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Recreation Ground (Chesterfield)
Encyclopedia
Saltergate, officially the Recreation Ground, is the historic home of Chesterfield Football Club
, and was in use from 1871 until the club's relocation in July 2010, a 139 year history that made it one of the oldest football grounds in England at the time of its closure. The name 'Saltergate' became predominant in popular usage from the 1920s.
The football stadium
was located in the heart of Chesterfield
town and tightly surrounded by housing. It underwent only limited additional development after a new main stand was opened in 1936. Although plans to develop the site were explored, the club's fans ultimately voted in favour of pursuing a new ground in a 2004 ballot, with the new site confirmed by a 2006 poll.
The final Chesterfield fixture at Saltergate, a Football League Two
game against AFC Bournemouth, was held on 8 May 2010. From the 2010-11 season, the team switched to the new B2net Stadium located in the Whittington Moor area of the town. An October 2010 publication from the club, 'Saltergate Sunset' by Stuart Basson, chronicled the story of the ground.
. 11-a-side football was first played a few weeks later against the Sheffield F.A. team. A wooden pavillion was developed on the eastern side of the ground later in the 1870s but otherwise it remained simply an open field in this era. After the initial Chesterfield Football Club folded in 1881, a number of other local football teams used the pitch until the establishment of a second Chesterfield F.C. in 1884, later known as Chesterfield Town. The first recorded attendance, from Boxing Day
1889, put the crowd at 400 for a game against Sheffield Heeley Reserves. A small, uncovered grandstand with benched seating for around 400 was added early in the 1890s. With the football club steadily progressing toward employing its first semi-professional players, it was also able to take the cricket club's relocation in its stride during 1894, shouldering the full rent thereafter.
League football came to Saltergate in 1899 with Chesterfield Town's election to play in Division Two of the Football League. The club's step up necessitated remedial work on a pitch that sloped markedly from north to south, most notably the removal of a hill in the north west corner, the spoil from which was dumped at the Saltergate end. In addition, the grandstand was enlarged and roofed over, its capacity increasing to around 800 spectators. Fencing was erected on the Compton Street side to obscure the free view from adjacent back gardens (modest coverage later being added on this side). After a decade of financial struggle, other clubs who had invested in their stadia vied for an opening in the league and Chesterfield Town were voted out in 1909. In a bid to return, a running track was constructed around the perimeter, said to offer up to 10,000 fans a decent view, and a white picket fence was constructed around the pitch to replace the previous wire boundary. However, any ambitions proved short-lived. Faced with the abandonment of competitive football after the outbreak of the First World War the club was forced into voluntary liquidation in 1915. Sheep were the ground's likely main occupants until a new club was established in 1919 at the instigation of the local authority. A ground move to the Queen's Park
Annexe also formed part of the vision, but never reached fruition.
When Chesterfield F.C. became founder members of the new Third Division North in 1921, the ground saw a new spurt of improvements. According to club historian Stuart Basson:
In 1931, at a time of growing ambition for the club, terracing was cut into the cinder banking of the Kop and further earth removal from the Cross Street to Saltergate end was undertaken to level the pitch. In a successful push for promotion to the Second Division
in 1931-32, 20,092 fans crammed into the ground to see the home team overtake Lincoln City for the top spot.
In 1936, the club borrowed around £14,000 to fund the erection of a new brick and steel main stand by renowned Scottish architect Archibald Leitch
. Demolition of the old wood stand began at the close of the 1935-36 season, which again saw the club promoted to the Second Division. The official opening of the new stand came in November, with Sheffield United visiting for a league fixture and a new record of 26,519 paying for entry. With the completion of the new stand, all four sides of the ground had taken on an appearance that would still be recognisable at the time of its closure.
With relegation in 1951, average gates took a heavy knock and the decline continued over the decade as success eluded the club, which finally dropped to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in 1961. However, modest ground improvements still advanced after fundraising efforts by fans which allowed the Kop to be roofed in the same year. Despite acquiring second-hand lights in 1963, boardroom prevarication meant that Saltergate was the final league ground in England to install floodlights
, with Chesterfield's first home game under lights not being played until the 1967-1968 season.
In 1979, the centre section of the Compton Street Terrace was re-roofed and a wooden television gantry added, the only notable ground work in the decade.
The additional cost of further works gave added spur to the idea of a move, but the discovery of a covenant on the Annexe that forbade its use for professional sport put paid to the club's favoured relocation site toward the end of the decade, though not the idea itself. The board persisted in putting forward alternate locations throughout the nineties.
