Anfield
Anfield is a football stadium in the area of Anfield, Liverpool, England, which has been the home of Liverpool since their formation in 1892. The stadium has a seating capacity of 61,276, making it the fifth-largest football stadium in England. It was originally the home of Everton from 1884 to 1891 before they moved to Goodison Park after a dispute with the club president.
The stadium has four stands: the Spion Kop, the Main Stand, the Sir Kenny Dalglish Stand, and the Anfield Road End. The record attendance of 61,905 was set at a match between Liverpool and Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1952. The ground converted to an all-seater stadium in 1994 as a result of the Taylor Report, which reduced its capacity.
Two gates at the stadium are named after former Liverpool managers: Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley. Both managers have been honoured with statues outside the stadium: Shankly's unveiled in 1997 by the Kop Stand and Paisley's in 2020 by the Main Stand. The ground is from Liverpool Lime Street railway station.
It was proposed in 2002 for the club to relocate to a new stadium in the adjacent Stanley Park, but after the acquisition of Liverpool by Fenway Sports Group in 2010, it was made clear this would not happen, with the decision being taken to expand Anfield instead. Construction for an extension to the main stand began on 8 December 2014. This extension, one of the largest all-seater single stands in European football, opened to the public on 9 September 2016, increasing the stadium capacity to 54,074. The Anfield Road Stand redevelopment completed in 2024, increased the stadium capacity to over 61,000.
History
The stadium is named after the surrounding area, Anfield. The word originated in the combination of Old and Middle English words, which mean "a field on a slope". Anfield, and its deviations, has been associated with the area since at least 1642. It has been suggested that the name is linked to the influx of Irish people into the spreading city in the 1850s, and was associated with Annefield, outside New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland.Opened in 1884, Anfield was originally owned by John Orrell, a minor landowner who was a friend of Everton member John Houlding. Everton, who previously played at Priory Road, were in need of a new venue owing to the noise produced by the crowd on match days. Orrell lent the pitch to the club in exchange for a small rent. The first match at the ground was between Everton and Earlestown on 28 September 1884, which Everton won 5–0. During Everton's tenure at the stadium, stands were erected for some of the 8,000-plus spectators regularly attending matches, although the ground was capable of holding around 20,000 spectators and occasionally did. The ground was considered of international standard at the time, playing host to the British Home Championship match between England and Ireland in 1889. Anfield's first league match was played on 8 September 1888, between Everton and Accrington F.C. Everton quickly improved as a team, and became Anfield's first league champions in the 1890–91 season.
In 1892, negotiations to purchase the land at Anfield from Orrell escalated into a dispute between Houlding and the Everton committee over how the club was run. Events culminated in Everton's move to Goodison Park. Houlding was left with an empty stadium, and decided to form a new club to occupy it. The new team was called Liverpool F.C. and Athletic Grounds Ltd, and the club's first match at Anfield was a friendly played in front of 200 people on 1 September 1892, against Rotherham Town. Liverpool won 7–1.
Liverpool's first Football League match at Anfield was played on 9 September 1893, against Lincoln City. Liverpool won 4–0 in front of 5,000 spectators. A new stand capable of holding 3,000 spectators was constructed in 1895 on the site of the present Main Stand. Designed by architect Archibald Leitch, the stand had a distinctive red and white gable, and was similar to the main stand at Newcastle United's ground St James' Park. Another stand was constructed at the Anfield Road end in 1903, built from timber and corrugated iron. After Liverpool had won their second League championship in 1906, a new stand was built along the Walton Breck Road. Local journalist Ernest Edwards, who was the sports editor of newspapers the Liverpool Daily Post and Echo, named it the Spion Kop; it was named after a famous hill in South Africa where a local regiment had suffered heavy losses during the Boer War in 1900. More than 300 men had died, many of them from Liverpool, as the British army attempted to capture the strategic hilltop. Around the same period a stand was also built along Kemlyn Road.
