Talk:List of football stadiums in England

Fans' Stadium

I am stating here why I am reverting the anonymous user's edits to stadium titles. I am reverting to the title on the article on The Fans' Stadium in order to place it in line with all other football stadiums. In all other cases where a name has been given for sponsorship or similar reasons, its entry has been placed in article under that name.

See also: Arsenal Stadium, known almost universally as Highbury, Bradford & Bingley Stadium known by fans and pundits alike by its former Valley Parade, the list goes on and on. Besides this The Fans' Stadium - Kingsmeadow isn't an appropriate title for an article given that it does not follow the usual naming terms, The Fans' Stadium (Kingsmeadow) would be far more appropriate, but still incorrect given that the official title is the Fans' Stadium, whether it is known to most fans as Kingsmeadow or not is unimportant given that in every other case the article has been named for the official title.

See User_talk:12.144.5.2#Fans.27_Stadium for our discussion on this. Grunners 23:37, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'm Louis Epstein,the user from IP 12.144.5.2 who opposes registration for websites as a matter of principle whose edit he reverted.The most pertinent point perhaps is that KM has NEVER been officially titled nothing but "The Fans' Stadium",and the recent move of the article,by someone other than either of us,to The Fans' Stadium, Kingsmeadow perhaps states the situation best.

More broadly,I STRONGLY oppose the treatment of stadium names that are created by naming rights deals as the most "official" names.Just like the Isthmian League,or the Football League itself,which have had multiple title sponsors,the underlying names should be used for article titles and the entire histories covered there,not moved whenever a new sponsor signs up or treated as separate from anything under a different naming rights contract.--L.E./le@put.com/12.144.5.2 04:43, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Halifax Town

The official Shay Stadium website quotes the capacity at currently just 6,561. http://www.shaystadium.co.uk/shaystadium/fac1.shtml

Dvisions outside top five

These figures are taken from the clubs' articles. I know not all these have been included on the main table. Clubs are ordered by division and then by capacity.

Conference North:

• Worcester City: ???
• Blyth Spartans A.F.C.: ???
• Leigh RMI: 10,000
• Stalybridge Celtic: 6,500
• Scarborough: 6,400
• Kettering Town: 6,264
• Nuneaton Borough A.F.C.: 6,000
• Redditch United: 5,000
• Barrow A.F.C.: 4,500
• Gainsborough Trinity: 4,304
• Hinckley United: 4,329
• Hyde United: 4,100
• Harrogate Town: 3,800
• Alfreton Town: 3,600
• Lancaster City: 3,500
• Moor Green: 3,250
• Worksop Town: 3,200
• Workington A.F.C.: 3,101
• Droylsden: 3,000
• Farsley Celtic A.F.C.: 3,000
• Hucknall Town: 3,000
• Vauxhall Motors: 2,500

Conference South:

1. Fisher Athletic: 8,000
2. Sutton United: 7,000
3. Basingstoke Town: 6,000
4. Eastbourne Borough: 5,664
5. Welling United: 5,500
6. Havant & Waterlooville: 5,250
7. Dorchester Town: 5,009
8. Eastleigh: 5,000
9. Hayes: 4,730
10. Newport County A.F.C.: 4,300
11. Farnborough Town : 4,163
12. Bedford Town: 4,000
13. Bishop's Stortford: 4,000
14. Bognor Regis Town: 4,000
15. Braintree Town: 4,000
16. Salisbury City: 3,740
17. Thurrock: 3,500
18. Yeading: 3,500
19. Histon: 3,250
20. Weston-super-Mare A.F.C.: 3,000
21. Cambridge City: 3,000
22. Lewes: 3,000

Southern League Premier:

• Cirencester Town: ???
• Halesowen Town: ???
• Hemel Hempstead Town: ???
• Northwood: ???
• Stamford: ???
• Wealdstone: ???
• Yate Town: ???
• Merthyr Tydfil: 10,000
• Bath City/Team Bath: 8,800
  (ground share)
• Rugby Town: 6,000
• King's Lynn: 5,733
• Gloucester City A.F.C.: 5,500
• Hitchin Town: 4,000
• Clevedon Town: 3,900
• Tiverton Town: 3,500
• Chippenham Town: 3,000
• Corby Town: 3,000
• Maidenhead United: 3,000
• Cheshunt: 2,500
• Mangotsfield United: 2,500
• Banbury United: 2,000

Northern PL Prem:

• A.F.C. Telford United: 6,300
• Ashton United: 4,000

Discussion on Inclusion

It is becoming clearer to me that we should limit the table to only those stadia that have at least 5,000 seated capacity. There is better documentation of that, the capacity for stadia that have standing terraces or slopped hills is an estimate at best and there does not seem to be any real documentation. --Trödel 00:06, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Hey Footyforever and Super Nintendo Chalmers - do either of you have any thoughts on the above? I plan to do some research and only include stadiums with a capacity of 5,000 or more seated in the list and remove those that don't unless they are in an EFL league or the Premier League. --Trödel 23:43, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Interesting reflections.