Talk of relocation dominated the 1994 AGM, with a sizeable group of supporters advocating the redevelopment of Saltergate, rather than its abandonment - including the Crooked Spireite fanzine. An early proposal showed a two tier kop, with smaller seated stands on the remaining three sides.
New plans for the club to leave Saltergate in favour of Wheeldon Mill emerged in October 1995 and were pursued avidly by Chairman Norton Lea in the face of substantial opposition. Though the scheme was blocked in 1998 when the Council refused planning permission, subsequent unsuccessful attempts were made to revive the move well into the next decade. Having received a dispensation from the upgrading requirements of the 1989 Taylor Report
based on relocation, the club was perpetually left without a plan B.
Thus, in late 2000, more than ten years after Taylor's report, the future of football at Saltergate became mired in crisis with three sides of the ground under threat of closure from the Football Licensing Authority
. This was narrowly averted by a further dispensation for two sides of the ground amid turbulent times for the club under the Chairmanship of Darren Brown.
Although 2001 saw a hastily organised fans group, the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society, replace Brown in controlling the club (he was later to be jailed for fraud), they faced a myriad of challenges related to ensuring Saltergate's future. It emerged that a debenture had been secured on the ground requiring that £200,000 be raised in just 3 weeks to fight off the threat of losing the stadium. Even with that met and the club in administration
, much additional fundraising was required to address Saltergate's worst deficiencies. Thus, the ground saw a number of modest improvements at this time. Nevertheless, Saltergate remained an aged stadium lacking many of the modern facilities available to rival clubs who had relocated or redeveloped their existing grounds.
In 2004, members of the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society voted in favour of the club pursuing relocation. A further vote in 2006 saw more than 90% back a plan to switch to the site of the former Dema Glass factory, near the Chesterfield - Sheffield bypass
(Sheffield Road), around a mile from the town centre.
For 8 May 2010, the date of the final game, Chesterfield Community Trust organised a number of events to celebrate the history of Saltergate and bid it farewell. A heritage project at The Pomegranate Theatre presented a visual history of the club's time at the ground, including match footage from 1923 and photos dating back to 1900. Former players, including Albert Collins of the 1945 Football League War Cup semi-final side, were also present to share their memories. Afterwards, a brass band led a parade up to the match along Chesterfield High Street, swelling to an estimated 2,000 people on arrival.
Chesterfield F.C.'s final league fixture at Saltergate ended in a dramatic 2-1 win against AFC Bournemouth following an injury time goal from Derek Niven
, the club's longest serving player. Following the goal, there was a brief and good-natured pitch invasion
, which later attracted national media attention after footage of a disabled man rolling his wheelchair
into the Bournemouth half attracted over 100,000 hits on YouTube
.
In the weeks following the game, Saltergate hosted a series of final commemorative events, including an auction of fixtures and memorabilia that raised £20,000 for the club, ahead of the ground's scheduled demolition.
Two of the crush barriers from Saltergate became museum pieces at the National Football Museum
in Preston and the Scottish Football Museum
in Glasgow after the disused Compton Street-Cross Street corner terracing was found to include possibly the last-known examples of once commonplace barriers designed and patented in 1906 by Scottish engineer and football ground designer Archibald Leitch. These were donated by the club to the museums after the final fixture.
In July 2010, the club announced that, following its departure from Saltergate, the ground would continue in use by the Chesterfield FC Community Trust for its Saturday Morning Club and Summer holiday Soccer Camp 'for the foreseeable future'. This community use was discontinued at the start of 2011.
On 31 May 2011, outline proposals for the development of up to 68 houses at the site were unanimously approved by Chesterfield Borough Council's planning committee. With planning permission obtained, the four-and-a-half acre site was put up for sale by the club in October 2011; meanwhile supporters began a Facebook
Group calling for the streets in any future development to be named after former Chesterfield players.
For the 2009-10 season it accommodated 2000 home supporters plus 450 seats for away fans. The stand was unusual, when viewed from aerial shot, in having an slight bend just to the right of halfway. In its later incarnation, it was also unusual in having its seating area raised above the pitch with a number of stair wells at the front of the stand leading up to the seats. There were also a number of supporting pillars in the stand which gave many seats a restricted view.
In its later years, the badly peeling paint and rusted exterior of the stand frequently attracted the derison of rival supporters.
Since the design and appearance of the stand were similar that which stood at Derby County
's now demolished Baseball Ground
(by the same architect), the Saltergate structure was used to depict it in the 2009 film The Damned United
, set in the 1970s.
