The Mystery of Millmoor

Just a few days after my trip to London, I made another away trip to one of our great cities, this time in quite the opposite direction, to Sheffield to see Forest play Sheffield Wednesday FC at the famous Hillsborough Stadium. I was also planning to see the grounds of Sheffield United and Rotherham United.

Any visit to Hillsborough by a Nottingham Forest fan is tinged with sadness because we were the opponents of Liverpool in the FA Cup Semi-Final played on 15 April 1989 when 96 supporters in the Leppings Lane end of the ground, the Liverpool supporters end, died, trapped behind metal fences erected to keep fans off the pitch. The memorial to these supporters is outside the ground across a footbridge spanning the River Don, on Parkside Road. The memorial looks a little weather-worn these days, partly because it was inundated in the flood of 25 June 2007. There is a plaque marking the height of the flood on the wall under the South Stand.

Wednesday have been at the ground since 1899 when they were offered the opportunity to buy a plot of land at Owlerton after being removed from their previous ground by the Midland Railway Company. The Stadium was called Owlerton until 1914 when improvements were made and the name Hillsborough adopted. This original name gave rise to the club nickname, The Owls.

Hillsborough is a traditional ground, having grown up with the club over more than one hundred years. It consists of four stands, the North and South Stands run alongside the pitch and the mighty Spion Kop Stand is the East end of the stadium and the away fans are housed in the two tier West or Leppings Lane Stand. There have been half-hearted attempts to fill in the corners of the ground with seats, but only that between the Leppings Lane and the North Stand has been done properly. There is a small corner seating section by the North corner of the Spion Kop which also curves round a bit towards the South Stand. The South Stand boasts a triangular gable (similar to that on the roof of the Main Stand at Leyton Orient) which besides proclaiming the name of the club also holds a clock reputed to be 124 years old. All the Stands are of roughly similar height and an attempt has been made to link them into one coherent whole by joining each stand to the one adjacent to it by advertising hoardings running along the façade of the roof line.


Hillsborough is many fans favourite ground to visit, though I cannot understand why this might be. Facilities for away fans are not particularly good, the view from our stand is not exceptional and outside the ground there are not many decent pubs or eating/entertainment venues in the area around the ground.

A very wise man told me some years ago that soldiers and spies always plan their exit before starting any action. Thus I always plan my exit from the area when finding a parking spot. Arriving at grounds is easy because fans dribble in slowly for an hour or two before kick off, but when the game finishes tens of thousands of people exit at once, jamming up the roads around the stadium. Thus I parked close to the ground (I consider 15/20 minutes walk, close) but high up in a residential area which allowed me to move away with the least inconvenience.

I walked to the ground in time to see the Forest coach arrive and give myself time to nose around the local area. The game itself was largely undistinguished. It was scrappy and disjointed, enlivened only by the single goal of the match scored just after half time. We have a large number of first team players away at the moment with injuries. Greg Halford, a versatile player, was drafted in to play on the right hand side of defence. He broke away down the right wing, put the ball hard and low across the six yard box and Simon Cox tapped it in. That was it, really. Wednesday huffed and puffed, but to no avail. Scrappy it might have been, but a valuable three points gained.

I stayed the night opposite the vast Meadowhall Shopping Centre. We were approaching Christmas and I anticipated having to find my way through large crowds of shoppers, but somehow, more by luck than judgement, I avoided the crush and found my hotel easily and quickly.

Next morning dawned dry and not very bright, but at least it was quite mild. I drove through the empty streets to Bramall Lane, home of Sheffield United FC, known as The Blades with obvious reference to the production of steel and cutlery for which Sheffield is famous. The badge does, however, feature crossed scimitars rather than crossed knives or scissors. This ground is another old, but grand, stadium. The car park, for a Sunday morning, was packed, but there was no sign of crowds of people so I have no idea where the car owners were.
This car park used to be the cricket ground as, in the days before the football club, the team were known as Sheffield United Cricket Club. Wandering round I took photos of the ground and the statues of Derek Dooley ( viewed left, a great favourite of both Sheffield clubs, he played for Wednesday, scoring many goals, for a season or two before breaking and then losing his leg to gangrene and then, after falling out with them, he moved over to an executive position with United) and Joe Shaw (above right, who played for the Blades after WWII and made the record number of appearances for the club).


I couldn't see any way I was going to get into the ground, it all seemed tightly closed up and no one was around to help me. As usual, I mooched around looking for photo opportunities. I walked down Bramall Lane itself behind the Jessica Ennis Stand ( apparently she is not a fan, which makes the naming of a stand after her seem a bit odd) to the other side of the ground on John Street. Here I noticed the fire alarms going off in the ground. This had, for me, the benefit of drawing the staff out from their place of work (remember, it was a Sunday so there were only three of them) on to the pavement. I asked if there was any way I could see in to the ground. It was not a problem. My guide took me straight in, chatting away about the ground and United.

