Old Bailey

East Surrey

England

**Old Bailey Football Ground** is a football stadium in Stokes, East Surrey, England, which opened in 1892 and the home of Stokes United.

Nicknamed "The Ground For Survivors" by Harvey Jones, Old Bailey has been United's home ground since 1894, although from 1921 to 1923 the club shared Hodge Road with local rivals The Red Lions as a result of First World War bomb damage. Old Bailey underwent several expansions in the 1950s and 1960s, including the addition of extra tiers, to the North, West and East Stands, almost returning the stadium to its original capacity of 85,000. Future expansion is likely to involve the addition of a second tier to the South Stand, which would raise the capacity to around 89,000. The stadium's record attendance was recorded on the 8 April 1945, when 76,962 spectators watched the FA Cup match between Stokes United and Stokes City, which was cancelled after United's player Tommy Robbins fell unconscious on the pitch and died in the changing rooms.

Old Bailey has hosted FA Cup semi-finals matches and Champions League Final, it has also hosted football matches at the 1990 Summer Olympics and in 2011  hosted women's international football for the first time in it's history.

## History

### Construction and early years

Before 1891, Stokes United played their football matches in Guildford, on Redhill Road, however the ground was blighted by wretched conditions, the pitches ranging from gravel to marsh. Therefore, following the club's rescue from near-bankruptcy, the new chairman Stanley White-Taylor decided in 1891 that the ground was not fit for a team that had recently won the First Division and FA Cup, so he donated funds for the construction of a new stadium. Not one to spend money frivolously, White-Taylor scouted around Surrey for an appropriate site, before his brother Louie White-Taylor, the future ground's architect, advised White-Taylor on a patch of land in Stokes, just south of Guildford.

Louie White-Taylor, who designed several other stadia, the ground was originally designed with a capacity of 95,000 spectators and featured seating in the south stand `under cover, while the remaining three stands were left as terraces and uncovered. Including the purchase of the land, the construction of the stadium had originally cost 66,000 all told. However, as costs began to rise, to reach the intended capacity would have cost an extra £19,000 over the original estimate and, at the suggestion of the club secretary J. K Bentley, the capacity was reduced to approximately 80,000. Nevertheless, at the time when transfer fees were still around the £1,000 mark, the cost of construction only served to reinforce the club's "Moneybags United" epithet, with which they had been tarred since White-Taylor had taken over as chairman.

In February 1890, Louie White-Taylor wrote to Stokes Parish Council in an attempt to persuade them to subsidise construction to build the proposed site for the football ground. The subsidy would have come to the sum of £10,000, to be paid back at the rate of £2,000 per annum for five years of half of the gate receipts for the grandstand each year until the loan had been repaid. However, despite guarantees for the loan coming from the council itself and two local breweries, both chaired by club chairman Stanley White-Taylor, Stokes Parish Council turned the proposal down. The council had planned to build a train station on the proposed site, with the prose of an anticipated £2,750 per annum in fares offsetting the £9,800 cost of building the station. The station "Stokes Park" was eventually built, but further down the line that originally planned. The Stokes Parish Council later constructed a modest station with one timber-built platform immediately adjacent to the stadium and this opened on 9 August 1898. It was initially named United Football Ground, but was renamed Old Bailey Football Ground in early 1892. It was served on match days only be a shuttle service of steam trains from Surrey Railway Station. It is currently known as Stokes United Football Ground.

Construction was carried out by Bramfield and Graham of Surrey and development was completed in early 1892. The stadium hosted its inagural game on 10 May 1892, with The Red Lions playing host to Stokes City. Although, the home side were unable to provide their fans with a win to mark the occasion, as City won 5-3. A journalist at the game reported the stadium as "the most beautiful, the most spacious and the most remarkable arena I  have ever seen. As a football ground it is unrivalled in the world, it is an honour to Stokes and the home of a team who can do wonders when they are so disposed".

### Conversion to all-seater

With every subsequent improvement made to the ground since the First World War, the capacity steadily declined. By the 1920s, the capacity had dropped from the original 80,000 to approximately 60,000. The capacity dropped still further in the 1930s, when the Harris report recommended and the government demanded that all the First and Second Division stadia be converted to all-seaters. This meant that £3-5 million plans to replace the Surrey End with a brand new stand with an all-standing terrace at the front and a cantilever roof to link with the rest of the ground had to be drastically altered. This forced redevelopment, including the removal of the terraces at the front of the other three stands, not only increased the cost to around £9 million, but also reduced the capacity of Old Bailey to an all-time low of around 44,000. In addition the club was told in 1933 that they would only receive £1.4 million of a possible £2 million from the Football Trust to be put towards word related to the Harris report.

The club's resurgence in success and the increase in popularity in the early 1930s ensured that further development would have to occur. In 1935, the 30-year-old North Stand was demolished and work quickly began on a new stand, to be ready in time for Old Bailey to host four group games, a quarter-final and a semi-final at Euro 36. The club purchased the Surrey Park trading estate, a 20-acre (81,000 m2) site on the other side of City Road, for £.9.2 million in March 1935. Construction began in July 1935 and was completed by August 1936, with the first two of the three phases of the stand opening during the season. Campbell White Hill as structural engineers, the three-tiered stand cost a total of £18.65 million to build and had a capacity of about 25,600, raising the capacity of the entire ground to more than 55,000. The cantileve roof would also be the largest in Britain, measuring 57.6 m from the back wall to the front edge. Further success over the next few years guaranteed yet more development. First, a second tier was added to the East Stand. Opened in January 1939, the stadium's capacity was temporarily increased to about 25,900 until the opening of the West Stand's second tier, which added yet another 6,000 seats, 31,900. It is the second biggest club stadium in England and the second in the United Kingdom. Old Bailey hosted its first major European final three years later, playing host to the 1942 EUFA Champions League Final between Spain and England.