Ewood Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ewood Park

Full name	Ewood Park
Nickname	The Wood
Built	1890
Opened	1890
Capacity	31,367^[1]
Home of	Blackburn Rovers
Pitch size	115 x 76 yards

Ewood Park is a football stadium in Blackburn, Lancashire and the home of Blackburn Rovers football club. The stadium, which opened in 1890, is an all seater facility which holds 31,367 people and has a pitch size of 115 x 76 yards. It comprises four sections: Darwen End, Riverside Stand (currently sponsored by the Co-operative Insurance Society), named as such because it stands practically on the banks of the River Darwen, Blackburn End and Jack Walker Stand, named after Blackburn industrialist and club supporter, Jack Walker.

Blackburn Rovers are the only football club to have won the English F.A. Cup 3 times in 3 consecutive seasons, and for this achievement are the only club in the English Football League with permission to display their club crest on the corner flags. This rule is still applicable at Ewood Park, despite the victories being achieved whilst at the club's previous home at the Leamington Road ground.

The stadium hosted three matches in all during Women's Euro 2005—two England matches in group play, and the final.

Until recently, Ewood Park was the oldest home to a Premier League club (the honour now passing to Bramall Lane, home to the newly promoted Sheffield United FC who have played there since 1889). Though both Anfield and Stamford Bridge were constructed earlier (1884 and 1877), their current tenants (Liverpool FC and Chelsea FC) did not start playing there before 1892 and 1905, respectively.

1 Details
2 Footnotes
3 External links

[edit] Details

[edit] Address

Ewood Park

Nutall Street

Blackburn

Lancashire

BB2 4JF

[edit] Records

Record Attendance: 62,522 v Bolton Wanderers, 2 March 1929 (FA Cup 6th Round).^[2]

[edit] Average attendances

2002-03: 26,226
2003-04: 24,376
2004-05: 22,315
2005-06: 21,015
2006-07: 21,093 (Based upon 15 games thus far)

At time of writing, the average attendance for 2006-07 is approximately 21,621.[1] This represents a 5,000 decline in average attendance in just four years, despite the success experienced by Blackburn Rovers in the 2005-06 Premiership. Rovers have taken action to reverse this by reducing ticket prices by 25% for the coming season, a move which has been commended by everyone involved in the game.

Although Ewood Park is the 12th largest facility in capacity in the Premiership, it generally has the lowest average attendance as a percentage of capacity. On average, more than 25% of the seats remain unsold, which presents an ongoing revenue problem for the club [2]. On the other hand, the attendance Blackburn attract to Ewood park one of the highest in proportion to town/city size. Blackburn has a population of 105,085 [3], so the attendance accounts for a fifth of the town's population. However, even under this criterion, the JJB Stadium in Wigan (population 81,203 [4]) as of 2006 attracts a higher proportion of the population as fans.