Stand United
Member
- Joined
- Jun 22, 2021
- Messages
- 140
- Reaction score
- 321
The oldest football stadium in the world, or the oldest professional stadium in the world to have hosted football - or our definition of football? Or the one that’s done it as a consistently professional level? There’s so many ways to redefine it.
And as JayGreen17 implies, there’s a degree of ‘Trigger’s Broom’ when you drill down further on that. What needs to be retained of the original fabric of the ground for it to still be considered the same ground? We’ve replaced every stand, and built one where the cricket pitch on the original was. So is the pitch the most important thing? The new Spurs stadium is on the same footprint of the old White Hart Lane, but there’s only part of the pitch that overlaps with the original with the rotation they’ve done. Is that enough to continue the history of that stadium, or do we reset that history with this new stadium? We don’t for example claim to have “the oldest fixed crossbars in the world”, because we’ve changed these repeatedly, so at what point does enough of the stadium change before it’s no longer linked to the original?
It’s tricky to define, and in reality is much more an intangible feeling than anything else. None of the other grounds in the frame for this presumably have any more of their stadium that is from the 1850s, or remotely close to that, so we’re not alone on this. “One of the most historic grounds in the world” might be a cop out, but does get across that it’s not just age that defines Bramall Lane but its importance in being the first for a number of things in football’s history.
And as JayGreen17 implies, there’s a degree of ‘Trigger’s Broom’ when you drill down further on that. What needs to be retained of the original fabric of the ground for it to still be considered the same ground? We’ve replaced every stand, and built one where the cricket pitch on the original was. So is the pitch the most important thing? The new Spurs stadium is on the same footprint of the old White Hart Lane, but there’s only part of the pitch that overlaps with the original with the rotation they’ve done. Is that enough to continue the history of that stadium, or do we reset that history with this new stadium? We don’t for example claim to have “the oldest fixed crossbars in the world”, because we’ve changed these repeatedly, so at what point does enough of the stadium change before it’s no longer linked to the original?
It’s tricky to define, and in reality is much more an intangible feeling than anything else. None of the other grounds in the frame for this presumably have any more of their stadium that is from the 1850s, or remotely close to that, so we’re not alone on this. “One of the most historic grounds in the world” might be a cop out, but does get across that it’s not just age that defines Bramall Lane but its importance in being the first for a number of things in football’s history.
