Middlesbrough FC was formed in 1876 by members of Middlesbrough Cricket Club at a meeting in a gymnasium behind the Albert Park Hotel in Linthorpe Road.
A further meeting took place at the Talbot Hotel and a practice match was played in 1877 at an open field called the Archery Ground in Albert Park against Teesside Wanderers, ending in a 1-1 draw. It was very haphazard as about 70 players were split into two teams in a 30-minute kickabout, with eventually some of the less enthusiastic players becoming spectators.
Middlesbrough only lost one game in their first three years of existence, and attendances started to creep up to around 200 especially against local rivals. With the parks committee concerned about the damage being done to the turf by large numbers of people the club were forced to find alternative accommodation which they did at Breckon Hill Road in 1879. After one season the club moved again, to the Linthorpe Road Ground of Middlesbrough Cricket Club, just to the north of Albert Park and conveniently placed next to the Empire Hotel, which belonged to the club chairman.
The first competitive games played were in the Sheffield Cup followed by the Cleveland Cup which Middlesbrough won in each of its first six seasons, the last of these attracting a crowd of about 7,000 against Redcar. Participation in the FA Cup started in 1883.
With the formation of the Football League in 1888 a dispute arose within the club over whether or not to turn professional. In 1889 this resulted in a breakaway group forming a professional team called Middlesbrough Ironopolis who entered the Northern League, winning it three years in a row.
Meanwhile Middlesbrough FC decided to turn professional after all, also in 1889 and also entered the Northern League. The two clubs then joined forces again in an attempt to gain election to the Football League for the 1892/93 season under the name Middlesbrough and Ironopolis Football and Athletic Club. Unsuccessful, they split up again and Ironopolis were invited to join Division Two for the following season. This resulted in a first visit to a Middlesbrough club by Lincoln City, the game at the Paradise Road ground ending 0-0 in January 1894. However, the club lost this stadium at the end of the season due to their poor financial position with gates averaging only around 1,500, resigned from the Football League and disbanded.
Middlesbrough FC now reverted to amateur status and won the Northern League three times and the FA Amateur Cup twice before turning professional again in 1899 and making a successful application to join Division Two of the newly extended Football League for the 1899/1900 season. The first match in Division Two was away at Lincoln, losing 3-0 on 2nd September 1899. The return match at Linthorpe Road at the end of December ended 1-1. The Imps, or the Citizens as they were then known, played twice more at Linthorpe Road, losing 2-0 in September 1900, and coming away with a goalless draw in February 1902 as Middlesbrough went on to win promotion.
With relatively little in the way of facilities at Linthorpe Road the ground didn’t keep up with Middlesbrough’s aspirations and in 1903 the club moved to a brand new ground at Ayresome Park close to where Ironopolis’s old ground at Paradise Road had been. Preparations had begun on the new site two years before with extensive drainage work carried out and a number of gypsies moved off the land (allegedly leaving behind a curse). To design the new stadium the club turned to famed football ground architect Archibald Leitch and they paid a total of £11,957 for its construction. £1,750 of this went towards the construction of the North Stand, seating 2,000 spectators, and running for 274ft along one side of the pitch. Opposite this was the 50ft long South Stand which had been moved from Linthorpe Road. Behind the goals, the Linthorpe Road End, and what was initially known as the Workhouse End were made up of earth embankments resulting in a ground capacity said to be 40,000.
A friendly against Celtic on August 7th brought 7,000 fans to the new stadium, and the opening league fixture eleven days later saw Boro lose 3-2 to local rivals Sunderland in front of a crowd estimated to be 30,000.
The 1904/05 season did not start well and in February, with Boro looking almost certain to be relegated they caused controversy by paying the first £1,000 fee for striker Alf Common from Sunderland. This caused outrage and questions were even asked in Parliament about the ‘immorality’ of a football club trying to buy survival. Four goals from Common in the remainder of the season were instrumental in avoiding relegation in 15th place.
In 1905, an international match took place at the ground with England playing Ireland. A crowd of 25,500 saw a 1-1 draw with Middlesboro’s goalkeeper Reginald ‘Tiny Tim’ Williamson earning a first England cap.
