Vale Park

Vale Park is a football stadium in Stoke-on-Trent, England. It has been the home ground of Port Vale F.C. since 1950.

The ground has seen its capacity go up and down, its peak being 42,000 in February 1954 against Blackpool, although a club record 49,768 managed to squeeze in for a 1960 FA Cup fifth round fixture against Aston Villa. It now has a notional capacity of 20,552, though has rarely seen more than 10,000 spectators since major restructuring to make the stadium an all-seater venue in the 1990s.

History

Following the club being informed that they would be evicted from The Old Recreation Ground by Stoke-on-Trent City Council, plans for a new stadium in a new area began to be made. In 1944 Hamil Road – the site of a former clay pit – was chosen, a site opposite Burslem Park, where the club had played its football in the early years of its existence. The development became known as The Wembley of the North due to the planned size of the stadium, plans which included an 80,000 capacity with room for 1,000 parked cars. The club's leadership had not allowed the club's third tier status or their lack of money to curb their ambition. Life-time seats were sold for £100 (the price of admission for roughly 200 matches) but fewer than 100 fans bought them. Also costing £100, the pitch was the most expensive ever laid in the country at the time.

The ground opened in 1950 having eventually cost £50,000, and boasting a capacity of 40,000 (360 seated). The original ground consisted of just two stands, the Railway stand and the Lorne Street main stand, with banks of terracing at the Bycars and Hamil ends of the ground. The Bycars end was originally the Swan Passage stand from the Old Recreation Ground, which was taken apart, moved across the city and re-erected as the funds for an entirely new stand had run out. The first match was a 1–0 victory over Newport County on 24 August 1950 in front of 30,196 rain-soaked spectators.Walter Aveyard took the honour of being the first to score at the