What's correct is that a terraced stadium's capacity is uncertain. My understanding is that the official capacity will be set annually in conversation with health and safety reviews and the police, such that (for example) if you make improvements around your emergency exits, or improve your signage, you might increase your capacity without altering the space for people to stand in at all. So capacities do fluctuate year to year, and for terraced grounds they will vary quite a lot. They're not necessarily estimates per se, but they may be difficult to formally source.

I'm slightly unbothered by internal inconsistencies within Wikipedia (basically adapting the principle of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS). What's important for editors on any given page is that that page is well referenced and the claims in it are sourced. I'd expect stadium capacities to be inflated in a lot of places by club fans making biased or optimistic edits. So I wouldn't take internal conflicts as a measure of lack of reliability.

In terms of the proposal, I'm a little torn. While I see the point you're making, terraces are an important part of watching football in England, and in principle where you had an all terraced stadium and an all seater stadium of the same capacity, I would not say that one is more notable than the other. You'd also end with a page which lists the stadium of an obscure team like Worcester Raiders who play in the local rugby stadium, but which would exclude grounds like Altrincham's Moss Lane or (had they got relegated) Hartlepool's Vicotria Park simply because they're a traditional English ground that is mainly terracing. That seems to get the purpose of the list wrong to me, and it seems to be putting things the wrong way round.

I'd be happier with something that was all EPL/EFL and National League National (or even National North/South?) stadia plus then those with over xxxx seating? Or to avoid prioritisng seating, all down to the National Leauge or National League N/S + all other with capacities over 7000 - that would reduce the number of extra stadia to look for and the number which can reasonably claim to be included? Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 09:40, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I hadn't thought about how the terraced capacities are set in conjunction with local police around health and safety reasons. That gives a much better chance than I though for finding sourced capacities. I have thought about how terraced stadia are much more important to watching football in England. My son played in the Foyle Cup and watched several matches from grounds with good terracing. A couple that provided enough elevation to make recording from a 5' tripod excellent. Perhaps we could include all through the NL North/South and other grounds of at least X,000 (provided that a good source is found for any below NL). I've been trying to find a good source for National League matches, watched quite a few matches using nationalleaguetv . com this season and found the various types of stadia and the attendance quite interesting. It also seems that sometimes, once a team is relegated, their stadiums fall into disrepair, and sections are closed for health/safety reasons. Thus, even though they still have benches/seats you can see in pictures/video, some of those seats can't be used. I agree re the fans making biased and optimistic edits. I probably will still go through and edit the teams page with the sourced capacity while I'm doing this, but have no intention of keeping up with all those pages :)

I am thinking of using table on the talk page - that would list the stadia for all the NL & NL North/South, plus the other regional league stadia above that I've found and listing notes about the research to find a sourced capacity reference and a reason for the decision to include/not include for now. That would help when someone comes back to make edits. Questions:

Are you suggesting a minimum of 7,000 with terraced seating or 5,000 of all seated?

I know this page once had all the National League stadia, but when I started editing, it was hodgepodge because of relgation/promotion and included quite a few stadia outside the NL that were less than 5,000. Is there some source for stadia capacity other than https://footballgroundguide.com/ and https://www.football-stadiums.co.uk/leagues/ - both of which don't seem to be reliable sources to me? --Trödel 17:28, 30 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes, you're correct about closed areas in larger grounds as teams fall down the leagues. In some those would still be notionally usable, they just don't open them all for every match to save costs; in others they'd not be legally usable. It would likely be difficult to establish which was which!

My preference would be for all down to National League (plus Women's WSL, and any in the Scottish Professional Football Leagues (currently 0 but Berwick remain in the level below) or Cymru Premier (currently 1)), and those outside which claim a minimum of 7000 overall capacity. Raising the capacity threshold to that number would reduce significantly the amount of 'extra' grounds that would need to be sourced, making it a more manageable job. I wouldn't mind including the National South/North by default, but I think the lack of a reliable source is an issue - whereas finding sources for the smaller number of larger grounds is easier.

I don't know of an official or confirmed reliable source, but Transfermarkt [1] has a list and is a relatively well known site, perhaps more so than some of those bloggy-type pages? Super Nintendo Chalmers (talk) 12:39, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Overall rank is pretty useless

I don't see the benefit of having overall rank - it adds nothing and doesn't allow any kind of additional sorting, etc. I'm removing --Trödel 17:42, 28 August 2023 (UTC)

Need source for EFL Teams

The EFL website removed all the team information (maybe they'll add it back after they update for this year <crosses fingers> but I doubt they will. So we no longer have a good source for EFL teams capacity. And the capacities generally vary from year to year because of small upgrades, fire code enhancements, upgraded seats/suites, etc. The stadium websites are all old, and the information on Wikipedia is generally from fans who post the best number they've seen regardless of whether it is currently accurate. Any help finding a source would be appreciated! --Trödel 20:19, 28 August 2023 (UTC)