The Hockey Stadium | |
Full name | National Hockey Stadium and Conference Centre |
---|---|
Location | Milton Keynes |
Owner | English Partnerships |
Capacity | 4,000 (hockey) 9,000 (football) |
Field size | 100 x 64 m |
Construction | |
Built | 1995 |
Opened | 1995 |
Closed | 2007 |
Demolished | 2010 |
Tenants | |
England Hockey (1995–2003) Wimbledon F.C. (2003–04) Milton Keynes Dons F.C. (2004–07) |
The National Hockey Stadium was a sports stadium in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, with a nominal capacity of around 4,000 seats: this was temporarily increased to 9,000 between 2003 and 2007. It was used by England Hockey as their national stadium from 1995 to 2003 and then as a professional football stadium from 2003 by Wimbledon FC, rebranded as Milton Keynes Dons in 2004.
In summer 2007, the Dons relocated to the new Stadium MK, near Bletchley, leaving the hockey stadium without a tenant. It was unused for two years and, in late 2009, demolition began in preparation for the redevelopment of the site into the new Network Rail headquarters which became operational in July 2012.
The stadium was built in 1995 as a new national field hockey stadium, with a synthetic pitch. The ground was used for national and international (field) hockey until 2003. It had a covered main stand running the full length of one side of the pitch, opposite which was an unroofed stand running about one third of the length of the pitch, straddling the halfway line.
In 1997, the stadium was used as the venue for the sixth edition of the FIH Men's Junior World Cup. It was also the venue, in 2000, for the FIH Women's Qualifying Tournament for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
In 2003, after the ground was leased to Wimbledon FC, a grass pitch was laid, meaning that the stadium was out of commission for hockey. Temporary stands were added at either end of the pitch. Hockey internationals and playoff matches were reallocated to various leading club grounds around the country. In May 2007, at the end of the lease, the temporary stands were removed.
On 2 April 2007, the trustees of the National Hockey Foundation, which owned the lease of the stadium, announced that they had arranged to hand the lease back to English Partnerships. A detailed study had shown that the stadium would no longer be viable as a hockey venue, especially as plans were in place to build the Olympic Hockey Centre in Stratford, London, as part of the 2012 Summer Olympics facilities.
The stadium was the home of Wimbledon FC (rebranded Milton Keynes Dons in June 2004) from September 2003 until May 2007. The Dons converted the synthetic pitch to grass and added additional stands and seating (with up to 9,000 seats). In July 2007, they moved to the new Stadium MK at Denbigh North, near Bletchley, prior to the start of the 2007–08 season.
Record attendance at the National Hockey Stadium:
Average attendances at the National Hockey Stadium:
After the Dons left for Denbigh, the supplementary seating was removed, returning the capacity to 4,000. However, the venue was not used notably thereafter. At end of October 2008, English Partnerships (owners of the site) announced agreement with Network Rail to make the site available for a new headquarters building, which meant that the stadium would be demolished. [1]
On 17 December 2009, demolition of the stadium began and the site was cleared by March 2010. [2] Quadrant:MK opened in June 2012. [3] [4]
Stuart Murdoch is a football coach. He is perhaps best known for his spell as manager of Wimbledon between May 2002 and June 2004, during which time the team moved to Milton Keynes in 2003. Wimbledon were renamed Milton Keynes Dons by the new owner in 2004 and Murdoch remained in charge until November of that year.
AFC Wimbledon is an English professional association football club based in Merton, London. The team compete in EFL League Two, the fourth level of the English football league system.
Bletchley is a constituent town of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated in the south-west of the city, and is split between the civil parishes of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and West Bletchley.
Milton Keynes Dons Football Club, usually abbreviated to MK Dons, is a professional association football club based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The team competes in EFL League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club was founded in 2004, following Wimbledon F.C.'s controversial relocation to Milton Keynes from south London, when it adopted its present name, badge and home colours.
Denbigh is a district in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, to the north of Fenny Stratford and on the eastern side of the West Coast Main Line. It is in the civil parish of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford and is categorised by the Office for National Statistics as part of the Bletchley built-up area. The A5 forms its eastern and northern boundary; parts of Bletcham Way and Saxon St form its southern boundary. The overall district has five sub districts, divided by Watling St/Denbigh Rd, the 'uptick' of Bletcham Way and Grafton Street, and Saxon Street northbound. The district names are planning designations that have persisted without ever being changed to the style "North Denbigh" etc. as is the norm elsewhere in Britain.