Another escape from relegation on the final day of the 1905/06 season came after further expenditure on big transfer fees including England international goalscorer Steve Bloomer. The FA then held an investigation to find out how a club with a record loss of £1,635 from the previous season could afford such fees. Eventually the FA concluded that Boro were in such a financial mess having made so many illegal payments, that FA auditors became regular watchdogs of the club’s accounts. In the end the Boro Chairman, Lt.Col. Thomas Gibson-Poole paid off the club’s debts from his personal accounts.
The club recorded their highest-ever league finish with third place in 1913/14 and Lincoln City’s first visit to Ayresome Park came in the FA Cup on 14 January 1920. This saw what was to be their heaviest-ever defeat on the ground, going down 4-1, the scorer being left winger Alfred Ball. City had actually been drawn at home but, with the club strapped for cash, the directors agreed to switch the tie to Ayresome Park in exchange for a payment of just under £1,000.
Middlesbrough remained in the First Division until relegated in 1923/24 and this was followed by a yo-yo existence between the top two divisions with two promotions and one relegation until 1929 when they returned to the top flight.
In 1936 the South Stand was demolished and a new one built, at a cost of £13,400 with a capacity of 9,000 including standing at the front. The banks at either end of the ground were rebuilt with the rear sections on concrete frames and a cover put on the west end now named the Holgate End. This gave the ground a capacity of 54,000, and in December 1949 the record attendance of 53,596 was achieved against Newcastle United.
Relegation at the end of the 1953/54 season meant September 1954 brought the first visit to Ayresome Park for a league match of Lincoln City. The Imps were in mid-table at the time while Boro were bottom of the division on a run of eight defeats in a row. However, a goal from Andy Graver could not prevent them from registering their first win of the season by 2-1. It was the first in a run of six wins in eight games for Boro as they eventually finished four places above City’s 16th place.
The 1955/56 season saw the Imps achieve 8th place, their highest league finish for over 50 years, but a heavy defeat at Ayresome Park came in April 1956 with a 4-2 scoreline to a Middlesborough side whose turn it was to finish 16th. City’s goals came from centre forward Tommy Northcott and defender Dick Neal. The attendance of 8,298 was the lowest recorded to see a match between the two clubs at the ground. In contrast, with Middlesbrough having a better season and challenging for promotion the highest attendance for a visit of the Imps saw 24,598 present at the beginning of December 1956 as the home side won 3-0 with one of the goals coming from 21-year-old scoring sensation Brian Clough on his way to a total of 40 for the season. Mid-table at the time, City had slipped to 18th by the season end, with Boro finishing sixth.
Floodlights were installed at Ayresome Park at a cost of almost £20,000 and saw their first use in a friendly match against Sunderland in October 1957. A month later the Imps were back at Ayresome Park, two places above the bottom of the division and on a run of six defeats and a draw from last seven games. Another defeat came with Northcott the scorer again in a 3-1 scoreline. The season of ‘the great escape’, City won the last six matches of the season to avoid relegation by a point while Middlesbrough, sixth at the time went on to finish well short of a promotion place.
After six defeats out of six on the ground so far, City achieved their only win at Ayresome Park in early March 1959 with goals from recent signing Brian Wright and striker John McClelland. The 2-1 win moved City up to 18th place and they were glad to finish the season only one place lower as relegation was again avoided by a single point. Middlesbrough themselves had an undistinguished season, finishing in mid-table.
The 1959/60 season was a better one for City, but it was back to normal at Ayresome Park with another defeat although legendary centre forward Andy Graver became the only Imp to score two goals at the ground in a 3-2 loss in mid-October. Graver’s second goal had equalised for City midway through the second half, but that man Clough popped up again to hit the winner. Once again just outside the relegation zone at the time some improved results later saw a mid-table finish, while Boro, fourth at the time, again finished some way short of promotion.
Just over a year later a goal by striker Roy Chapman was enough for City to register their only draw on the ground, but once again they were in a relegation struggle from which they never recovered and it turned out to be a last visit to Ayresome Park as the two clubs went their separate ways for over 60 years. Middlesborough once again failed to sustain a promotion challenge and after a gradual decline were relegated in 1966.
