Abbey Stadium

Abbey Stadium is a football stadium in Cambridge, England. It has been the home ground of Cambridge United F.C. since 1932, and currently has a maximum capacity of 8,127 spectators.Cambridge Regional College F.C., Cambridge United's feeder club, played their home games at The Abbey from 2006 until their dissolution in 2014.

The first match ever played at the Abbey was a friendly against a team from Cambridge University Press on 31 August 1932. The record attendance at the ground (14,000) was also for a friendly, against Chelsea to mark the first use of the ground's new floodlights on 1 May 1970. This was the first time an English League ground's record crowd had turned out to watch a friendly.

Until well into the modern era, the Abbey Stadium was the only Football League ground to be styled a stadium, and was second only to Wembley Stadium in so being named. However, more recent ground moves and name changes have meant that a number of league clubs now play at grounds styled stadiums. For sponsorship reasons, the ground was until 2017 officially named the Cambs Glass Stadium. For similar reasons it has also previously been named the Trade Recruitment Stadium, and the R Costings Abbey Stadium. However, thanks to the cooperation of sponsors the ground has reverted to its original name of the Abbey Stadium.

History

Abbey United (as the club were then known) had moved to Parker's Piece at the start of the 1930–31 season. Despite the special significance of Parker's Piece in the history of football, it being the first place where the Cambridge Rules were played out, the lack of spectator capacity and disruption caused during games meant this move was not a successful one.

Henry Francis, then president of the club, offered United a lifeline in 1931 when he donated land he had acquired to the club, and erected a grandstand and changing rooms on it.

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