Bletchleyrailway station serves the southern parts of Milton Keynes, England, and the north-eastern parts of Aylesbury Vale. It is 47 miles (76 km) northwest of Euston, about 32 miles (51 km) east of Oxford and 17 miles (27 km) west of Bedford, and is one of the seven railway stations serving the Milton Keynes urban area.
The National Bowl is an entertainment venue located in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The site was a former clay pit, filled in and raised to form an amphitheatre using sub-soil excavated by the many new developments in the area. It has a maximum capacity of 65,000. The arena is open-air grassland, without seats.
England Hockey is the national governing body for the sport of field hockey in England. There are separate governing bodies for the sport in the other parts of the United Kingdom.
The name Milton Keynes City Football Club currently refers to a grassroots youth and adult football club based in Milton Keynes. It also refers to two defunct English football clubs, both of which were non-League sides based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. The first, Bletchley Town FC, changed its name to Milton Keynes City in 1974, and used the name until its dissolution in 1985. The second, originally called Mercedes-Benz, became MK City in 1998, and retained the name until its own demise in 2003, coinciding with the relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes.
Bletchley and Fenny Stratford is a civil parish with a town council, in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It was formed in 2001 from the unparished area of Milton Keynes, and according to the 2011 census had a population of 15,313. Together with West Bletchley, it forms the Bletchley built-up area.
Sport in Milton Keynes covers a range of professional and amateur sport in the City of Milton Keynes unitary authority area. In 2019, Milton Keynes was officially designated as a European City of Sport for 2020. There are professional teams in football, in motorsport and in ice hockey. The National Badminton Centre, and the Marshall Milton Keynes Athletic Club train professional and amateur athletes. Most other sports feature at amateur level although there are semi-professional teams in rugby union and football among other sports. There is an international-standard karting track owned by Daytona Motorsport.
Stadium MK is a football ground in the Denbigh district of Bletchley in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Designed by Populous and opened in 2007, it is the home ground of EFL League Two side Milton Keynes Dons and FA Women's National League South side Milton Keynes Dons Women. In 2022, the stadium hosted several matches during the UEFA Women's Euro 2022.
Peter John Winkelman is chairman of English association football club Milton Keynes Dons and managing director of Inter MK Ltd, a property development consortium.
This history of Milton Keynes details its development from the earliest human settlements, through the plans for a 'new city' for 250,000 people in northern Southeast England, its subsequent urban design and development, to the present day. Milton Keynes, founded in 1967, is the largest settlement and only city in Buckinghamshire. At the 2021 census, the population of its urban area was estimated to have exceeded 256,000.
The Bletchley Leisure Centre is an indoor leisure facility in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England.
The Point is an entertainment complex in Central Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. When it opened in 1985, it was called the UK's first multiplex cinema although the UK had introduced multi-screen cinemas in 1930 and had been increasing the number of screens in cinemas ever since. The front part of the building has a distinctive mirrored crystal ziggurat shape, framed by external steel beams at each corner, joined at the apex. Originally it had red neon lights connecting the apexes at each side, so that it looked like a pyramid at night.
Wimbledon Football Club relocated to Milton Keynes in September 2003, 16 months after receiving permission to do so from the Football Association on the basis of a two-to-one decision in favour by an FA-appointed independent commission. The move took the team from south London, where it had been based since its foundation in 1889, to Milton Keynes, a new town in Buckinghamshire, about 56 miles (90 km) to the northwest of the club's traditional home district Wimbledon. Hugely controversial, the move's authorisation prompted disaffected Wimbledon supporters to form AFC Wimbledon, a new club, on 30 May 2002. The relocated team played home matches in Milton Keynes under the Wimbledon name from September 2003 until June 2004, when following the end of the 2003–04 season it renamed itself Milton Keynes Dons F.C..
Dean Scott Lewington is an English professional footballer and coach who plays as a left-back, as well as a centre-back for EFL League Two club Milton Keynes Dons, where he is club captain. He has held coaching roles at the club, and briefly became interim head coach of the club in August 2021.
The rivalry between AFC Wimbledon and Milton Keynes Dons arose from the formation of both clubs due to the relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes. For many years the two clubs played at different levels of English football, with the first competitive fixture between them taking place on 2 December 2012 - a second round FA Cup tie in which the two clubs were drawn against one another.