Lost League Football Grounds 2nd edition (Hardcover)

Like railways, football is a national passion that inspires nostalgia and friendships, and many will be pleased to see the long-awaited second edition of Lost League Football Grounds. Fields of dreams, theatres of football, whatever you wish to call them, football grounds are saturated with memories and hopes - and the new revamped, re-illustrated and completely revised edition brings some of these flooding back across the years. In the three decades since the Bradford City fire and the Hillsborough Disaster, more than a third of all teams currently playing in the top four divisions of English football have relocated and this is a process that is still continuing. Several clubs have moved grounds since the previous edition, (West Ham United, Morecambe, Barnet, Chesterfield, Rotherham and Brighton & Hove Albion) and there others currently waiting to open, under construction or at an advanced planning stage. The rapid changes in the face of football in the last two decades saw the disappearance of some of the most famous grounds in the country - such as Highbury (Arsenal), Ninian Park (Cardiff), Maine Road (Manchester City), Ayresome Park (Middlesbrough), Roker Park (Sunderland), Leeds Road (Huddersfield Town) and Upton Park (Wesh Ham). Most of the 'lost' grounds have been demolished with virtually no trace of the original ground left whilst others survived for a period in some form of half-life, being used for example for reserve team matches. But even these have for the most part now disappeared as well. In addition to those clubs that have relocated but still survive in the leagues in England, there are many clubs that were once part of the league structure - such as Bradford Park Avenue and Newport County - that have disappeared or been reborn at a much lower level in the football pyramid, often at grounds that have never seen league football.