Rising high above a stretch of the River Thames familiar to millions around the world thanks to the annual Boat Race, Fulham’s new Riverside Stand is already a worthy addition to the London skyline.
Who says so? Simon Inglis, the UK’s foremost stadium expert and author of the seminal book on the subject, The Football Grounds of England and Wales, the first edition of which was published in 1983.
“I personally think it’s the best football stand of the 21st century,” he says. “You immediately think, ‘Wow, an architect has been involved in this’. I love the way the roof cantilevers over, almost like a giant wing. And how it’s beautifully articulated round the back, near the river.
“It is somewhere with the potential to be a real iconic London landmark. At the same time, I’d say it has a bold and quite American approach to it. Very shiny black cladding, which you could say makes it rather resemble a funeral parlour.
“But it fits in with Fulham, playing in black and white.”
Fulham’s new Riverside Stand – a London landmark? (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
Inglis also approves of how the £100million development, which will fully open in 2025, has further opened up the north bank of the river in west London, with the public now able to walk behind the new stand. Previously, those following the ‘Thames Path’ from Hammersmith had to cut inland along Stevenage Road to navigate Fulham’s home before returning to the water’s edge in Bishop’s Park.
“It was one of the great things they did at Arsenal,” he adds about the Emirates Stadium, which opened in 2006. “Rather than create a ring that is impermeable at all times other than match days, you open up vistas and pathways that are useful on a seven-days-per-week basis.
“That way, you make the stadium part of the community.”
Fulham’s new Riverside Stand might not, of course, be to everyone’s taste. Others may prefer a more traditional look, such as the Archibald Leitch-designed stand, complete with the adjoining Craven Cottage, that sits directly across Fulham’s pitch from this gleaming, new addition to the capital’s skyline.
Then, there’s Liverpool’s rebuilt Kop or maybe the single-tier South Stand at Tottenham Hotspur’s still newish home that is designed to emulate the famous Yellow Wall at Borussia Dortmund.
Tottenham’s new stadium opened in 2019 (Tottenham Hotspur FC/Getty Images)
Either way, what surely isn’t in doubt is Inglis’ standing as the leading authority on the development of stadium design.
Having effectively invented the genre with his groundbreaking book, he went on to help formulate football’s response to the safety overhaul demanded six years later by the Hillsborough tragedy that claimed 97 lives.
Inglis was the only member to serve on both the Football Stadia Advisory Council and the Football Licensing Authority committees, while he also became editor of The Guide to Safety at Sports Grounds, often referred to as The Green Guide, effectively the safety blueprint for clubs.
Quite the CV for a man who initially saw combining his twin passions of football and architecture as little more than a sideline in a wider writing career that at the time included working for The Guardian and Radio Times.
“To make a living out of football grounds all these years later still strikes me as slightly bizarre,” adds the lifelong Aston Villa fan. “I often liken myself to an actor who got a small part on EastEnders but will be forever remembered for that, no matter what else they do in their career.
“I’ll still be the person who wrote the ‘Football Grounds’ book.”
A selection of Simon Inglis’ stadium-related work (Richard Sutcliffe)
Inglis’ sharp eye for detail and ability to unearth facts that had lay buried for decades, together with a writing style that brought to life what in someone else’s hands could have been the rather dry subject matter of cantilevered stands and red-brick facades, turned the 1983 book into an instant classic.
Having captured a world that, unbeknown even to the author, was about to disappear for good, Inglis wrote two further editions in 1987 and 1996. This means the ‘Football Grounds’ series effectively chronicles the shift from decades of neglect and complacency through to the building boom that followed the Taylor Report into the Hillsborough disaster.
He also turned Leitch, a long-forgotten Scottish engineer who helped design nearly 30 football grounds in the early 20th century, into such a cult figure that two of his stands — Fulham’s Stevenage Road and the South Stand at Ibrox — were later granted listed status.
In between the first and second editions came the 1985 Valley Parade fire, where 56 people lost their lives and another 200 were seriously injured as Bradford City’s wooden main stand was engulfed in flames.
Suddenly, a niche topic had become a deadly serious business and Inglis was called as a witness to the Popplewell Inquiry that was later extended to investigate the Heysel disaster that saw 39 Juventus fans killed less than three weeks after Bradford.
