Aerial view of Ayresome Park

The top picture also shows above Albert Park the former Clairville Athletics stadium and then beyond that can you see the next green rectangle that is Hutton Road training ground, only very recently built on.
In the immediate foreground the old General Hospital that started out as the Work House. Can you see the Holgate Wall between the hospital and the ground. Also note the flat roof of the controversial sports hall tucked between a terrace of houses on Ayresome Street and the old main (North) stand of Ayresome Park. I think it shows just how cramped the site of Ayresome Park was.
 
The bottom picture also shows you the way the East stand was cantilevered on concrete pillars. I suppose a modern ground would use that dead space as a concourse. As a little kid I always thought that concrete was very modern and even Wembley like.
 
fmttmadmin said:
The top picture also shows above Albert Park the former Clairville Athletics stadium and then beyond that can you see the next green rectangle that is Hutton Road training ground, only very recently built on.
In the immediate foreground the old General Hospital that started out as the Work House. Can you see the Holgate Wall between the hospital and the ground. Also note the flat roof of the controversial sports hall tucked between a terrace of houses on Ayresome Street and the old main (North) stand of Ayresome Park. I think it shows just how cramped the site of Ayresome Park was.
Click to expand...

I sometime wonder if we could have done what SPurs have done, move the ground slightly, overlapping with the old site.

I think this picture shows that the hospital site would easilt have been big enough, but match days must have been horrible for those living in all those terrace houses if they had no interest in football.
 
I don't think the club had any idea that the hospital site was closing down and being sold off when they were looking to relocate. Boro investigated several sites before fastening in on Middlehaven but the hospital was never mentioned. Am not sure when the health trust made their decision to relocate but it wasn't something anyone was talking about in the early 1990s. Ayresome Park estate was built several years before the houses on the hospital.
 
fmttmadmin said:
I don't think the club had any idea that the hospital site was closing down and being sold off when they were looking to relocate. Boro investigated several sites before fastening in on Middlehaven but the hospital was never mentioned. Am not sure when the health trust made their decision to relocate but it wasn't something anyone was talking about in the early 1990s. Ayresome Park estate was built several years before the houses on the hospital.
Click to expand...

Yes, the hospital was still being demonlished in 2004. I think the reality is that, even if AP had held on until then, we would have missed out on many of the best years in our history by delaying.
 
Must have made more $ from selling the land for houses and moving to what, I would guess , would have been a very cheap space that was ripe for re-development.
Personally I still prefer grounds that are in town centres.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top