As with many Victorian era football facilities, the Saltergate end of the ground spent many years as little more than a sloping mound. In the early 1920s, the construction of Cross Street at the opposite end of the ground led to earth and remnants of the cinder running track being used to build up the banking of the Kop. Terraced steps were cut into the cinder in the summer of 1931. At the turn of the 1950s, this was replaced by concrete terracing, cut to go below pitch level. Metal crush barriers were also fitted, replacing the old wooden ones. The Kop was roofed in 1960, paid for entirely by fundraising by the supporters club.
In December 2000, The Kop was closed for the remainder of the season on orders of the Football Licensing Authority
and a major upgrading effort became one of the many summer challenges facing the fans who had taken over the club. Commencing at the start of July, a complete renewal of terracing work was completed in just 7 weeks.
Of the four sides of the ground, the Kop offered the most potential for redevelopment because of a relative abundance of space and was thus the focal point of all plans drawn up to keep the club at its historic home. 2002 architect plans envisaged a mix of seating and standing for a revamped Saltergate end.
In the absence of any such redevelopment, The Kop saw only a change of sponsorship in its closing years, becoming 'The Karen Child Kop' through a £20,000 deal with a local lottery winner.
Fans standing on the Kop for Saltergate's final fixture were experiencing not just their last game at the ground, but also their last opportunity to watch a Chesterfield home game from terracing
, the new stadium being all-seater
.
Compton Street, also known as the Pop Side, had a capacity of around 1,000 at the time of closure - the smallest of the four sides. It was partly covered (to the rear) and had a row of supporting pillars. Originally a terrace constructed in the early 1920s, Compton Street had a lot of work carried out on it during 2002 and was made all seated. The seating area lay about 4 metres from the pitch line. The roof had an unusual wooden television gantry perched on top. Until becoming a seated area, supporters could move freely between Compton Street and the Kop, resulting in the familiar half-time sight of fans flowing from the former to the latter for an improved view of the away goal.
At the time of Saltergate's closure, the wall at the back of the terrace was the ground's oldest surviving feature, built by the council in return for the land needed to create Cross Street in 1921. To accommodate the new street, the pitch was moved around 6 metres closer to Saltergate as well as being levelled by more than a metre along its length. However, following this upheaval at the Cross Street End, the away terracing saw little change thereafter, though the original wooden crush barriers made way for metal ones around 1950.
in the FA Cup
5th Round in February 1938. The widely-held belief that the record attendance was set against Newcastle United
in April 1939 is discredited by the Football League's audited attendance for that game, which stands at 28,268 - though this does represent the grounds's highest league attendance.
According to the record books, a total of 3,159 first team matches were played at Saltergate, 1,827 of them league fixtures.
There are records of six cricket
matches involving teams called Derbyshire
or Chesterfield playing against the All-England Eleven
from 1858 to 1872. The first four of these would have been held at Chesterfield Cricket Club's first Recreation Ground site, 100 yards closer to the town; however Chesterfield Cricket Club played a United South of England Eleven
in September 1871 and an All-England Eleven in September 1872 after the move to the New Recreation Ground, Saltergate.
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
, founded in 1870, staged two first-class
matches at Saltergate. The first was a county match versus Lancashire
in August 1874, which was drawn after the final day was rained off. The other opponents were the United North of England Eleven
in August 1875, which the UNEE won by 90 runs. First-class cricket returned to Chesterfield in 1898 when Derbyshire began playing at the Queen's Park
ground which is still in use. This location has also been the home of Chesterfield Cricket Club since its departure from Saltergate.
The stadium was also used on occasion to host rugby matches, concerts and community events.
In the 2009 film, The Damned United
, Saltergate stood in for Wembley Stadium
, Carrow Road
, Bloomfield Road
and most prominently, Derby County
's Baseball Ground
(demolished in 2003). The ground was chosen because it had not had any significant modifications since the 1970s, though some repainting work was done by the production team to differentiate the grounds from each other. Saltergate's film role earnt the club added income of £50,000 in 2007-08.
Chesterfield F.C.
Chesterfield Football Club is an English football club based in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. The club currently plays in Football League One, the third tier of English football. Despite being the fourth oldest Football League club in England, they have spent most of their existence in the lower...
, and was in use from 1871 until the club's relocation in July 2010, a 139 year history that made it one of the oldest football grounds in England at the time of its closure. The name 'Saltergate' became predominant in popular usage from the 1920s.
