Rugby Park
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- See Rugby Park Stadium for the New Zealand venue.
Rugby Park is a football stadium situated in the Scottish town of Kilmarnock and is host to the home matches of Kilmarnock F.C..
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[edit] Rugby park as home of Kilmarnock F.C
Kilmarnock first played a football match at the present Rugby Park site in 1899. Since then the stadium has been renovated three times with the first renovation being completed in 1946. Rugby Park's West Stand was again renovated in 1961. As Kilmarnock F.C. moved toward the 21st century a modern all-seater stadium was required, this modernisation included building three completely new stands; the Moffat Stand, the Chadwick Stand and the East Stand. This work was completed in 1994-95 and brought the stadium's capacity to 18,128.
In order to comply with league regulations, Kilmarnock F.C had to install undersoil heating below the rugby park pitch. This was done in 1999, and involved laying new turf on top of the new system. This was the first time in 50 years that the Rugby Park pitch had been upgraded.
In June 2002 the Park Hotel was opened adjacent to Rugby Park stadium. The hotel was built on the old training pitch. The hotel has 50 twin/double bedrooms, a conference centre, a cafe bar and a restaurant.
[edit] Rugby Park as an International Venue
The Tartan Army has twice visited Rugby Park when the stadium was the venue for full Scotland international matches. The first of these was in 1997 when Scotland played against Estonia in front of a capacity crowd. Scotland won the match 2-0. In the same year Scotland hosted Wales in a friendly match at the stadium.
[edit] Music at Rugby Park
Elton John played a gig at Rugby Park in June 2005 as part of his tour from that year. A crowd of around 15,000 attended the gig, the first of a kind at Rugby Park.
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