10 Premier League's stadium no more exist From Highbury to White Hart Lane, mythical places that now remain only in fans' memories
In the collective imagination of world football, the stadium is the sanctuary of the fans, the home of the team you support, a sacred place where you push and support your favorites. In the grandstands of the facilities, one puts aside everyday life for 90' to experience moments of joy and sorrow amid choruses and shouts at the top of one's lungs. And in the Premier League, but in England in general, stadiums are a true cult for fans and tourists alike, always ready to carve out some time to take a tour through the beauty of British facilities that encapsulate history and tradition. Romantic atmospheres, anthems sung in chorus to bring tears to the eyes, supporters just a stone's throw away from the pitch: stadiums, in the Premier League, are one of the key elements that place the English league first among the most beautiful and fascinating in the world.
Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, Anfield Road, Goodison Park, are just a few of England's historic facilities that still retain their enduring charm. There are also stadiums of incomparable beauty, however, that no longer exist and still make fans of the respective teams get a knot in their throats when they are mentioned. Across the Channel, stadiums have gone through various phases, from post-World War II bombing restorations to renovations in the early 1990s following the Taylor Report, which after the Hillsborough massacre of '89 imposed new safety standards starting with standing room that had to be eliminated, the latter of which were then reintroduced just recently. From the late 1990s through the first two decades of the 2000s, there were then several painful demolitions dictated by modernizations and the arrival in England of big investors who wanted to put their own stamp on the various facilities. Thus some razed soccer sanctuaries have been razed to the ground, yet still remain in the memories and eyes of the generations of fans who populated their stands.
The Boleyn Ground, the iconic home of West Ham
Before moving to Ayresome Park, Middlesborough played its first matches on a cricket pitch. But the club's arrival in the Football League entailed by necessity the establishment of a proper stadium. Thus, in 1903, Ayresome Park became the home of Boro and remained so for 92 years. Peculiar was the event that occurred in 1986, when team and staff arrived at the facility but found the gates closed and sealed. The reason? The nearly 2 million sterling in debt that had left the club on the brink of bankruptcy.
As the years passed, the facility began to show signs of wear and tear, but the real blow was the new regulations introduced by the Taylor Report. In fact, the houses surrounding Ayresome Park did not allow the facility to be expanded, so the decision was made to build a new facility, the 30,000-seat Riverside Stadium, on the banks of the River Tees. In the 1995-1996 season, Middlesborough moved permanently into the new home and Ayresome Park was used as the team's training ground until it was demolished in 1997 to make way for a housing development.
