EWOOD PARK

'Ewood Park' is a football stadium in Blackburn, Lancashire and the home of Blackburn Rovers football club. The stadium, which opened in 1890, is an all seater facility which holds 31,367 people and has a pitch size of 115 x 76 yards. It comprises of four sections: Darwen End, Riverside Stand (currently sponsored by Fraser Eagle), named as such because it stands practically on the banks of the River Darwen, Blackburn End and Jack Walker Stand, named after Blackburn industrialist and club supporter, Jack Walker.
Blackburn Rovers is the only football club to have won the English F.A. Cup 3 times in 3 consecutive seasons, and for this achievement it is the only club in the English Football League with permission to display its club crest on the corner flags. This rule is still applicable at Ewood Park, despite the victories being achieved whilst at the club's previous Leamington Road ground.
The stadium hosted three matches during the Women's Euro 2005 competition—two England matches in group play, and the final.
Ewood Park is the oldest home to a Premier League club. Though both Anfield and Stamford Bridge were constructed earlier (1884 and 1877), their current tenants (Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC) did not start playing there until 1892 and 1905, respectively.

Contents

Details

Records

Average attendances

Redevelopment

Footnotes

External links

Details

Records

Record Attendance: 62,522 v Bolton Wanderers, 2 March, 1929 (FA Cup 6th Round).^[2]

Average attendances

★ 2002-03: 26,226

★ 2003-04: 24,376

★ 2004-05: 22,315

★ 2005-06: 21,015

★ 2006-07: 21,275
The average attendance for 2006-07 was approximately 21,275.[1] This represents a 5,000 decline in average attendance in just four years, despite the success experienced by Blackburn Rovers in the 2005-06 Premiership. Rovers have taken action to reverse this by reducing ticket prices by 25% for the coming season, a move which has been commended by everyone involved in the game.
Although Ewood Park is the 14th largest facility in capacity in the Premiership, it generally has the lowest average attendance as a percentage of capacity. On average, more than 25% of the seats remain unsold, which presents an ongoing revenue problem for the club [2]. On the other hand, the attendance Blackburn attracts to Ewood Park is one of the highest in proportion to town/city size. Blackburn has a population of 105,085 [3], so the attendance accounts for a fifth of the town's population.

Redevelopment

Like many English stadia, Ewood Park remained relatively unchanged for most of the 20th century until outside factors forced change. In the summer of 1984, part of the Nuttall Street Stand was damaged by fire. Instead of rebuilding the stand, the club's directors decided to install two banks of executive boxes in place of the destroyed section. Later in the decade, the old Riverside stand was deemed unsafe in high winds and needed to be rebuilt. The steel for the new stand was provided by Walkersteel, then owned by Jack Walker, who was later to buy the club. The newly-named Walkersteel Stand provided 7,000 seats and is now the only part of Ewood Park to date from before the nineties. [4]
After Walker bought Blackburn in 1991, Ewood Park was extensively rebuilt for the modern Premiership era. Three of the four stands - the Darwen End, the Blackburn End, and the Nuttall Street Stand - were demolished and rebuilt. The Nuttall Street stand was renamed the Jack Walker stand his honour, and the old boardroom was dismantled piece by piece and reassembled when the rebuilding was finished. [5]

Footnotes

1. Premiership Club-by-club Guide
2. Club Records

External links

★ World Stadiums entry

★ Aerial shot of Ewood Park

★ A history of Ewood Park from brfcs.com