Meadowbank Stadium
is a multi-purpose sports facility located at Meadowbank, in Edinburgh. It hosted the Commonwealth Games of 1970 and 1986.
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MEADOWBANK STADIUM TICKETS
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Layout
The capacity of the stadium is 16,500. The grandstand has 7,500 seats, and uncovered benches stretch around the rest of the track. The sports complex and adjacent pitches to the east covers land formerly occupied by Old Meadowbank Stadium. The stadium itself contains an eight lane, 400 metre running track, with a grass pitch within this. There is also a
velodrome on the site. Underneath the stand is a covered 100 metre, eight-lane track.
The stadium also contains a number of indoor facilities, including squash and basketball courts. These are also used for regular antiques fairs, martial arts competitions, conferences, and occasionally church meetings. Other outdoor facilities include field hockey pitches.
There is considerable scope to construct a speedway track on the inside of the running track and a greyhound track on the outside of running track.
Uses
Football
Meadowbank Thistle played at the stadium until the club relocated to the
new town of
Livingston and were renamed
Livingston F.C. in 1994. Meadowbank is often cited as one of the worst stadiums used in the
Scottish Football League due to the lack of atmosphere in the ground. This was caused by the vast expanses of unused seating, with most fans located on one side of the ground, and the running track created a great distance between the fans and the pitch.
East of Scotland League side
Edinburgh City F.C. now call the ground home.
Scottish Premier League side
Hibs play some of their
reserve team matches at Meadowbank.
Music
Meadowbank is also used as a 25,000 capacity concert venue during
T on the Fringe, Edinburgh's highly successful annual music festival.
Muse,
Snow Patrol and
Radiohead all played in August 2006.
Pixies were among the bands that played in 2005. As part of the 2007 festival,
Foo Fighters,
Kaiser Chiefs and
Razorlight all played the venue.
Basketball
Meadowbank stadium has basketball facilities in three of its large halls, however they are only rarely available to the public. They are usually occupied by clubs or individuals for badminton, judo, hokey, football.
The only basketball facility which is easily accessible and affordable for a small group of people (£2 per person, compared to £48 for booking a hall), is a small squash court with a basket mounted on the wall. The size of this court and the bad condition of its roof make it unsuitable for basketball.
Edinburgh Rocks basketball team used one of the large halls until they moved to the
Braehead Arena, and were renamed
Scottish Rocks.
Track Cycling
Meadowbank velodrome is home to the East of Scotland regional track cycling academy. The wooden track is 250 metres long and built using West African timber.
[1] It was built by Schuermann Architects of
Germany.
[2] in 1985 for the
Commonwealth Games.
[3] It is where many of Scotland's greatest cyclists started out, including
Chris Hoy and
Craig MacLean.
Rugby
Professional
rugby union club
Edinburgh Gunners used the venue until they moved to
Murrayfield Stadium.
American Football
From the 2007 season, the
Edinburgh Wolves American Football team have played their home matches at the stadium.
[4]
Old Meadowbank
The Old Meadowbank was previously known as the
Leith Athletic ground. It should not be confused with
New Meadowbank
, the running track and sports field upon which the present stadium is sited.
Speedway
Motorcycle speedway ran at
Old Meadowbank
from 1948 until 1954. The name of the team based here was Edinburgh Monarchs . The sport stopped in 1954, when the post-war entertainment tax started to make the sport unprofitable. Whilst the Monarchs of this era achieved little as a team, they did introduce Aussie Jack Young to UK speedway. Young won the World Championship in 1951 as a Monarchs rider.
The entertainment tax was later scrapped, and the sport was reintroduced to Edinburgh in 1960. The track was used for training purposes for a spell in the late 1950s and 1959 an Edinburgh Students Charites meeting was staged at the track. The Monarchs of the 1960s were founder members of the Provincial League (1960 - 1964) and founder members of the British league in 1965. The Monarchs were forced to leave Old Meadowbank in 1967 to allow the stadium to be re-developed for the
1970 Commonwealth Games. Speedway was not incorporated in the new stadium as the Government of the day would not fund stadiums which would be used by professional sports.
The displaced Monarchs raced at Cliftonhill in Coatbridge for two seasons before they closed down when the promotion sold the licence to a consortium who re-opened Wembley Stadium for speedway.
Speedway was revived in Edinburgh at Powderhall which operated 1977 to 1995.
The Monarchs are now based at the Armadale Stadium, on the eastern outskirts of Armadale in
West Lothian.
It is ironic that the stadium has been used extensively for professional sporting activities since 1967, as speedway fans were advised then that the stadium could not host professional sports due to Government funding rules.
Future
The
City of Edinburgh Council decided in 2006 to demolish Meadowbank Stadium and to replace it with a smaller community facility on the east side of the city. A smaller sports centre was to be built to the west of the city, probably in
Sighthill. However, this proposal was met with widespread opposition from users of the facility.
Thousands of people have shown their opposition to the proposal to build hundreds of flats on the Meadowbank site, by signing petitions, sending objections, attending public meetings and marching to demand that Meadowbank is saved and refurbished. These demonstrations of public opposition have led the Council to reconsider and look seriously at ways to refurbish the training facility.
The proposal is also opposed by those who support retention of the stadium to be used for speedway and greyhound racing. The move has been further cast into doubt due to delays with the Sighthill project, uncertainty over the future of
Edinburgh Rugby (who were to have been a major tenant), and possible moves to upgrade
Scotstoun athletics stadium in Glasgow as an alternative.
The draft Meadowbank Development Brief was approved by the Council on
7 December 2006 for consultation (). The consultation ran until
28 March 2007. The Development Brief states that "
housing is the most appropriate alternative use of the site
" and that "
high density development is acceptable in principle
".
On March 13th 2008, Edinburgh Council voted to sell the land that currently occupied by Meadowbank stadium and build a smaller sports facility on east of the site. ().
().
See also
- 1970 Commonwealth Games
- 1986 Commonwealth Games
References
- Bicycle Tracks & Velodromes
- Title Unavailable
- Title Unavailable
- www.edinburghwolves.com