Riverside Stadium

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This article is about a football ground. For the baseball stadium now under a different name, see Commerce Bank Park. For the cricket ground, see Riverside Ground.

Riverside Stadium
Riverside Stadium entrance gates
Full name	Riverside Stadium
Location	Middlesbrough, England
Built	1994
Opened	August 26, 1995
Owner	Middlesbrough F.C.
Operator	Middlesbrough F.C.
Surface	Grass
Construction cost	£16 million^[1]
Tenants	Middlesbrough F.C. (1995–present)
Capacity	35,100^[2]
Field dimensions	105 x 69 m

The Riverside Stadium is a football stadium in Middlesbrough, England, which has been the home of Middlesbrough F.C. since it opened in 1995. Its current capacity is 35,100^[2] all seated, although there is provisional planning permission in place to expand that to 42,000 if required.^[1]. It was the first stadium designed and constructed to comply with the Taylor Report and, at the time, was the biggest new arena to be built in England since World War II.

1 History
- 1.1 International matches
2 Details
- 2.1 Records
- 2.2 Average Attendances
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] History

The stadium was built to replace Ayresome Park after the Taylor Report, which required all top division football stadia to be all-seater. Middlesbrough were unable to expand the current stadium outwards owing to its location in a residential area, and expanding the stadium upwards would have limited the club to a capacity of 20,000 seats. The decision was taken by club officials to build a new stadium; Teesside Development Corporation offered them the Middlehaven site by the River Tees for development.

The new stadium was constructed by Taylor Woodrow Construction^[2] with a 30,000 capacity for a modest £16 million, and took only 32 weeks to complete. The name of the stadium was chosen by the club's fans, following a vote during the final game at Ayresome Park. The other choices available were Middlehaven Stadium, Erimus Stadium and Teesside Stadium. When first opened, the name was amended to Cellnet Riverside Stadium (and then BT Cellnet Riverside Stadium) as part of a £3 million sponsorship deal with Cellnet, but this deal ended after the 2001-02 season^[3].

The first game was played against Chelsea in front of a 28,286 crowd (the highest home attendance in 14 years) on August 26, 1995^[4]. Middlesbrough won the game 2–0, with Craig Hignett taking the honour of scoring the first ever goal at the stadium, Jan Åge Fjørtoft scoring the second.

In 2005 the club resurrected the old Ayresome Park gates which had been famously locked when the club went in to liquidation. They were erected outside the Riverside Stadium as a new entrance, a reminder of the past. The club have the Council's permission to extend the capacity by another 7,000 if demand made it necessary.

[edit] International matches

Like its predecessor Ayresome Park, the Riverside Stadium has played host to international football. During the construction of the new Wembley Stadium, the England national football team toured the country, playing at varying grounds. The Riverside was chosen to host the Euro 2004 qualifying match against Slovakia on 30 June 2003.^[5] England won the match 2–1 with a brace from Michael Owen after Vladimir Janočko had put Slovakia ahead. The match is also noteable for pitting Middlesbrough's England defender Gareth Southgate against their own Slovakian striker at the time, Szilárd Németh.^[6]

Date		Result		Competition
31 August 2000	England	6–1	Georgia	Under-21 Friendly
4 September 2001	England	5–0	Albania	2002 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship qualification
30 June 2003	England	2–1	Slovenia	2004 UEFA European Football Championship qualification
7 August 2004	England	3–1	Ukraine	Under-21 Friendly
29 March 2005	England	2–0	Azerbaijan	2006 UEFA European Under-21 Football Championship qualification