Anfield Facts and Figures Anfield has been the home ground of Liverpool Football Club since its inception in 1892. The ground is located on the edge of Stanley Park, only being separated by a few houses, and the ground’s namesake, Anfield Road. The ground itself is composed of the Centenary and Main stands along the touchline, and the Anfield Road and Kop stands behind the goals. Currently, the ground is designed to hold 45,362 patrons, with the Anfield Road end being used to hold the fraction of away supporters. Also of note are the Shankly Gates, named after legendary manager Bill Shankly. The gates are placed along Anfield Road, along with the Hillsborough Memorial. Creation of Anfield In 1878, a club named St. Domingo FC was playing matches on a pitch located in Stanley Park, and observers were able to watch matches without being charged, but without a place to sit. By 1882, the club, now named Everton, had begun to draw nearly 2,000 fans a game (surprisingly, more than 120 years later, their fanbase remains about the same size), and suggestions were made to construct a closed ground in which supporters could be charged for entry. In March of 1882, a man named J. Cruitt offered the club a ground just outside the park along Priory Road, and a small stand was built along the pitch. The first match was a friendly featuring Everton and Walsall. However, Everton’s stay at this ground was short-lived, as neighbors complained of disturbance from the supporters, and it was inconvenient to access. So Everton were forced to find a new location to play. In stepped John Houlding, a local alderman and MP, whose house was located across from the Priory Road pitch. He had a joint stake in a patch of grass just off Anfield Road, and offered the ground to Everton for use. So in 1884, Anfield was born. By the time Everton entered the newly formed football league in 1888, Houlding was collecting a rent of ₤100, and he had the sole claim to all revenues accrued from refreshments. All club affairs were also based out of the Sandon Hotel, which was owned Houlding himself. Because of this, the Everton committee met in May of 1889 to discuss the monopolistic practices of Mr. Houlding, and agreed to offer Houlding a compromise rent of ₤180 (the rate had increased to ₤250 after Everton finished runners-up in the league). Houlding was apparently insulted by the request, and offered to sell the ground for ₤6,000, which was subsequently refused by Everton, and Houlding evicted the club, creating a new (and better) club: Liverpool FC. Anfield: The Early Years Liverpool Football Club played its first match in Anfield on September 23, 1892, and beat local side Higher Walton with a resounding 8-0 scoreline. Originally, there were no dressing rooms at Anfield, so players were forced to change in the pub of the Sandon Hotel, and walk down the street to the pitch. In 1894, after some success, a stand which could house dressing rooms was built at the price of ₤1,000, and is what is currently known as the Main Stand, although the original was demolished and replaced in 1973. The Anfield Road Stand was built two years after the Main Stand was developed. The Kop The Kop, or Spionkop (which means “Spy Hill” or “Spy Head” in Dutch), is easily the most venerable and legendary stand in English football, and possibly the World. The current incarnation is smaller and less imposing than the original terrace (built in 1906), which was standing room only, meaning that it had to be replaced under the policies put in place after the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. However, the inspiration it provides to all Liverpool players, and the subsequent fear it instills in opponents, remains strong as ever. The name for the stand was coined by Ernest Edwards, a local newspaper writer who wanted to memorialize the contribution of British soldiers at a battle on the Spionkop during the Second Boer War (1899-1902). The battle held special significance to Liverpuldians, as two of the three regiments involved came from Lancashire. It was fought on January 23 and 24 of 1900, and the hill was one of four that separated the soldiers from a Boer-controlled town called Ladysmith. The British troops planned to take Spionkop, which would give them a strong position to attack Ladysmith and capture the town. But the officers underestimated the prowess of the Boers, and the soldiers were sitting ducks as they tried to advance up the hill. All accounts indicate the battle as a massacre; some figures state the number of dead to be 400, with as many as 1,000 wounded (out of 1,700 soldiers). So in 1906, after the club’s second league title, Houlding and Club Secretary John McKenna planned to create improved viewing accommodations along Walton Breck Road to reward the fans, and commissioned Architect Archibald Leitch to design the structure. The structure, along with some minor changes to the ground, increased the capacity of Anfield to 60,000, and made it one of the premier football pitches in all of England, and hosted the visit of King George V and Queen Mary for the 1921 FA Cup semifinal between Wolverhampton and Cardiff. In 1928, a roof was added to the Kop, and it subsequently became the largest covered terrace in all of England. The two touchline stands were also expanded to become even with the famous terrace. It should be noted that both the St. Andrews (Birmingham) and Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday) grounds also have stands called the Kop. Shankly Arrives Between the addition of a roof to the Kop and the arrival of Bill Shankly, the only significant change made to the ground was the addition of floodlights in 1957. However, when Shankly arrived, he was abhorred by the decrepit condition of the ground, and vowed to improve its condition. His claim was bolstered after Liverpool’s promotion to the first division in 1961-62, and he subsequently demolished the Kemlyn Road Stand, replacing it with a more modern cantilevered stand, paying ₤350,000 in the process. Three years later, the Anfield Road Stand was razed as well, and a new brick terrace was set in its place. But the major change came when the original Main Stand was nixed for a new and improved edition that would allow larger dressing rooms and space for television crews to more easily broadcast matches. Between 1980 and 1982 seats were added in various locations, and an undersoil heating system was built into the pitch. These improvements were finalized by the building of the Shankly Gates, located between the Anfield Road and Main Stands, and still stand as a commemoration to the man who contributed so much to Liverpool FC. His wife Nessie was there on August 26, 1982 to ceremoniously unlock the gates. The Hillsborough Memorial was added placed at the gates to memorialize the tragic events that took place that April day, and to make sure the 96 people who passed away are not forgotten. The Ground Today Anfield has undergone numerous changes in the 90’s to accommodate the increasingly lucrative nature of the game while working to prevent tragedies on the scale of Heysel and Hillsborough, which scar Liverpool and the game of football to this day. The Kemlyn Road Stand was renamed the Centenary Stand after its demolition in 1992. The new version now contains two tiers. The Anfield Road end was also improved in 1998, although complaints of the second tier not being stable forced retroactive changes in 2000. The most significant change, however, was the rebuilding of the aforementioned Kop in 1994, and the final match played in front of the world-famous terrace was voted by fans as the #10 moment in the “100 Days that shook the Kop” voting in 2004. The addition of seats throughout Anfield caused a significant reduction in the capacity of the ground to its present-day level. Throughout the history of Liverpool Football Club, Anfield has become increasingly inseparable from any mention of the club, and the passion of its supporters is displayed in the European nights the ground has become famous for. But despite all this history, Anfield is incapable of expanding anymore, and plans are in the works to build a new ground in adjacent Stanley Park, and a ground share with Everton has been discussed, although the move is largely disliked among the respective fan bases. However, even if a new ground is built, the legend of Anfield will always be kept alive and its magic never forgotten.
Since we might be losing the old girl in a few years, I thought we could start to build up a collage of images for those in the future. Aerial view.
I was looking everywhere on google for a good 'This is Anfield' pic- and as soon as I saw this one- well it picked itself! Rafa looks like a Mafia Don!