Wilderbeeste
Not something many of us would enjoy contemplating Wilderbeeste, and we can quite understand why you would feel so sentimental towards
Field Mill Saltergate. Surely they could have at least retained the floodlights, rahther than putting in new streetlighting
While I'd nostalgically like to see all old grounds mothballed in the hope that future circumstances might contrive to breathe new life into them, I also realise that's just not feasible.
But is there a need to destroy every last vestige of these grounds previous sporting life ? Of course most ramshackle old stadiums don't possess an Art Deco frontage like Highbury, and so making a purely architectural case for it being spared the wrecking ball is less easy.
Middlesbroughs old football ground Ayresome Park was demolished in 1997 and a housing estate built on the site. A penalty spot is marked by a bronze football on a road called “The Midfield".
So why not have a few small reminders of the place's previous life rather than obliterating it completely. Admittedly a few ankles will be broken when dog owners trip over that bronze football during 'walkies' on dark evenings, but what a small price to pay.
' Ask Rob Nichols what he thinks of his two-bedroom home - Number Three, The Turnstile, Middlesbrough - and he's not just delighted with it, he's over the moon. Why? Because it stands on roughly the same spot which for 93 years was occupied by one of the corner flags at Ayresome Park, erstwhile home of Middlesbrough Football Club. And Rob is not only a Boro fanatic (travelling to every game, home and away), he is also the editor of the club's fanzine, Fly Me to the Moon.
"I started coming to Ayresome Park when I was 11," says Rob, now 41. "My dad brought me here to start with. Then I used to come on my own and stand in the Boys' Enclosure for 50p. Later, I went and stood at the Holgate End, where all the chanting was."
Today, of course, it's all gone. In 1995 the club moved to the glamorous, new Riverside Stadium, and Ayresome Park was demolished to make way for a 60-home Wimpey development - with Rob first in the queue to buy.
It is not just Rob who feels sentimental about the place - as fellow resident Angela Chappell discovered the day she found half the North Korean 1966 World Cup squad outside her front door, singing their national anthem.
"It was clearly a very emotional moment," says Angela. "Some of them were in tears."
The reason they had chosen Number 10 Holgate Close for their reunion was a little, cast-iron "mound of earth" embedded in the front garden. This unusual sculpture, dotted with symbolic stud marks, marks the spot from which Korean striker Pak Doo Ik scored the goal which sensationally defeated mighty Italy, all those years ago'.
www.telegraph.co.uk/property/newhomes/3324827/Pitch-invasion.htmlSo I would have no fear Wilderbeeste. I'm sure there will be a Labour local authority in Chesterfield with all sorts of grand schemes in place to honour the working class tradition and the spiritual home of the game of the masses. Stipulations such as every house having to be painted blue and white will only be the start of it. Get your name down for No.9 Ernie Moss Drive straight away.