The football stadium
Stadium
A modern stadium is a place or venue for outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.)Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event...
was located in the heart of Chesterfield
Chesterfield
Chesterfield is a market town and a borough of Derbyshire, England. It lies north of Derby, on a confluence of the rivers Rother and Hipper. Its population is 70,260 , making it Derbyshire's largest town...
town and tightly surrounded by housing. It underwent only limited additional development after a new main stand was opened in 1936. Although plans to develop the site were explored, the club's fans ultimately voted in favour of pursuing a new ground in a 2004 ballot, with the new site confirmed by a 2006 poll.
The final Chesterfield fixture at Saltergate, a Football League Two
Football League Two
Football League Two is the third-highest division of The Football League and fourth-highest division overall in the English football league system....
game against AFC Bournemouth, was held on 8 May 2010. From the 2010-11 season, the team switched to the new B2net Stadium located in the Whittington Moor area of the town. An October 2010 publication from the club, 'Saltergate Sunset' by Stuart Basson, chronicled the story of the ground.
1871-1920
In 1871, Chesterfield Football Club became a distinct entity from the Chesterfield Cricket Club, from which it was formed in the previous decade. Together, they took up the tenancy at the 'New Recreation Ground', Saltergate, located just 100 yards West of their previous home, and the ground was used for both sports for more than two decades. The site hosted its first game of football on 4 November 1871, with Rotherham providing the opposition in a 14-a-side match under Sheffield RulesSheffield Rules
The Sheffield Rules were a code of football devised and played in the English city of Sheffield between 1857 and 1877. They were devised by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest for use by the newly founded Sheffield Football Club. The rules were subsequently adopted as the official rules of...
. 11-a-side football was first played a few weeks later against the Sheffield F.A. team. A wooden pavillion was developed on the eastern side of the ground later in the 1870s but otherwise it remained simply an open field in this era. After the initial Chesterfield Football Club folded in 1881, a number of other local football teams used the pitch until the establishment of a second Chesterfield F.C. in 1884, later known as Chesterfield Town. The first recorded attendance, from Boxing Day
Boxing Day
Boxing Day is a bank or public holiday that occurs on 26 December, or the first or second weekday after Christmas Day, depending on national or regional laws. It is observed in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth nations. In Ireland, it is recognized as...
1889, put the crowd at 400 for a game against Sheffield Heeley Reserves. A small, uncovered grandstand with benched seating for around 400 was added early in the 1890s. With the football club steadily progressing toward employing its first semi-professional players, it was also able to take the cricket club's relocation in its stride during 1894, shouldering the full rent thereafter.
League football came to Saltergate in 1899 with Chesterfield Town's election to play in Division Two of the Football League. The club's step up necessitated remedial work on a pitch that sloped markedly from north to south, most notably the removal of a hill in the north west corner, the spoil from which was dumped at the Saltergate end. In addition, the grandstand was enlarged and roofed over, its capacity increasing to around 800 spectators. Fencing was erected on the Compton Street side to obscure the free view from adjacent back gardens (modest coverage later being added on this side). After a decade of financial struggle, other clubs who had invested in their stadia vied for an opening in the league and Chesterfield Town were voted out in 1909. In a bid to return, a running track was constructed around the perimeter, said to offer up to 10,000 fans a decent view, and a white picket fence was constructed around the pitch to replace the previous wire boundary. However, any ambitions proved short-lived. Faced with the abandonment of competitive football after the outbreak of the First World War the club was forced into voluntary liquidation in 1915. Sheep were the ground's likely main occupants until a new club was established in 1919 at the instigation of the local authority. A ground move to the Queen's Park
Queen's Park, Chesterfield
Queen's Park is a county cricket ground located in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England and lies within a park in the centre of the town established for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897...
Annexe also formed part of the vision, but never reached fruition.
1921-1939
The inter-war years represented Saltergate's main period of development.When Chesterfield F.C. became founder members of the new Third Division North in 1921, the ground saw a new spurt of improvements. According to club historian Stuart Basson:
"Ground development left the club with a tidy Main Stand that ran some three quarters of the pitch length and seated 1600, a roofed Popular Side and unovered ends. Terracing was made of cinder embankments, with a few wooden crush barriers walloped into the dirt at random-looking intervals. A wooden hut provided dressing room accomodation at the [northern] end of the stand."
In 1931, at a time of growing ambition for the club, terracing was cut into the cinder banking of the Kop and further earth removal from the Cross Street to Saltergate end was undertaken to level the pitch. In a successful push for promotion to the Second Division
Football League Second Division
From 1892 until 1992, the Football League Second Division was the second highest division overall in English football.This ended with the creation of the FA Premier League, prior to the start of the 1992–93 season, which caused an administrative split between The Football League and the teams...
in 1931-32, 20,092 fans crammed into the ground to see the home team overtake Lincoln City for the top spot.