It is a fine ground. Although not all corners are in-filled with seats, some of the stands have overlapping corners, so, when inside the ground, the impression is of a fully enclosed ground. With the steeply raked seats and the roof lines of all stands extending right out to pitch-side, the atmosphere is of a tight intimate ground, even though it holds 32,000 fans, all seated. Visiting these grounds on non-match days is a fascinating experience. The vast echoing concrete concourses have a totally different atmosphere to that found on match days when great throngs of fans pack them out.

I thanked my friendly escort and walked back to the car ready to make my way to Rotherham United, now located at the New York Stadium in Rotherham.

Rotherham have had a bit of a turbulent recent history, having been forced out of the ground they occupied for 100 years in Rotherham, Millmoor. Millmoor was built on the site of a former flour mill all of which presumably gives rise to the nickname of the club, the Millers. After leaving their ground in 2008, Rotherham played until 2012 in the Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield, an athletics stadium, hardly conducive to creating an atmosphere for football. Early in 2012, the Millers moved back to Rotherham, to the brand new New York Stadium, so-called because it is located in an area of Rotherham with that name.

I had intended to call in to the Don Valley stadium after visiting Bramall Lane, but took a wrong turning, missed the Don Valley Stadium and found my way to Rotherham by a different route. Whilst researching the weekend visits, I was intrigued by the Millmoor ground, which appeared perfectly preserved. Normally, when football teams leave their old ground for pastures new, developers cannot wait to move in and take over the old ground. So I made my way to Millmoor. On arrival the first thing I noted was a large sign proclaiming "A CF Booth Regeneration Project". Oh, I thought, they're demolishing the ground and getting ready to build housing or commercial premises. However, nothing appeared to be happening. On the site of the old railway station behind the ground, CF Booth were breaking up all manner of scrap, but the ground itself appeared frozen in time. The grass on the pitch was neatly mown and the half-built Main Stand, begun by the Millers a few years ago, was still half-built. Signs directing away fans to their entrance down Millmoor Lane were still in place, though the Millmoor pub at the head of the Lane is no longer open for business, all boarded up these days.

Going down Millmoor Lane was no help, it is an eerie spot, all hemmed in by high walls on either side, but with no obvious entry to the ground. I took my photos and went off to the New York Stadium down the road. In fact the new stadium is so new that I was told some sat navs don't know it's postcode. When they get enquiries of this nature the club just tell supporters to make for the old ground and they will come across the new ground!

 I actually found the New York Stadium quite easily, it dominates an island site, but couldn't find a way in! On two sides there is the River Don and on another is a railway line.  Eventually I came across a narrow road, New York Way, which led me into the spacious car park.

Then I had another piece of luck. Reception was open and the very man to escort me around was available. I introduced myself to him, inadvertently interrupting a business meeting in the process, and we went through the stadium. Naturally we chatted about Millmoor. My guide averred that the ground could not be used for anything other than football and has to be kept maintained. I'm sure a hint of a smile played about his lips when he was talking about this. I think he meant there is a restrictive covenant on the site. Thus plans to use it for other sports such as rugby league have not come to fruition. What must be somewhat galling for  CF Booth is that their HQ faces directly across Centenary Way to the New York Stadium so that the club that felt it had to leave Millmoor because of disagreements with the owner of that ground, Mr Ken Booth, now has a brand new, state-of-the-art stadium facing their opponent.

The new ground is of a bowl-type design, with the main stand, rather bizarrely named the Eric Twigg Foods (Pukka Pies) Stand, rather higher than the other stands which actually descend in a step pattern down to the Ben Bennett Family Stand on the opposite side of the ground.

The whole effect is quite light and airy. Two special boxes were built at either end of the Main Stand, one to house police control, which of course is used for every match, and the other to house Sky TV and other broadcasters. Sadly they don't come to the New York Stadium with any regularity so for the moment this box is used as a supplementary Executive Box.

In conversation I asked my escort if he was a long term Rotherham supporter. To my surprised he told me he had been a Sheffield United supporter for many years. When I started my travels, I naturally assumed that workers at football clubs supported those clubs, but actually I have found this not to be the case at all.

I learned that the New York stadium has foundations already in place to allow for increasing the capacity of the ground should events so demand.

 Above the players tunnel is a name plate from the LNER B17 locomotive named Rotherham United. Many of this class of loco bore the names of football teams and when the locomotives were withdrawn from service during the 1950s one of the name plates from each locomotive was presented to the relevant club. The club has many ideas going forward to enhance the ground and the area adjacent to the ground, but all these improvements take time and money and will only be accomplished as and when necessary.

I left the area impressed by the friendliness I encountered at all the clubs I visited on this latest trip. Particularly by the determination at Rotherham to put their recent troubles behind them and improve the club's position, both in the league and financially.