On 14 February 1921, Scouse comedian Harry Weldon invited Dick, Kerr Ladies to Anfield to compete in a match between themselves and a side made up of the best players from the rest of Britain, for The Harry Weldon Cup in aid of unemployed ex-servicemen. Weldon's side was made up of the best individual players from teams throughout the UK, with one player even travelling from the island of Unst in the Shetland Isles. 25,000 fans were in attendance that day as Dick, Kerr Ladies went on to emphatically win 9–1. The trophy is now on display at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
The ground remained much the same until 1928, when the Kop was redesigned and extended to hold 30,000 spectators, all standing. A roof was erected as well. Many stadia in England had stands named after the Spion Kop. Anfield's was the largest Kop in the country at the time—it was able to hold more supporters than some entire football grounds. In the same year the topmast of the, one of the first iron ships, was rescued from the ship breaking yard at nearby Rock Ferry, and was hauled up Everton Valley by a team of horses, to be erected alongside the new Kop. It still stands there, serving as a flag pole.
File:The Kop - geograph.org.uk - 702695.jpg|thumb|left|alt=Photograph of a stand full of people. In front of the stand is a field and a goal.|The Kop in 1974, before the Taylor Report recommended standing areas in football grounds be outlawed following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.
Floodlights were installed at a cost of £12,000 in 1957. On 30 October they were switched on for the first time for a match against Everton to commemorate the 75-year anniversary of the Liverpool County Football Association. In 1963 the old Kemlyn Road stand was replaced by a cantilevered stand, built at a cost of £350,000, accommodating 6,700 spectators. Two years later alterations were made at the Anfield Road end, turning it into a larger covered standing area with refreshments under the structure. The biggest redevelopment came in 1973, when the old Main Stand was partially demolished and extended backward with new roof. Simultaneously the concrete pylon floodlights were demolished with new lights installed along the rooflines of the Kemlyn Road and Main Stands. The new stand was officially opened by the Duke of Kent on 10 March 1973. In the 1980s the paddock in front of the Main Stand was turned into seating, and in 1982 seats were introduced at the Anfield Road end. The Shankly Gates were erected in 1982, a tribute to former manager Bill Shankly; his widow Nessie unlocked them for the first time on 26 August 1982. Across the Shankly Gates are the words You'll Never Walk Alone, the title of the hit song by Gerry and the Pacemakers adopted by Liverpool fans as the club's anthem during Shankly's time as manager.
Coloured seats and a police room were added to the Kemlyn Road stand in 1987. After the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 when Police mismanagement led to overcrowding and the deaths of 97 Liverpool fans, the Taylor Report recommended that all grounds in the country should be converted into all-seater grounds by May 1994. A second tier was added to the Kemlyn Road stand in 1992, turning it into a double-decker layout. It included executive boxes and function suites as well as 11,000 seating spaces. Plans to expand the stand had been made earlier, with the club buying up houses on Kemlyn Road during the 1970s, and 1980s, but had to be put on hold until 1990 because two sisters, Joan and Nora Mason, refused to sell their house. When the club reached an agreement with the sisters in 1990, the expansion plans were put into action. The stand—renamed the Centenary Stand—was officially opened on 1 September 1992 by UEFA president Lennart Johansson. The Kop was rebuilt in 1994 after the recommendations of the Taylor Report and became all seated; it is still a single tier, and the capacity was significantly reduced to 12,390.
On 4 December 1997, a bronze statue of Bill Shankly was unveiled at the visitors' centre in front of the Kop. Standing at over tall, the statue depicts Shankly with a fan's scarf around his neck, in a familiar pose he adopted when receiving applause from fans. Inscribed on the statue are the words "Bill Shankly – He Made The People Happy". The Hillsborough memorial was situated alongside the Shankly Gates before it was moved next to 97 Avenue in front of the redeveloped main stand in 2016. The memorial is always decorated with flowers and tributes to the 97 people who died as a result of the disaster. At the centre of the memorial is an eternal flame, signifying that those who died will never be forgotten.
In 1998 a new two-tier Anfield Road end was opened. The stand has encountered a number of problems since its redevelopment; at the beginning of the 1999–2000 season, a series of support poles and stanchions had to be brought in to give extra stability to the top tier of the stand. During Ronnie Moran's testimonial match against Celtic, many fans complained of movement of the top tier. At the same time that the stanchions were inserted, the executive seating area was expanded by two rows in the main stand, lowering the seating capacity in the paddock.
On 30 January 2020, a bronze statue of Bob Paisley was unveiled outside the Main Stand in Paisley Square. The statue was commissioned and donated by the club's main sponsor, Standard Chartered, to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the relationship with the club. The statue is tall and depicts an iconic image of the club's history, Paisley carrying future club captain Emlyn Hughes off the field during a match against Tottenham Hotspur at Anfield in April 1968.