In the past 100 years Old Trafford has hosted World Cup and
European Championship matches, FA Cup Finals and a Champions League
Final and has witnessed countless United wins, draws and defeats.
Yet it endures, above all, as a monument to the vision of the
club's founder and first patron John Henry Davies. Recognising
football's exponential growth in the 1900s and the need to safely
house vast numbers of supporters, Davies recognised that the
champions of England and 1909 FA Cup winners needed a more spacious
home than tatty old Bank Street, in Clayton, a ground with few
facilities and a capacity of less than 25,000. A brewer by trade,
the chairman found a spare plot of land in Old Trafford and,
bolstered by the club's success, appointed famed football stand
architect Archibald Leitch to construct a 100,000 capacity stadium
on the site. Built in 1909 and officially opened in February 1910
for the league visit of Liverpool, Old Trafford was instantly
acclaimed by one reporter as "the most handsomest [sic], the most
spacious and the most remarkable arena I have ever seen. As a
football ground it is unrivalled in the world, it is an honour to
Manchester and the home of a team who can do wonders when they are
so disposed." Unfortunately the stadium arrived at just the wrong
time for the club as United were about to begin a 37 year
trophy-free run, the longest in the club's history. Consequently,
United's average attendance before the war rarely topped the 30,000
mark, in a ground with a capacity of over 70,000. The luckless
stadium suffered further blows on the nights of the 8th and 11th
March 1941 when it was bombed during The Blitz. And so for four
seasons after the war United were forced to play their 'home'
fixtures at Maine Road. Now in its second 'life' Old Trafford was
no longer alone as a large capacity stadium, yet United's
resurgence under Matt Busby filled it more often than not. The
arrival of floodlights and European football heralded a new
chapter: the stadium is widely regarded as at its best on such
occasions and from the first game against the immortals of Real
Madrid in 1957 the ground hosted continental opposition and became
renowned across Europe. In the sixties the ground had a new
cantilever stand added to the west in preparation for the 1966
World Cup Finals and, later, more seats were added at the
Scoreboard End and behind the Stretford End. However these
improvements were as nothing compared to the dramatic changes
brought about in the wake of the Taylor Report. The birth of the
Premier League and United's domestic dominance helped transform the
ground - first into an all-seater stadium, then steady
season-by-season growth saw it swell to hold over 75,000. For a
period during the protracted construction of Wembley, the ground
even became the national stadium hosting twelve England matches. In
'Old Trafford' Iain McCartney updates his original 1996 book.
Featuring the original site plans, never-seen-before pictures of
the ground's construction, development and, of course, the great
matches hosted there. Almost alone now among the grounds built
during the first football boom in the early 20th century, Old
Trafford has become an essential part of the English football
landscape to the extent that it is inconceivable that any future
World Cup bid would not feature it prominently. A century on, it is
still 'an honour to Manchester', and the north's prime football
arena.
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