Most Famous Stadiums in the United Kingdom
Owing to the popularity of English football around the globe, nearly every single stadium found within the United Kingdom is famous to some degree. This makes putting together a list of the most famous stadiums in the UK somewhat difficult. However, if you watch English football, you are guaranteed to have heard of at least some of these.
General management of the stadiums
Running a stadium in the United Kingdom isn’t going to be cheap. Most stadiums are being used every couple of weeks, which means that a lot of work needs to be put into it to ensure its maintenance.
Clubs will make money from the stadium in a multitude of ways. You have the obvious methods such as the sale of merchandise and ticket sales, but there are other ways in which the team will make money too.
A lot of clubs get a sizeable amount of cash from sponsorship, e.g. they may sell the naming rights to the stadium. There may also be sponsors on the kits of the players. In fact, there will be sponsorship just about everywhere in the ground, some not quite as obvious as you may think.
In addition to this, there will often be parts of the stadium leased out to various companies. For example; a lot of stadiums nowadays have betting companies located on site, or at least advertising there, because what they are doing goes hand in hand with the event- After all, a lot of people are going to want to bet on the sport, so it is good to have these companies within easy reach. This is going to deliver a rather sizeable amount of cash into the pockets of the club, which means that it is going to be a little easier for them to fund the maintenance of their stadium and ensure that everything is in perfect condition.
Our Teams
Wigan Athletic / Football Club
Wigan Athletic is probably one of the newer teams in the football league. This is because they weren’t formed until 1932, although at that time they were formed out of the recent defunct Wigan Borough. It really took a while for the team to get going, though. The football league wasn’t a fan of them joining up with the team receiving zero votes for membership, and Cheshire County League continued to reject them until a team resigned which left a hole that Wigan Athletic was more than happy to fill.
Wigan Warriors / Rugby Club
Wigan Warriors are a professional rugby league club. They currently share the JJB Stadium with Wigan Athletic, a professional football club currently playing in the Championship. Wigan Warriors began its life as Wigan Football club back in 1872. It was then, a few members of Wigan Cricket Club decided to start a new team. Their first competitive match took place in 1873 against Warrington. The league that the club was in saw a lot of success.
History of DW / JJB Stadium
The JJB Stadium, also known as the DW Stadium, is one of the newer stadiums in the English Football League, having been completed and opened in 1999.
With the closure of Springfield Park to make way for a housing estate and a stadium where Wigan Athletic had been playing for almost a century, the club needed a new place to play. Architect Alfred McAlpine was contracted to design the stadium, with completion occurring in 1999.
The first match to be held at the JJB Stadium was Wigan Athletic v Morecambe, although this was before the official stadium’s opening. The first official match was Wigan Athletic v Manchester United. This was a huge match at the time as Manchester United were fresh off winning the treble, and Wigan Athletic was very much a lower league team at the time. After these two friendlies, the first competitive match at the JJB Stadium was a second division match against Scunthorpe United. This saw a 3-0 victory for Wigan, which would kick-start the success that they would see at the JJB Stadium.
At the time of the JJB Stadium opening, Wigan Warriors were also looking for a new stadium. They had recently had Central Park, the stadium they had been playing at for almost a century, sold from underneath them. While the original plan was for them to ground share with Bolton Wanderers, it was eventually decided that keeping Wigan Warriors within Wigan would be the best bet.
Interestingly, the JJB Stadium has a ‘unique’ record. The first away team to ever win a match at the stadium is the team that called it their home (Wigan Athletic). This is because Wigan Athletic was matched against Cambridge City in the FA Cup. It was decided that Cambridge City’s stadium was not good enough to host an FA Cup game, so it was moved to the JJB Stadium. This meant that technically, Wigan Athletic was still the away team for the event. Wigan ended up winning this match 2-0, although they were knocked out of the competition just one round later, also at their stadium.
The first team to win a league fixture at the stadium occurred on the 7th January 2000. Oldham Athletic beat Wigan Athletic 1-0, with the goal coming within the final few minutes of the game.
Within a few years or so or opening up, one team playing at the JJB Stadium decided to call it a day. Orrell R.U.F.C. was a rugby project which was taking up a lot of money to very little success. The aim was to get the rugby team to the Rugby Union Premiership, but this was something that did not seem to be happening at all, either fast or slow. In 2004, the club had most of its funding removed by Dave Whelan, who decided that he was not getting enough of a return on the investment that he had made into the team. This completely eliminated most of the income that the club had. By the end of 2006, they lost their professional status as a team and left the JJB Stadium for good.
Of course, the other teams playing at the JJB Stadium achieved a lot of success. Wigan Athletic, in particular. They were lucky enough to climb to the top of the football pyramid in England, offering regular Premier League football at the stadium, and becoming somewhat of a yo-yo club.
In 2005, there was the possibility that the stadium would be unable to host any football matches. This was due to a dispute with the police. In England, it is a legal requirement to pay the police to attend your football matches to help to control the crowd. However, the bill for the police had not been paid. If the dispute had not been settled, then the stadium’s safety certificate would have been revoked, which would have resulted in no matches being able to be played at the JJB Stadium. It is unknown where the matches would have taken place if it came to this.
It was in March 2009 that the stadium was renamed the JJB Stadium after Dave Whelan purchased JJB and thought that it would make ideal cross-promotion. At the same time, Dave Whelan passed ownership of the stadium to the Wigan Athletic team (it had been owned by him personally before). The lease for Wigan Warriors to continue to play at the stadium was also increased by 50 years, and the teams that played at the stadium were allowed to rename one stand each.
More about the stadium
The whole pitch used to be natural grass, but every year the technical area and the warm-up area on the shaded side of the stadium used to wear immensely
Ian Forshaw
Head Groundsman at the DW Stadium / JJB Stadium
The atmosphere at the DW Stadium is what makes the games I think. What the fans bring to the game is massive for us. Form can go out of the window when you can ride that emotional side of things.
Sean O'Loughlin
Wigan Warriors Loose forward & Club captain
The experience at and atmosphere at the DW stadium has been
Reece James
great for me.
20 years old Wigan Athletic full back