Brunton Park

Brunton Park is a football stadium and the home of Carlisle United. It is situated in the city of Carlisle, Cumbria and has a certified capacity of 18,202. The ground opened in 1909. Brunton Park's grandstand burned down in 1953 and the stadium flooded completely in 2005 and again in 2015.

Brunton Park is split into four separate stands; Warwick Road End, East Stand, Main (West) Stand and the Petteril End, which remains closed unless exceptionally large crowds are in attendance.

Brunton Park is the largest football stadium in England which is not all-seated. Carlisle United plan to move away from Brunton Park to a 12,000 capacity all-seater stadium.

Before the 2012–13 season Cumbria County Council inspected Brunton Park and they deemed that certain areas of the stadium were unsafe. As a result, they reduced the capacity to 17,001 for the forthcoming season.

History

In 1904 Shaddongate United became Carlisle United F.C., an association football club who played at the Millholme Bank ground to the west of Carlisle. The ground was often too small for their purposes and they sometimes used the Rugby Ground which would later be the adjacent neighbour of Brunton Park. In 1905 United joined the Lancashire Combination league and required larger facilities so moved to Devonshire Park, a football ground which stood where Trinity School now sits. In 1909 they were evicted from premises by the Duke of Devonshire and moved eastwards to establish Brunton Park, the club's home ever since.

Grandstand fire

In 1953 the original wooden grandstand which sat where the Main Stand now sits was burned to the ground in a fire cause by an electrical fault. The sale of local player Geoff Twentyman to Liverpool for £12,500 enabled the club to rebuild the stadium into what is the West Stand today.

Flooding

2005

On the evening of Friday 7 January 2005, the rivers Eden, Caldew and Petteril burst their banks in Carlisle due to as muc