Urban Exploration – Stand Athletic Football Club

We are Urban Explorers, we are not vandals. We take nothing besides photographs and leave nothing but footprints.

Just like the previous week, I set out with three targets on the radar on Saturday morning; these were the ones I mentioned in my previous article of a football stadium, a spooky mansion, and an abandoned mill.

The good news is that all three were a success. The bad news is that the football stadium is the first and the weakest of the three venues.

As you can see by the cover picture, Stand Athletic Football Club was a prominent club in the English Premier League with a magnificent stadium that housed almost 100,000 fans at it's peak. Much of it has been pulled down by mindless vandals however, this being the last piece.

OK, so this isn’t the most exciting UrBex locations I have been, but there were also little problems accessing it. In fact, people were walking their dogs right past it and I hailed one of them who looked to be a local.

I told him what I was doing and asked when the place was last in use. ‘Around 12 years ago', he told me. ‘The local council is threatening to tear the place down and send the bill to the owner', he rambled on.

What was once the ‘dugout’ AKA where the manager’s and the trainers used to sit is on the other side of the pitch. This is what’s left.

I tried to extract myself from the local bloke as he didn’t seem to want to continue his walk, happily gossiping about other things like zeppelins bombing the nearby bridge in the First World War.

He wasn’t a young bloke, but I doubt he remembered things from 100 years back unless he has aged remarkably well.

Eventually after around 15 minutes, he departed and I silently told myself to not get engaged again unless necessary. There were other venues to visit and I didn't have all day to listen to his rabbiting.

The clubhouse is a relatively modern building but was sealed quite well. Some graffiti whores have done some damage and the gossiping bloke told me, ‘It’s a real mess inside’.

‘Inside’ was accessible only by this hole. I did creep in but found it was under the stairs and short of smashing them down in a 'Hulk Rage' to gain access it just wasn’t going to happen.

Local vandals had dumped a load of junk just inside the ‘hole’. There wasn't anything else of interest in there.

This would have been the view the players took when leaving the clubhouse and entering the field, it's still accessible but overgrown with weeds and long grass.

One of the goalposts still stands in its original position, rusty and anyone trying to score would need to blast the ball through all these long brown rushes.

The back of the goalposts sports yet another shelter, this one with some bad graffiti and nothing else of note.

A sweeping panoramic view of Stand Athletic Football Club and it's floodlights; the other goalposts are upside down in the middle of the field.

The spectators left and entered here, though I couldn’t get access to the other exit simply because the undergrowth was too heavy.

I nearly bowled myself over trying to get this shot. The fence I stood on was green and very slippery. Only my considerable agility and balancing skills saved me from falling on my arse and looking embarrassed.

There are many reports of Stand Athletic Football Club on the internet and it’s interesting to compare them with mine. Reports of two years ago show there’s now more damage to the place, the pitch getting wilder, more graffiti and at one time the clubhouse was accessible.

The club and ground was due to be auctioned in this 2007 report but it seems it fell through. The report does say the owner had already turned down an offer. He might be regretting that decision now.

This could be converted to a place with an all-weather pitch and put to some use. It's a real shame to see it stay like this for such a long period of time.

On to the next one…

Other articles in the ‘Urban Exploration’ series:

Urban Exploration: Urban Exploration: A Trilogy of Failures II
Urban Exploration: Brodock Ltd, The Old Paper Mill (Failed)
Urban Exploration: Urban Exploration: Workhouse Farm
Urban Exploration: Hellifield Abandoned Train
Urban Exploration: Extwistle Hall
Urban Exploration: Huncoat Power Station (Demolished)
Urban Exploration – A Trilogy of Failures
Urban Exploration: Holdings Country Pottery

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