What Happened to Manchester City's Maine Road

[uncle fester]

Apologies if already posted

 

[Irlamblue]

Excellent

 

[DontLookBackInAnger]

The Kippax when it was rebuilt must take the record for the biggest looking stand..... that didn't actually hold very many people!

 

[jimharri]

The Kippax when it was rebuilt must take the record for the biggest looking stand..... that didn't actually hold very many people!

It looks, er, "massive" in that aerial shot. I miss the old place, but it was a bit of a mess at the end, wasn't it? 4 totally different stands.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

I know time moves on but I do miss the old girl.

 

[DontLookBackInAnger]

It looks, er, "massive" in that aerial shot. I miss the old place, but it was a bit of a mess at the end, wasn't it? 4 totally different stands.

I went to a game I forget when, but it was right around the time the main stand was reroofed and there was an artists impression of the stadium all matching and connected... Who would have known within what about 15 years we would end up with that monstrosity of a stadium, but I think it perfectly captures the way the club was run from the mid-70s until we left, that being said I still miss the place and its heartbreaking seeing how dead the area around the ground is now... I wonder if the kids are still watching cars for people!!!

 

[HelloCity]

The new Platt Lane was an absolute disgrace. Apparently it held less than the seated stand behind the goal at Stockport.

 

[peter.evans]

The new Platt Lane was an absolute disgrace. Apparently it held less than the seated stand behind the goal at Stockport.

Agree.Swales Folly as we called it !

 

[JGL07]

The Platt Lane and the Kippax new stands must be about the worst ever. Absolutely abysmal design. The whole concept seemed to be intended to downsize the stadium to match the plummeting support in the Swales era. I know that the Kippax was built after Swales stood down but the design was already complete and it proved too late to do anything else before they all-seater deadline was imposed.

I can recall 63,000 attendances at Maine Road but by the mid-1990s it was down to a maximum of little over 30,000.

Apart from anything else it was an architectural nightmare with four very different stands and absolutely no coherence or uniformity.

I was delighted when City agreed to leave Maine Road. Maybe a move was inevitable? Could a 50,000-60,000 stadium have been squeezed into the Maine Road footprint? Probably not? I suppose that city could have used LFC style methods to introduce rats to surrounding housing and force people out? Ultimately a move was probably for the best.

 

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

The Platt Lane and the Kippax new stands must be about the worst ever. Absolutely abysmal design. The whole concept seemed to be intended to downsize the stadium to match the plummeting support in the Swales era. I know that the Kippax was built after Swales stood down but the design was already complete and it proved too late to do anything else before they all-seater deadline was imposed.

I can recall 63,000 attendances at Maine Road but by the mid-1990s it was down to a maximum of little over 30,000.

Apart from anything else it was an architectural nightmare with four very different stands and absolutely no coherence or uniformity.

I was delighted when City agreed to leave Maine Road. Maybe a move was inevitable? Could a 50,000-60,000 stadium have been squeezed into the Maine Road footprint? Probably not? I suppose that city could have used LFC style methods to introduce rats to surrounding housing and force people out? Ultimately a move was probably for the best.

I think the site did offer a huge footprint for a big stadium assuming you could build on the car park behind the Kippax. But the location was always going to be limiting. Weirdly I think the old ground was much easier to get to even though it had only small roads all around and no train or tram.