In 1936, the club borrowed around £14,000 to fund the erection of a new brick and steel main stand by renowned Scottish architect Archibald Leitch
Archibald Leitch
Archibald "Offside Archie" Leitch was a Scottish architect, most famous for his work designing football stadia throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.-Early work:...
. Demolition of the old wood stand began at the close of the 1935-36 season, which again saw the club promoted to the Second Division. The official opening of the new stand came in November, with Sheffield United visiting for a league fixture and a new record of 26,519 paying for entry. With the completion of the new stand, all four sides of the ground had taken on an appearance that would still be recognisable at the time of its closure.
1940-1979
After the Second World War, the club faced a pressing need to raise funds to service the debt on the new stand and pay off the bank. Further ground development became somewhat limited as a result, though the club was still in a position to buy up several houses around the ground in the late 1940s. A move away from Saltergate was proposed again in 1949, this time to a site near Walton Hospital, but the council turned down the plan. Instead, the club made what was to be its final major investment in the ground prior to the millenium, engaging Leitch and Partners to renew all the ground's cinder terracing with concrete and install their patented crush barriers.With relegation in 1951, average gates took a heavy knock and the decline continued over the decade as success eluded the club, which finally dropped to the fourth tier of English football for the first time in 1961. However, modest ground improvements still advanced after fundraising efforts by fans which allowed the Kop to be roofed in the same year. Despite acquiring second-hand lights in 1963, boardroom prevarication meant that Saltergate was the final league ground in England to install floodlights
Floodlights (sport)
Floodlights are broad-beamed, high-intensity artificial lights often used to illuminate outdoor playing fields while an outdoor sports event is being held during low-light conditions....
, with Chesterfield's first home game under lights not being played until the 1967-1968 season.
In 1979, the centre section of the Compton Street Terrace was re-roofed and a wooden television gantry added, the only notable ground work in the decade.
1980 onwards - Stay or Go?
Financial problems in the early 1980s lead the board to again consider a ground move to the Queen's Park Annexe, previously entertained in 1920. In the aftermath of the 1985 Bradford City stadium fire and the general upgrading of football ground safety, a number of ground adaptations were undertaken, most notably the construction of a series of emergency exits from the main stand in the form of flights steps down to the pitch. Hundreds of seats also had to be removed to provide more gangways. The club was also ordered to install fencing around three sides of the pitch days before the start of the 1985-1986 season.The additional cost of further works gave added spur to the idea of a move, but the discovery of a covenant on the Annexe that forbade its use for professional sport put paid to the club's favoured relocation site toward the end of the decade, though not the idea itself. The board persisted in putting forward alternate locations throughout the nineties.
Talk of relocation dominated the 1994 AGM, with a sizeable group of supporters advocating the redevelopment of Saltergate, rather than its abandonment - including the Crooked Spireite fanzine. An early proposal showed a two tier kop, with smaller seated stands on the remaining three sides.
New plans for the club to leave Saltergate in favour of Wheeldon Mill emerged in October 1995 and were pursued avidly by Chairman Norton Lea in the face of substantial opposition. Though the scheme was blocked in 1998 when the Council refused planning permission, subsequent unsuccessful attempts were made to revive the move well into the next decade. Having received a dispensation from the upgrading requirements of the 1989 Taylor Report
Taylor Report
The Hillsborough Stadium Disaster Inquiry report, better known as the Taylor Report is a document, whose development was overseen by Lord Taylor of Gosforth, concerning the aftermath and causes of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. An interim report was published in August 1989, and the final...
based on relocation, the club was perpetually left without a plan B.
Thus, in late 2000, more than ten years after Taylor's report, the future of football at Saltergate became mired in crisis with three sides of the ground under threat of closure from the Football Licensing Authority
Football Licensing Authority
The Football Licensing Authority was an independent public body set up under the Football Spectators Act 1989 and funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport....
. This was narrowly averted by a further dispensation for two sides of the ground amid turbulent times for the club under the Chairmanship of Darren Brown.