Ibrox, south stand nearside, as seen in 1960 (Daily Record/Getty Images)
“Most clubs snubbed me,” he says about the intense 7,000-mile research trip that went into the first edition of ‘Football Grounds’, including hour upon hour spent studying local newspaper archives in public libraries.
“I’d be left in a waiting room for two hours to talk to a club secretary, who would then welcome me with, ‘So, what’s this all about?’ To my absolute dismay, I found how little the people who ran clubs knew about the design of football grounds and how little they cared.
“They saw architects as a dangerous species, waiting to rob them of their profits. On top of that, the fans themselves weren’t, at that stage, demanding anything more, even if attendances were falling.
“Football was in a dire place during the Eighties.”
As the finishing touches are put to Everton’s impressive new home on the Merseyside waterfront and debate continues to rage over the future of Old Trafford, it is clear football stadium design has come a long way.
Giant, sweeping terraces were the most common feature of the first wave of grounds because they were cheap to build and capable of packing in as many people as possible. There was little in the way of facilities, even at the very best grounds, with Wembley barely more than a concrete bowl when first opened in 1923.
Young Everton fans take position on the terraces at Goodison Park (Liverpool Echo/Getty Images)
Later, toilets and concourses for people to buy food or drink would become more familiar features, along with maybe a roof to keep the punters dry. But this was still as good as things had got when Inglis started his early-Eighties travels around grounds invariably hemmed in by housing and industry due to being built in a bygone age when supporters had walked to the match.
“Apart from the main stand at Villa Park (Trinity Road),” he says, “I wasn’t looking at any decent architecture. There were bits here and there, such as a new stand at Coventry that was interesting.
“But, on the whole, you were looking at the architecture of neglect and convenience and economy. Very little to enjoy visually, yet somehow you stepped inside these grounds and were transported into this different world.”
Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, as seen in 1988 (Ben Radford/Getty Images)
These grand, old football grounds may have had that transformative effect. But they were far from safe, as a depressing rollcall of disasters to befall the game underlines with 33 fans crushed to death at Bolton Wanderers in 1946 and another 66 at Ibrox 25 years later.
British football’s death toll could have been a lot higher with umpteen near misses down the years, including more than 30 fans hospitalised at Leeds United’s Elland Road after a crush barrier gave way in 1967.
Only after the 1989 disaster at Hillsborough, where eight years earlier 38 Tottenham fans had been left with an assortment of injuries including broken arms and ribs in a crush at another FA Cup semi-final, did things finally change.
“Up to 1990, there was no stadium industry,” says Inglis. “No platform for people to share their best practice. All very hit and miss, a time when most football clubs employed the local builder or architect. Or got a friend of the chairman to do the design work.
“Breaking away from that mould was key. We maintained a British approach to the problem and that resulted, on the whole, in functional stadiums in areas where stadiums should be built.
“We didn’t adopt the American model (by building out-of-town stadia) or even the Italian model from (World Cup) 1990, which was to bring in signature architects and let them massage their ego with a stadium that all the architectural critics will rave over but those using it won’t agree.”
Derby County’s Baseball Ground, sandwiched between industry and housing (English Heritage/Getty Images)
Inglis played his part in English football’s journey from the nadir of Hillsborough. After joining architects, engineers, civil servants and safety experts as well as the emergency services on the two committees set up to lead the required change, he then put together the revised version of the Green Guide, which had first been published in response to the Ibrox disaster of 1971 that claimed 66 lives.
By the time the Guide came out under his editorship for the first time in 1997, terraces, at least in the top two divisions, had all but disappeared despite his initial misgivings.
“The problem was not with terraces themselves but safety management and also the design,” he says. “I lost that argument and I understand the reasons why. I was not a lone voice at the time but, within those circles, I was the only actual fan within that group. The others were all ex-police, ex-fire brigade.
“It was a fantastic education for me. I learned a lot and came to respect the people doing those jobs enormously. I think all of them, without exception, had undergone a real trauma as a result of Hillsborough.