With Newcastle City Council, owners of St James’ Park apparently not keen on the idea of their ground being used as a venue in the 1966 World Cup Ayresome Park was chosen instead despite now being the home of a Third Division club. Three of the group stage matches were held there following improvements made to the ground. The east end of the ground was covered and 4,000 seats installed at the back, with an extra 3,600 seats installed in front of the two side stands. This reduced the capacity to 42,000 but the World Cup attendances were the lowest of the tournament, with probably very few supporters of North Korea present to see their country’s three games there. Only 13,792 spectators were present to see their game against Chile, and just 17,829 witnessed the upset of the tournament when Italy were beaten 1-0. The highest attendance was 23,006 against the USSR.
New Middlesbrough manager Stan Anderson returned the club to the Second Division at the first attempt and in 1973, Jack Charlton took over as manager and guided the team back into the top flight for the first time since 1954.
There was a tragic event in January 1980 following a game against Manchester United when a brick pillar at the south east corner exit to the ground crumbled and brought two heavy gates down with it, killing two people.
Relegation came in 1981 and Middlesbrough began to experience severe financial difficulties during the middle of the decade. In 1985 a record low attendance for a league match of 3,364 was followed by a reduction of the ground’s capacity to 10,658 following checks made after the Bradford fire which revealed serious structural defects. This caused expenditure of £100,000 on repairs and in April 1986, the club had to borrow £30,000 from the Professional Footballers’ Association to pay wages. The final game of the season saw relegation to the Third Division again and with debts of £1.8 million and average attendances down to 7,000 liquidators were appointed and the gates to Ayresome Park padlocked.
Without the £350,000 capital required for Football League registration the club risked folding permanently. Board member Steve Gibson, however, brought together a consortium, and with 10 minutes to spare before the deadline they completed their registration with the Football League for the 1986/87 season. Following this came a change of the official company name to Middlesbrough Football and Athletic Club (1986) Ltd. But the opening game of the new season had to be played at Hartlepool’s ground as Ayresome Park was still padlocked.
Despite the upheaval off the pitch Middlesbrough bounced straight back under new manager Bruce Rioch, followed by immediate promotion into Division One before relegation straight back again. Yet further relegation was only avoided on the last day of the 1989/90 season thanks to a 4-1 win over Newcastle United. Two years later former Imps coach Lennie Lawrence led Boro to promotion into the first season of the Premier League but the yo-yo existence continued with relegation after one season.
By this time the stadium was showing its age and was in need of major work although £400,000 was spent on patching things up and the installation of seats at the front of the South and East Stands. This brought the capacity up to over 26,000, but the demands of the Taylor Report of 1990 were that all stadiums in the top two divisions of English football had to be all-seater by the start of the 1994/95 season. This could have been achieved by converting the remaining terraces to seating but amid disagreements among the board members Steve Gibson approached the Teesside Development Corporation and was offered the chance of a new stadium development in the docklands area. Plans for the new 30,000-seat stadium costing £16 million on the banks of the River Tees were given the go-ahead in the spring of 1994, and construction work began that autumn. The new stadium was ready for the 1995/96 season and it became the first new stadium to be built by a top division club since Manchester City moved to Maine Road in 1923.
The final competitive game at Ayresome Park was played against Luton Town on 30 April 1995 in a match which saw Boro clinch promotion with a 2–1 win, the last competitive goal being scored by John Hendrie. The very last game at the ground was a sell-out testimonial match for long-serving goalkeeper Stephen Pears, who scored the ground’s final goal from the penalty spot in a 3–1 win for a Peter Beardsley Select XI against Middlesbrough’s promotion winning side.
Ayresome Park was used as a training ground during 1995/96, before it was demolished in 1997. The site is now occupied by a housing estate with remnants of the stadium remaining, including the wall at the Holgate End. There are also a number of small sculptures dotted around the new development – a pair of boots on the former centre-spot, a football where one of the penalty spots used to be, and a set of cast-iron football boot stud marks in the earth, placed in the exact position from which Pak Doo-Ik scored the historic goal for North Korea against Italy in 1966. Also, many of the street names have footballing connections – The Midfield, The Turnstile and The Holgate.
The gates of Ayresome Park were preserved and erected outside the main entrance to the Riverside Stadium, named by the supporters of the club after a vote.
City only played eight games at Ayresome Park and, typically poorly for an away ground, lost six of them with only one win. Top scorer for City on the ground was Andy Graver with three goals and he was the only player to score more than one goal in a game there. City only failed to score once, but never managed to keep a clean sheet.
Photo credits
Comments Welcome!