Although 2001 saw a hastily organised fans group, the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society, replace Brown in controlling the club (he was later to be jailed for fraud), they faced a myriad of challenges related to ensuring Saltergate's future. It emerged that a debenture had been secured on the ground requiring that £200,000 be raised in just 3 weeks to fight off the threat of losing the stadium. Even with that met and the club in administration
Administration (British football)
Sports clubs in the United Kingdom, most often in football, sometimes choose to enter administration when they are unable to pay off outstanding debts. Under the Insolvency Act 1986 a business will face a winding up order bringing them to court and if it is shown that a business cannot pay debts as...
, much additional fundraising was required to address Saltergate's worst deficiencies. Thus, the ground saw a number of modest improvements at this time. Nevertheless, Saltergate remained an aged stadium lacking many of the modern facilities available to rival clubs who had relocated or redeveloped their existing grounds.
In 2004, members of the Chesterfield Football Supporters Society voted in favour of the club pursuing relocation. A further vote in 2006 saw more than 90% back a plan to switch to the site of the former Dema Glass factory, near the Chesterfield - Sheffield bypass
A61 road
The A61 is a major trunk road in England. It runs from Derby to Thirsk in North Yorkshire. From Derby, it heads north via Alfreton, Clay Cross, Chesterfield, Sheffield, Barnsley, Wakefield, Leeds, Harrogate and Ripon...
(Sheffield Road), around a mile from the town centre.
End of an Era
Thus, the 2009-10 season represented the club's last at Saltergate and its commercial department announced extensive plans to mark the 'End of an Era', including a book, DVD and end of season gala.For 8 May 2010, the date of the final game, Chesterfield Community Trust organised a number of events to celebrate the history of Saltergate and bid it farewell. A heritage project at The Pomegranate Theatre presented a visual history of the club's time at the ground, including match footage from 1923 and photos dating back to 1900. Former players, including Albert Collins of the 1945 Football League War Cup semi-final side, were also present to share their memories. Afterwards, a brass band led a parade up to the match along Chesterfield High Street, swelling to an estimated 2,000 people on arrival.
Chesterfield F.C.'s final league fixture at Saltergate ended in a dramatic 2-1 win against AFC Bournemouth following an injury time goal from Derek Niven
Derek Niven
Derek Niven is a professional footballer who plays for Northampton Town, on loan from Chesterfield. He previously played for Stenhousemuir, Raith Rovers and Bolton Wanderers.-Playing career:...
, the club's longest serving player. Following the goal, there was a brief and good-natured pitch invasion
Pitch invasion
A pitch invasion or field invasion, known as rushing the field in the United States, occurs when a crowd of people who are watching a sports game run onto the field, to celebrate or protest about an incident...
, which later attracted national media attention after footage of a disabled man rolling his wheelchair
Wheelchair
A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, designed to be a replacement for walking. The device comes in variations where it is propelled by motors or by the seated occupant turning the rear wheels by hand. Often there are handles behind the seat for someone else to do the pushing...
into the Bournemouth half attracted over 100,000 hits on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
.
In the weeks following the game, Saltergate hosted a series of final commemorative events, including an auction of fixtures and memorabilia that raised £20,000 for the club, ahead of the ground's scheduled demolition.
Two of the crush barriers from Saltergate became museum pieces at the National Football Museum
National Football Museum
The National Football Museum was a museum in Preston, Lancashire, England founded to preserve, conserve and interpret several important collections of association football memorabilia. It was built outside Deepdale, which as of 2010 is the oldest continuously used football league ground in the world...
in Preston and the Scottish Football Museum
Scottish Football Museum
The Scottish Football Museum is the Scottish Football Association's National Museum of football, located in Hampden Park in Glasgow.-The Museum:...
in Glasgow after the disused Compton Street-Cross Street corner terracing was found to include possibly the last-known examples of once commonplace barriers designed and patented in 1906 by Scottish engineer and football ground designer Archibald Leitch. These were donated by the club to the museums after the final fixture.
In July 2010, the club announced that, following its departure from Saltergate, the ground would continue in use by the Chesterfield FC Community Trust for its Saturday Morning Club and Summer holiday Soccer Camp 'for the foreseeable future'. This community use was discontinued at the start of 2011.
On 31 May 2011, outline proposals for the development of up to 68 houses at the site were unanimously approved by Chesterfield Borough Council's planning committee. With planning permission obtained, the four-and-a-half acre site was put up for sale by the club in October 2011; meanwhile supporters began a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Group calling for the streets in any future development to be named after former Chesterfield players.