“Their whole approach to the issue of ground safety had been challenged. To be part of that revolution was really fascinating. I felt a real responsibility — along with a lot of other people, particularly progressive architects and engineers — to be part of ensuring Hillsborough was not ‘yet another disaster’ but the last one.”
Change came quickly following the publication of the Taylor Report a year after the disaster. The deadline to phase out terracing in the top two divisions was set at August 1994, with clubs in the third and fourth tiers expected to follow suit within another five years.
Any team promoted to the second tier in that timeframe would have three years to comply, which is why Fulham are the last club to have old-style terracing in the Premier League, having been promoted from the third tier in 1999, and then to the top flight in 2001.
The all-standing Putney End at Craven Cottage, as seen in 2001 (Mark Leech/Getty Images)
This recommendation by Taylor to move towards all-seater stadia was later watered down with clubs in what are today known as Leagues One and Two made exempt, albeit on the understanding any remaining terraces had to be brought up to the highest standards by 1999.
Other changes followed, including the Football League adopting minimum ground criteria in terms of capacity (6,000) and number of seats (1,000), both for existing members and clubs promoted from the Conference.
But it was the all-seater stipulation that had the biggest impact, as famous old terraces such Manchester United’s Stretford End (1992) and Liverpool’s Kop (1994) were flattened. In their place came new stands with vastly improved facilities, if not the same atmosphere, to leave fans pushing for the return of safe-standing areas that are now a common feature in the Premier League and Championship.
Many clubs took the Taylor Report as their signal to start again elsewhere, with a dozen clubs including Millwall, Sunderland and Derby County building new homes between 1993 and 1999.
Some such as Huddersfield Town’s McAlpine Stadium won rave reviews for their design, while others followed a more pragmatic style.
Workmen at Huddersfield’s McAlpine Stadium in 1994 (Huddersfield Examiner/Getty Images)
Inglis adds: “For the British to go for a more understated and functional approach, I understood. But I also hoped we’d get better at it. Which is what has happened. For me, The Emirates was probably the first great club stadium to be built in this country since the beginning of the 20th century.
“In the same way Hampden Park, Celtic, Rangers and then Old Trafford created a blueprint for the last century, Arsenal, Tottenham and an international array of stadiums have given us a situation where a stadium can now have the marketing power of a cathedral. I never thought I’d see that in my lifetime.”
As for the future, once Everton’s new stadium opens in 2025, Old Trafford is the next big UK stadium project looming on the horizon. Manchester United will have to decide whether to refurbish and extend the current ground or start again completely on adjoining land.
A 100,000 capacity has been mooted for a project that could cost up to £2billion with United co-owner, Sir Jim Ratcliffe, having previously pushed for financial support from the Government for a ‘Wembley of the North’-style national stadium.
Inglis adds: “I’m sure they will do a fantastic job at Old Trafford, though I will personally put a bet on that it won’t get to 100,000. There is an exponential rise in costs, in maintenance, all sorts of issues that come with going from 80,000 to 90,000 and certainly to 100,000.
“You’re going to be either too far away from the pitch or too high.
There is a leaky roof at Old Trafford – Manchester United are considering a rebuild (Michael Regan/Getty Images)
“Another issue — and this could be solved in Trafford Park — is there’s a massive difference between getting 100,000 people or 75,000 in and away on a matchday. The reason why Wembley works is not that Wembley is unique as a stadium. It’s that Wembley Park is a massive transport hub in north-west London.
“The capacity of Wembley Park Station was something like 35,000 an hour the last time I looked. To build that at Old Trafford would be a huge undertaking. The roads, the rail, everything, we’re talking about hundreds of millions of pounds.
“It’s one of the reasons why Wembley beat all the other bids to become the national stadium (in the late Nineties, when Inglis was a consultant on the project). Simply because of the transport infrastructure that already exists around Wembley.
“London outshines every city in the world, with the possible exception of Melbourne, when it comes to the number of seats that already exist for sporting activity. But Manchester is doing brilliantly and already has a fantastic infrastructure in the Etihad, Old Trafford, the cricket ground.
“I’m sceptical United will reach 100,000. What I will say, though, is if 100,000 is to happen anywhere in this country then it will be Manchester.”
(Top photo: Stamford Bridge in 1989 – Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images)
