqueting suite onto the pitch, and is also licensed for wedding ceremonies.  The Blues Rock Café nightspot, located within the Medway Stand, is open between four and five nights a week and stages live music and screenings of major sporting events.  The club purchased many of the fixtures and fittings for these new developments at discounted prices when the furnishings of the Millennium Dome were sold off upon its closure.
  Despite the stadium's new facilities, Priestfield is still viewed in a negative light in some circles.  In 2004, it was voted the worst football ground in England by a poll in the Observer newspaper, although most of the comments made in the poll concerned the town of Gillingham itself, rather than the actual stadium as a building.
caption: The current Brian Moore Stand, at the Gillingham end of the stadium, has been constructed on a temporary basis only.
exif: {"Image Make": "HTC", "Image Model": "HD7 T9292", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Windows Phone 7.5", "Image DateTime": "2012:12:28 09:52:45", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "206", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "630", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3206", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:12:26 13:02:37", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:12:26 13:02:37", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1497", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "858", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability Tag 0x011A": "72", "Interoperability Tag 0x011B": "72", "Interoperability Tag 0x0128": "2", "Interoperability Tag 0x0201": "470", "Interoperability Tag 0x0202": "19926", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "1630", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1222", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "418", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "1c1ce0d7fe804f5fb124eb769599abf3"}