Meadowbank Stadium
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Meadowbank Stadium is a multi-purpose sports facility located in Meadowbank, in the Scottish capital Edinburgh. It hosted the Commonwealth Games of 1970 and 1986. It is earmarked in the current Draft Edinburgh City Centre Local Plan to be demolished and the site re-developed for housing.
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[edit] Layout
The capacity of the stadium is 16,000, the bulk of which are accommodated in a rather cavernous grandstand. Uncovered benches and terracing stretch around the rest of the track. The sports complex and adjacent pitches to the east covers land formerly occupied by Old Meadowbank Stadium. The stadium itself contains an eight lane, 400 metre running track, with a grass pitch within this. There is also a velodrome on the site.
The stadium also contains a number of indoor facilities, including squash and basketball courts. These are also used for regular antiques fairs, martial arts competitions, conferences, and occasionally church meetings. Other outdoor facilities include field hockey pitches.
[edit] Uses
[edit] Football
Meadowbank Thistle F.C. played here until they were moved out of the city and renamed as Livingston F.C.. The venue is oft-cited as one of the worst to ever see Scottish Football League action. There were vast expanses of unused seating, with most fans located on one side of the ground. The running track created a great distance between the fans and the pitch. These factors all contributed to a lack of atmosphere in the ground.
East of Scotland League side Edinburgh City F.C. now call the ground home.
[edit] Music
Meadowbank is also used as a music venue for bands which would not be able to sell out the city's biggest stadium, Murrayfield. Muse, Snow Patrol, My Chemical Romance, Beck, Elbow and Radiohead all played in August 2006 as part of Edinburgh's annual music festival, T On The Fringe. Pixies were among the bands that played in 2005. As part of the 2007 festival both the Foo Fighters and Kaiser Chiefs will play the venue.
[edit] Rugby
Professional rugby union club Edinburgh Gunners used the venue until they moved to Murrayfield Stadium.
[edit] Basketball facilities
Meadowbank stadium has basketball facilities in three of its large halls, however they are only rarely available to the public. They are usually occupied by clubs or individuals for badminton, judo, hokey, football.
The only basketball facility which is easily accessible and affordable for a small group of people (£2 per person, compared to £48 for booking a hall), is a small squash court with a basket mounted on the wall. The size of this court and the bad condition of its roof make it unsuitable for basketball, and rather dangerous for any sporting activity.
Edinburgh Rocks basketball team used one of the large halls until they moved to the Braehead Arena, and were renamed Scottish Rocks.
[edit] Old Meadowbank
The Old Meadowbank was previously known as the Leith Athletic ground. It should not be confused with New Meadowbank, the running track and sports field upon which the present stadium is sited.
[edit] Speedway
Motorcycle speedway ran at Old Meadowbank from 1948 until 1954. The name of the team based here was Edinburgh Monarchs [1]. The sport stopped in 1954, when the post-war entertainment tax started to make the sport unprofitable. Whilst the Monarchs of this era achieved little as a team, they did introduce Aussie Jack Young to UK speedway. Young won the World Championship in 1951 as a Monarchs rider.
The entertainment tax was later scrapped, and the sport was reintroduced to Edinburgh in 1960. The Monarchs were forced to leave Old Meadowbank in 1967 to allow the stadium to be re-developed for the 1970 Commonwealth Games. The Monarchs are now based at the Armadale Stadium, in West Lothian.
It is ironic that the stadium has been used extensively for professional sporting activities since 1967, as speedway fans were advised then that the stadium could not host professional sports due to Government funding rules.
[edit] Future
The City of Edinburgh Council have decided to demolish Meadowbank Stadium, and to replace it with a smaller community facillity in the east side of the city. A new sports centre will be built in the west of the city, probably in Sighthill. This depends on the council securing a change of use in the emerging Area Local Plan. This move is opposed by those who support retention of the stadium and using it for speedway and greyhound racing.
The draft Meadowbank Development Brief was approved by the Council on 7 December 2006 for consultation (Council's Development Brief). The consultation will run until 9 March 2007. The Development Brief states that "housing is the most appropriate alternative use of the site" and that "high density development is acceptable in principle".
[edit] See also