Structure and facilities
At the time of its closure, the four sides of the stadium were: The Main Stand, which was all-seated and contained an area designated as the Family Stand; The Spion Kop - the main terrace - known as The Karen Child Kop from 2008 for sponsorship reasons; The Compton Street stand, running the full length of the pitch opposite the Main Stand; and the Cross Street Terrace, an open terrace where away fans usually stood.The Main Stand
The covered Main Stand was opened in 1936 and was built at a cost of £14,000. In this era, the stand had 2 tiers, the bottom level being terracing, but this was taken out of use in the late 20th century.For the 2009-10 season it accommodated 2000 home supporters plus 450 seats for away fans. The stand was unusual, when viewed from aerial shot, in having an slight bend just to the right of halfway. In its later incarnation, it was also unusual in having its seating area raised above the pitch with a number of stair wells at the front of the stand leading up to the seats. There were also a number of supporting pillars in the stand which gave many seats a restricted view.
In its later years, the badly peeling paint and rusted exterior of the stand frequently attracted the derison of rival supporters.
Since the design and appearance of the stand were similar that which stood at Derby County
Derby County F.C.
Derby County Football Club is an English football based in Derby. the club play in the Football League Championship and is notable as being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888 and is, therefore, one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English...
's now demolished Baseball Ground
Baseball Ground
The Baseball Ground was a stadium in Derby, England. It was first used for baseball as the home of Derby County Baseball Club from 1890 until 1898 and then for football as the home of Derby County from 1895 until 1997. It was commonly referred to as the "BBG".As the name suggests, the stadium was...
(by the same architect), the Saltergate structure was used to depict it in the 2009 film The Damned United
The Damned United
The Damned United is a 2009 British sports drama film directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace's bestselling novel The Damned Utd, a largely fictional book based on the author's interpretation of Brian Clough's tenure as manager of Leeds United...
, set in the 1970s.
The Kop (Saltergate end)
The Kop was the main terrace, accessed via turnstiles on Saltergate, the street which gives rise the ground's popular name. As the area behind the goal, it tended to attract the club's most vocal standing support. For the 2009-10 season, its capacity was approximately 2000.As with many Victorian era football facilities, the Saltergate end of the ground spent many years as little more than a sloping mound. In the early 1920s, the construction of Cross Street at the opposite end of the ground led to earth and remnants of the cinder running track being used to build up the banking of the Kop. Terraced steps were cut into the cinder in the summer of 1931. At the turn of the 1950s, this was replaced by concrete terracing, cut to go below pitch level. Metal crush barriers were also fitted, replacing the old wooden ones. The Kop was roofed in 1960, paid for entirely by fundraising by the supporters club.
In December 2000, The Kop was closed for the remainder of the season on orders of the Football Licensing Authority
Football Licensing Authority
The Football Licensing Authority was an independent public body set up under the Football Spectators Act 1989 and funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport....
and a major upgrading effort became one of the many summer challenges facing the fans who had taken over the club. Commencing at the start of July, a complete renewal of terracing work was completed in just 7 weeks.
Of the four sides of the ground, the Kop offered the most potential for redevelopment because of a relative abundance of space and was thus the focal point of all plans drawn up to keep the club at its historic home. 2002 architect plans envisaged a mix of seating and standing for a revamped Saltergate end.
In the absence of any such redevelopment, The Kop saw only a change of sponsorship in its closing years, becoming 'The Karen Child Kop' through a £20,000 deal with a local lottery winner.
Fans standing on the Kop for Saltergate's final fixture were experiencing not just their last game at the ground, but also their last opportunity to watch a Chesterfield home game from terracing
Terrace (stadium)
A terrace or terracing in sporting terms refers to the traditional standing area of a sports stadium, particularly in the United Kingdom and Ireland...
, the new stadium being all-seater
All-seater stadium
An all-seater stadium is a sports stadium in which every spectator has a seat. This is commonplace in football stadiums in nations such as the United Kingdom, Spain, and the Netherlands. Most soccer and American football stadiums in the United States and Canada are all-seaters, as are most baseball...
.
Compton Street (Pop Side)
The Cross Street End (away)
Away fans were primarily housed in the Cross Street Terrace at one end of the ground, where 1,400 fans could be accommodated. This area was uncovered and open to the elements. This part of the ground also had work done on it in 2002.At the time of Saltergate's closure, the wall at the back of the terrace was the ground's oldest surviving feature, built by the council in return for the land needed to create Cross Street in 1921. To accommodate the new street, the pitch was moved around 6 metres closer to Saltergate as well as being levelled by more than a metre along its length. However, following this upheaval at the Cross Street End, the away terracing saw little change thereafter, though the original wooden crush barriers made way for metal ones around 1950.
