Britannia Stadium

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The Britannia Stadium
The Brit

Full name	The Britannia Stadium
Location
Built	1997
Opened	1997
Owner	Stoke City F.C
Tenants	Stoke City F.C. (1997-present)
Capacity	28,383
Field dimensions	116 x 72 yards

The Britannia Stadium is a Football Stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It is the home of Stoke City Football Club. The club had played at the Victoria Ground until 1997 and the move was the brainchild of then-Chief Executive Jez Moxey.^[1] The club's manager at this time was Chic Bates. It was originally owned jointly by Stoke City F.C., Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Stoke-on-Trent Regeneration Ltd., however, Stoke City F.C. bought all shares in the stadium in a deal worth £6 million finalised in December 2007.^[2]

The new stadium holds 28,383 supporters, with the highest attendance being recorded for the sell out fixture against Everton in their FA Cup 3rd Round tie in 2002.^[3] The 'away end' holds a maximum of 4,800 visiting supporters. Due to the capacity being under 30,000, it is not eligible to be a UEFA 4 star stadium. If it was above this capacity it has all the specifications to be a UEFA 4 Star Stadium.^[4] The cantilever Stadium has four stands, but only one enclosed corner. The first goal in the stadium was scored by Graham Kavanagh for Stoke in a league cup game against Rochdale.^[5]

1 Future Development
2 Site History
3 Notable Non-Stoke Games
4 Crowd Violence
5 Ownership
6 External links
7 References

[edit] Future Development

The Sir Stanley Matthews statue outside of the Britannia Stadium.

If Stoke can develop themselves in the FA Premier League, they could consider filling in the corner between the Boothen End and the West Stand, taking the ground's capacity to over 30,000.^[6]

[edit] Site History

The stadium is built on the former site of Hem Heath colliery. Recently in 2006, work has taken place on the A50 to allow direct access from the eastbound direction, involving the building of a bridge across the road. It is close to the Sideway junction with the A500.

[edit] Notable Non-Stoke Games

The stadium hosted the 2002-03, 2003-04 and 2004-05 playoff finals for the Conference National.

The stadium has also hosted a U21 international between England and Portugal on 16 April 2002. Portugal won the match 1-0.^[7]

[edit] Crowd Violence

Stoke City fans on the pitch following promotion to the Premier League, May 4, 2008

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Unfortunately, the stadium has witnessed some of the worst violence amongst any British stadia and after a particularly poor record of spectator violence in 2001-2 the club management has organised safety stewarding, to become one of the safest stadia for spectators. The most prominent offences at the new stadium were the aftermath of 'Stoke vs Man City', 'Stoke vs Millwall', 'Stoke vs Birmingham', and when QPR's keeper Simon Royce was attacked on the pitch by a Stoke fan, aggravated at provication of 'easy, easy' chants being directed at the Boothen End by Royce himself. These measures helped to make the least violent crowd/spectator problems for the 2003/4 season.

[edit] Ownership

The stadium was part-owned by the council around early 2007 but Stoke City FC have now bought the ground off the council to claim full ownership of the stadium for an estimated fee of £6,000,000.