Cheshunt stadium

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CHESHUNT STADIUM
Full name	Cheshunt Stadium
Nickname	"The Stadium"
Built	1949
Opened	29 October 1949
Capacity	2,500
Home of	Cheshunt pitchsize = 110.5 x 76.5 yards

Cheshunt Stadium, a football ground in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, England, is the home of the football club Cheshunt F.C.. A simple two stand stadium, its official capacity is 2,500.

‘The Stadium’, as it soon became commonly known (for no apparent reason it seems), has been the Clubs home for 90% of its existence. Originally a gravel pit, by the 1930’s the site had become the local rubbish tip but between February and October 1949, it was cleared, levelled and a pitch was laid. Two nissan huts were assembled, where the main gates are today, for changing rooms (with no power, telephone line or even hot water!), leaving the players with a long walk uphill to the pitch! No spectator facilities were built, other than some banking raised around the pitch, yet three months later 5,000 spectators would squeeze in to see holders Bromley knocked out the FA Amateur Cup. Incredibly, in March the Club decided to abandon all their hard work and move to the Brookfield Lane ground (later to become Spurs training ground) as the pitch had become totally unplayable – a layer of clay beneath the surface stopped any natural drainage, with the surface turning to a mudpatch. Everything was left and The Stadium reverted to weeds. In 1952/53 the Club returned, only to leave for Brookfield Lane at the end of the season, the pitch once again being the problem. The return to Brookfield was however as Tottenham’s tenants and, at the end of the 1956/57 season, Cheshunt were told to leave. Chairman Les Noble and Vice-Chair Frank Davis moved quickly to secure a 21-year lease on the Stadium (which was about to be used by a new Club, Waltham Cross FC) and spent £2,500 getting bulldozers in to level space for the present stand and Clubhouse (then the changing rooms too) to be built and clearing the banking to make way for a running track around the pitch. Grants from the National Playing Fields Association also helped fund the works along with a Ministry of Education donation towards the laying of the track. The Clubhouse and pitch (now with a sub-layer of ash to help drain it) were ready for the opening game of the 1957/58 season, Thursday 12th September v Wingate (lost 1-2). A year later the main stand was built (team photos that summer show the bare framework behind them) by the Groundsman Albert Prior, his son Maurice and Chairman Frank Davis in their spare time! It held 400 spectators on bench seats and had a door in the centre to the changing rooms. Floodlights came in 1964, the current function hall three years later and then, in 1968, up went the covered terrace on the east side of the ground. It cost £2,000 and then held 400 to 500 standing spectators under its concrete cantilever roof. An identical cover was also built at Brookfield Lane for spectators at Tottenham’s ‘A’ and Youth team games. In 1977 the current changing rooms were built, enabling the conversion of the old changing rooms to the Clubhouse we see today. In 1982 ‘proper’ seating was installed for the first time. The oak seats in the directors box were taken from Tottenham’s 1908 ‘old’ west stand (which was being demolished) and the plywood seating to the north end of the stand was taken from the relatively new north-west corner of Spurs ground too. Ironically Tottenham toyed with the idea of taking over The Stadium site and use it as their new training ground after selling Brookfield Lane for housing. Fortunately, for Cheshunt, the grounds green-belt status denied Tottenham the planning permission they needed for their move. During the mid-80’s the decision was taken to remove the running track and bring the perimeter fence closer to the pitch. All this really achieved was creating the terrible sightlines we see today, with spectators in the Stand and covered areas being far from the pitch and unable to see the near touchline. Minor but expensive improvements to the ground followed in the 90’s(a concrete path around the pitch thus doing away with the oval running track, pitch maintenance and changes to the changing rooms) which were paid for by the Committee, not the then-leaseholder, causing them all to resign in 1996. The ‘new’ Committee were faced with the same problems of paying for ground improvements to a ground that didn’t belong to them and thereby having no access to the ground improvement grants available to other Clubs. This precarious situation came to a head in 1999 when Enfield struck a deal with the Clubs leaseholder to buy the ground (after they had sold their Southbury Road ground for housing) leaving Cheshunt at best as an unwanted tenant. Once again the Ground’s green-belt status was enough for Broxbourne Council to refuse Enfield planning permission for their list of alterations and scupper their plans. In 2002, the Isthmian league set out a list of improvements needed to play in their newly created first division. 250 seats were needed in the ground and the main stand was calculated too small to accommodate them all. The remaining wooden benches were removed (later replaced by the disabled viewing area we see today) and blue plastic seats left by Enfield (which themselves originally came from the upper tier of the 1975 east stand at Chelsea) were installed and also placed on the covered terrace. 300 covered standing places were still needed so the Kirtis Townsend Stand was built and The Stadium got the grading needed for promotion. Today ‘The Stadium’ has an official capacity of 2,500 which 285 are seats under cover.