Records and statistics
Saltergate's record attendance was 30,561, which was set when Chesterfield hosted Tottenham HostpurTottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
in the FA Cup
FA Cup
The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football and is the oldest association football competition in the world. The "FA Cup" is run by and named after The Football Association and usually refers to the English men's...
5th Round in February 1938. The widely-held belief that the record attendance was set against Newcastle United
Newcastle United F.C.
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since the merger...
in April 1939 is discredited by the Football League's audited attendance for that game, which stands at 28,268 - though this does represent the grounds's highest league attendance.
According to the record books, a total of 3,159 first team matches were played at Saltergate, 1,827 of them league fixtures.
Cricket and other uses
Saltergate was also home to Chesterfield Cricket Club from 1871 to 1894.There are records of six cricket
Cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
matches involving teams called Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
or Chesterfield playing against the All-England Eleven
All-England Eleven
In cricket, the term All-England has been used for various non-international teams that have been formed for short-term purposes since the 1739 English cricket season and it indicates that the "Rest of England" is playing against, say, MCC or an individual county team...
from 1858 to 1872. The first four of these would have been held at Chesterfield Cricket Club's first Recreation Ground site, 100 yards closer to the town; however Chesterfield Cricket Club played a United South of England Eleven
United South of England Eleven
The United South of England Eleven was an itinerant cricket team founded in November 1864 by Edgar Willsher, as secretary, and John Lillywhite, as treasurer....
in September 1871 and an All-England Eleven in September 1872 after the move to the New Recreation Ground, Saltergate.
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club
Derbyshire County Cricket Club is one of the 18 major county clubs which make up the England and Wales domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Derbyshire...
, founded in 1870, staged two first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
matches at Saltergate. The first was a county match versus Lancashire
Lancashire County Cricket Club
Lancashire County Cricket Club represents the historic county of Lancashire in cricket's County Championship. The club was founded in 1864 as a successor to Manchester Cricket Club and has played at Old Trafford since then...
in August 1874, which was drawn after the final day was rained off. The other opponents were the United North of England Eleven
United North of England Eleven
The United North of England Eleven was an itinerant cricket team founded in 1869 by George Freeman and Roger Iddison with the backing of Lord Londesborough who became the team's president. As its name suggests, its purpose was to bring together the best players of England's northern counties and...
in August 1875, which the UNEE won by 90 runs. First-class cricket returned to Chesterfield in 1898 when Derbyshire began playing at the Queen's Park
Queen's Park, Chesterfield
Queen's Park is a county cricket ground located in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, England and lies within a park in the centre of the town established for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897...
ground which is still in use. This location has also been the home of Chesterfield Cricket Club since its departure from Saltergate.
The stadium was also used on occasion to host rugby matches, concerts and community events.
In the 2009 film, The Damned United
The Damned United
The Damned United is a 2009 British sports drama film directed by Tom Hooper and adapted by Peter Morgan from David Peace's bestselling novel The Damned Utd, a largely fictional book based on the author's interpretation of Brian Clough's tenure as manager of Leeds United...
, Saltergate stood in for Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium
The original Wembley Stadium, officially known as the Empire Stadium, was a football stadium in Wembley, a suburb of north-west London, standing on the site now occupied by the new Wembley Stadium that opened in 2007...
, Carrow Road
Carrow Road
Carrow Road is a football stadium in Norwich, England, and is the home of Norwich City Football Club. The stadium is located toward the easterly end of the city, not far from Norwich railway station and the River Wensum....
, Bloomfield Road
Bloomfield Road
Bloomfield Road is an all-seater football stadium in the English town of Blackpool, Lancashire. It has been the permanent home of Blackpool F.C. since 1901 and is named after the road on which the stadium's main entrance used to stand. The stadium has been in a process of redevelopment since 2000...
and most prominently, Derby County
Derby County F.C.
Derby County Football Club is an English football based in Derby. the club play in the Football League Championship and is notable as being one of the twelve founder members of the Football League in 1888 and is, therefore, one of only ten clubs to have competed in every season of the English...
's Baseball Ground
Baseball Ground
The Baseball Ground was a stadium in Derby, England. It was first used for baseball as the home of Derby County Baseball Club from 1890 until 1898 and then for football as the home of Derby County from 1895 until 1997. It was commonly referred to as the "BBG".As the name suggests, the stadium was...
(demolished in 2003). The ground was chosen because it had not had any significant modifications since the 1970s, though some repainting work was done by the production team to differentiate the grounds from each other. Saltergate's film role earnt the club added income of £50,000 in 2007-08.