How Middlesbrough's Ground Move Changed English Football
With Everton preparing to move out of Goodison Park at the end of this season, the Premier League welcomes another new stadium to its increasing history.
Whilst ground moves have become commonplace over time, one club started it all in 1995, and has set the template for every new build since.
This is how a corner of Teesside became Britain’s football phenomenon in the mid-90s, and how the Riverside Stadium forever altered the course of history.
The Background
Middlesbrough had played at Ayresome Park since 1903, with the first 27 years of their existence found bouncing between several venues including the local Cricket Club.
In that time, it became one of the UK’s most historic football stadia.
A grand total of 53,802 crammed into the venue to see a local derby against Newcastle in 1949, and the club spent 47 seasons in the top division of English football whilst there.
Arguably the pinnacle came when the ground was chosen as North Korea’s base for the 1966 FIFA World Cup, hosting all three of their matches including their famous victory over Italy.
However, it was renowned for being both intimidating and, compared to its peers, relatively antiquated. The ground’s charm came with its old terraced bankings, iconic red rooftops and urban locale within a housing estate.
But, over time, the barbed wire fences and ramshackle turnstiles were at odds with an increasing gentrification of the game.
In 1986, Middlesbrough were on the brink of being kicked out of their own home. A mass of debts meant a brief, one-game groundshare with Hartlepool was necessary, and the club very nearly went under altogether.
By then, the side were in the third tier, and a last-minute takeover deal saw them continue to exist. What they weren’t to know was how one event would have such huge consequences for the club.
The Taylor Report
In 1989, an event took place at Hillsborough that changed the face of football forever.
One of the many fallouts from the tragedy was a renewed focus on updating the infrastructure of stadiums across the country.
Lord Justice Taylor, a future Lord Chief Justice and influential legal professional, was appointed by the then-Conservative government to undertake a widescale inquiry into improvements to the game.
Suddenly, every ground in the country was required to have all-seating sections, of which expansion was limited in the urban sprawl of Ayresome Park.
It was decided only one thing could advance Middlesbrough as the 1990s dawned: a new stadium.
Plans were drawn up as early as 1993, but the Riverside Stadium – as it came to be called – was not opened until 26 August 1995.
Fittingly, the final ever game Boro played at the old venue secured them the Division One title, beating Luton Town 2-1.
Now, Middlesbrough would begin life at the Riverside as a Premier League club.
It was the first time any top-tier club had relocated since 1923, when Manchester City moved into Maine Road.
There was to be one last hurrah for Ayresome, however: the gates of the original ground were eventually placed at the entrance to the new stadium.
The Riverside
Middlesbrough’s first 10 years at their new venue were arguably the most successful of the club’s history.
The club reached two successive League Cup Finals and an FA Cup Final in the space of one year, losing each time.
By 2004, they had finally won the elusive League Cup with victory against Bolton Wanderers at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.
The finest hour undoubtedly came during the European odyssey of 2005/06, where Steve McClaren managed his side all the way to a UEFA Cup Final.
The backbone to all of this was the new stadium, and how Middlesbrough were pioneering the modern club game.
Ayresome Park had a maximum capacity of 26,667 upon its closure, whereas the Riverside had the potential for around 4,000 more, later going as far 8,000.
As mentioned earlier, they were inches from bankruptcy in 1986. Nine years later, they were able to spend a combined £10 million on new arrivals Nick Barmby and Juninho.
The cashflow garnered from the bolstered attendances, aided by a sponsorship deal with BT Cellnet (now O2), meant that the side improved both on-pitch and financially.
There was even a bit of broadcasting history made, as Boro TV first launched onto digital satellite in 1997, predating even MUTV from Manchester United and becoming the first club-specific sports channel in the UK.
Many look back at this era – the likes of Emerson, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Bryan Robson, Craig Hignett, Andy Townsend and Paul Merson – as something approaching a golden age.
Furthermore, it wasn’t just Middlesbrough who were gracing the newly-unwrapped facility.
England played Slovakia in a Euro 2004 Qualifier in June 2003, and several national team under-21 matches were held there before the Three Lions returned for two international matches ahead of Euro 2020.
It was used during the 2012 Olympic Games for two warm-up games with Team GB, and was also one of the staging posts of the 2022 Arnold Clark Cup, a competition eventually won by England’s Lionesses.
Later, the 2022 Rugby League World Cup clash between Tonga and the Cook Islands was played there, and there have been five concerts at the venue since 2019; Take That, Rick Astley, The Killers and the Arctic Monkeys among those to perform.
Just two years after the decision, local rivals Sunderland made a similar move from Roker Park to the all-new Stadium of Light.
Before long, similar all-seaters sprung up in Coventry, Southampton, Huddersfield, Leicester and Hull, among others.
Other clubs now wanted a piece of the pie that Middlesbrough had uncovered, with the potential for greater revenue from external events and a less enclosed space on the outskirts of the city, and were eagerly pursuing the same success.
The Boro may have not returned to the Premier League since 2017, but they have certainly innovated fiscally.
The Conclusion
Middlesbrough’s move was seen as revolutionary, even groundbreaking, when it was announced in the mid-1990s. But, as another momentous moment occurs in Merseyside this May, it is even more prophetic now.
It would have been unthinkable for a club of Everton’s stature to move ground when Middlesbrough did so.
The success of what happened on Teesside proved that a club can uproot itself to become a more viable product – just look at the success of Brighton and Brentford over the past fifteen years or so.
Loyalists will argue the Riverside has never matched the atmosphere and surroundings that Ayresome Park provided.
But what cannot be argued is how Middlesbrough provided the manual for a club to become more ambitious, and how history does not always have to be wiped out for progress.
The club went hosting Darlington and Chester to Roma and Stuttgart within 20 years, and the Riverside was the ultimate symbol of this evolution.